ABSTRACT
The tragic perspective argues against a hope that is utopian, against a belief in personal or social perfectibility, against the idea that our educational endeavor always does good and never harm. The tragic perspective discourages a focus on minimal, incremental improvements, instead encouraging reflection on the conflicted aims and values inherent in any educational activity. The tragic sense is the point of tension between seeing the necessity of things as they are and the persistent imagining of them turning out otherwise. The tragic sense depends on this dual perspective—of seeing at the same time the possibilities and the limits, the gains and the costs, the hopes and the disappointments, of any human endeavor. The tragic sense helps us maintain a humble respect for experiences and accept them as a condition of life rather than as something to be transcended, avoided, or explained away.
