ABSTRACT
As I began this interdisciplinary examination of ‘the co-operative school’, on the advice of Barthes (1989, p. 71), I set out to create ‘an object that belongs to no-one’, pledging to explore ‘all tissues of meaning as texts’ (Parker, 1992, p. 7). Yet it appears that I have created a monster, an unruly object that refuses to comply with my desire to end this demanding journey and offer closure by way of something that might be considered a conclusion. These bewildering comings and goings have led me along a precarious path, scattering the seeds of co-operative ‘schooling’ way beyond the margins of scholarly comprehension and recognizable ‘truths’. In fact, I feel a little like Alice as I think: ‘it would be so nice if something made sense for a change’ (Carroll, 2009). Yet perhaps, that is the point. In gravitating towards ‘difficult knowledge’, it is hardly surprising that a definitive answer remains elusive, or that I fail to capture the ‘value’ of co-operative schools in easily measurable terms. Returning to Britzman and Pitt (2003), I am reminded that this anguish merely reflects ‘a kernel of trauma’ as I’ve continued to question my ‘capacity to know’ through - out. As I grapple with these traumas, the inadequacy of language, the insufficiencies of experience, and the ‘disappointment of voice’ (MacLure, 2009), everything makes less sense and provokes more questions than answers regarding what a co-operative is or can do? Therefore, as I bring this miscellany of ‘texts’ about the co-operative school to the end of another beginning, I make no apology for my
tentative reflections. Instead, I draw attention to the impossibility of closure and openly admit to the crime of resisting ‘clarity’ and ‘mastery’. Consequently, this final chapter merely offers the beginnings of some fruitful conversations that (re)consider the relationship between edu - cation and democratic subjectivity as I contemplate the ‘co-operative school’ to come.
