Plastic Pedagogy

Abstract

Abstract This chapter introduces the idea of ‘plastic pedagogy’ through a completely new reading of Rabindranath Tagore’s educational philosophy. As a continuation of Ghosh’s work in plastic humanities, this chapter exemplifies plastic pedagogy by identifying two plastic moments: one in Tagore’s delicately dynamic understanding of eco-corporeal pedagogy, and the second in his ideas of counter-institutionality as revealed through the establishment of an international university called Visva Bharati. The arguments entangle plastic and flashpoint pedagogy to enunciate the power and potency of plastic thinking in Tagore’s ideas on education. Demonstrated in two instances here, first, as a kind of eco-pedagogy linking bird, skin, and sky (flashpoint 1), and second, as the making of an unconventional university, a counter-institution where standardization and a priori templates are not the driving force (flashpoint 2), the chapter brings us into a fresh terrain of what Ghosh calls “plastic pedagogy”.