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Chapter 4 60 The beautiful risk of education With his book title The beautiful risk of education Gert Biesta refers to the inherent risk of ‘creation’ (as in ‘the process of creating’): ‘creation is a risky business and has to be a risky business and without the risk nothing will happen; the event of subjectivity will not occur’. 38 With ‘the event of subjectivity’ Biesta refers to children becoming ‘subjects in their own rights’, something which he insists education should contribute to. 39 We connect this to Spiecker’s description of the aim of the pedagogical relationship; human development in the sense of becoming a person . 40 Biesta proposes to make a distinction between an attitude of educators who are ‘willing to take the risk’ and an attitude of parents who are not. 41 Educators who are not willing to take the risk perceive of education as a type of craftsmanship, or as Biesta puts it, see education as ‘the production of something – literally the production of some thing ’. 42 Paraphrasing Caputo, parents who are willing to take the risk are ‘cool’ whereas parents who aren’t are ‘nervous wrecks’. If the former is ‘a calm, distant, celestial, hands-off creator’, the latter is ‘very nervous about what he is getting himself into and is much more of a hands-on micro manager’. 43 So, for Biesta, parental risk taking is necessary for the child to become a person. Hence, it is a beautiful risk. Biesta’s beautiful risk falls under the category of Bollnow’s Wagnis . But although for Bollnow existential risk-taking is equally inevitable, Bollnow also stresses that it is something that parents generally seek to avoid, as most human beings in principle seek to avoid danger/failure. No educator should steer towards the failure of their education. 44 Whilst Biesta thus focuses on the beautiful chances for education which occur when willing to take the risk, Bollnow’s focus is rather on the inevitability of risking yourself when raising a child. We agree with both aspects of the risk- taking in education, and we think that Bollnow’s recognition of risk as something that people generally seek to avoid is important and should not be left out. This implies, to our minds, that in Biesta’s work the possible not-so-beautiful consequences of risk-taking should be addressed, thereby admitting that parents who accept the risk of creation can sometimes legitimately be ‘nervous wrecks’, precisely because of this ‘leap of faith’ that they took. 38 Biesta 2013, p. 24, after Caputo 2006. 39 With ‘subjectification’ Biesta expresses the thought that ‘the assumption that those at whom our educational efforts are directed are not to be seen as objects but as subjects in their own right; subjects of action and responsibility’, ibid., p. 18. 40 Spiecker 1984, p. 208. 41 Biesta 2013, pp. 13-24. 42 Ibid., p. 14. 43 Biesta 2013, pp. 14-16. 44 Bollnow 1959, p. 150.