The organisers of this book have generously invited me to write a prologue. The book addresses the challenges faced by adult educators in times of crisis, with a particular focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. This focus seems entirely logical to me, as it is only now that we can truly reflect on those events. What should not have happened, under any circumstances, was the emergence of studies—whose quality I will not assess here—on the consequences of the pandemic before it had even ended. Research, among other things, is a reflective process, and proper review requires time, as demonstrated by the authors of these valuable texts included in the volume.
However, since the pandemic, other events have unfolded, maintaining an endless crisis as a constant element of our daily lives. Before offering a brief contribution on what I believe adult educators—and, indeed, all educators at any level—can do, I would like to reflect on these developments. To begin, I will recall a story from the pandemic.
I do not remember exactly where I saw it—perhaps on Facebook, in a newspaper, or elsewhere—but during or shortly after the pandemic, a cartoon circulated. Although I have been unable to locate it again, I remember the story more or less. The cartoon depicted two extraterrestrials—a father and a son—observing Earth. In his adolescent eagerness, the son asked his father: “When are we going to invade Earth? Now is the perfect time, as they are preoccupied with other matters”. The father responded—and I emphasize that I am not quoting verbatim, as memory may fail me—“Wait and be patient, my son. More events will unfold that will weaken them further, and then it will be the right moment to invade”.
What events have transpired since the pandemic? I will mention only the most well-known, without delving into environmental degradation, the ongoing and endless wars in Africa, or the post-pandemic surge in prices.
The first was the Russian’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. This came accompanied by an imperialist discourse to its neighborhoods and the threat to utilize atomic weapons against the entire world. Perhaps Russian’s invasion started in 2014 when annexed Crimea, against international laws, and without response of the international community beyond the usual messages to condemn it. On the contrary of 2014, now we are living in a state of war not seeing since the middle of past century.
Then came the terrible slaughter by Hamas on October 7, 2023. This was responded by the State of Israel with the invasion of Gaza, and the destruction of houses, hospitals, schools, infrastructures. Egyptian’s border was closed to
When extraterrestrials are seriously considering the possibility to invade Earth, Mr. Donald Trump won the election in the United States. In the last three months, Mr. Trump has declared a war tariff against the entire world—including penguins and seals—has threatened to buy or to annex Greenland, Canada or the Panama Channel, wants to build a tourist resort in Gaza, has closed some federal departments such as USAID or The Department of Education, has removed books from schools of the Department of Defense, ‘Freckleface Strawberry’ written by the actress Julianne Moore—and—this list only focuses on the major issues—has cut funding for research on climate change, vulnerable groups, gender issues, and so on. Now, it is possible that after all these events extraterrestrials come and invade Earth before it disappears from the Universe.
And in the face of all this, what can adult educators do?
First and foremost, I believe it is essential to recall Romain Rolland’s phrase—often attributed to Antonio Gramsci—“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”, or, as Freire put it, we cannot remain in indignation; we must, and indeed we are called to, construct a pedagogy of hope.
The construction of hope is a collective endeavor, a community-based task that reconnects us with one of the core principles of adult education, a principle increasingly eroded by the relentless advance of lifelong learning policies and practices. These have imposed a managerial and corporate logic upon education, sidelining the understanding of education as a social and collective act, and above all, as a human right.
As stated, hope is collective; it must be built upon what Richard Sennett (2000) referred to as “the dangerous pronoun”. In The Corrosion of Character, Sennett recounts the story of a group of IBM employees who, through collective reflection on the causes of their dismissal, come to understand that their situation is not a matter of personal failure, but is rooted in broader socio-economic contexts and corporate policies. This collective reflection enables them to analyze their reality and to move from indignation to hope.
Part of this path, from indignation to hope, must involve an effort to understand the global context in which we now live. Over two decades ago,
What are those advances made by the Multitude? They become clear when we examine the responses of the Empire: feminism as a matter of all, as bell hooks (2017) advocated; the welfare state, long the pride of European societies and a mechanism to protect the most vulnerable; the celebration of diversity in gender, ethnicity, and religion. Josephine Quinn (2025) reminds us of that classical civilization—of which we are all heirs—did not emerge solely from Greece or Rome, but from human mobility, from migration and diversity rather than homogenization. Ultimately, we all come from Africa (e.g., Pattison, 2024; White et al., 2014) and from processes of cultural and biological mixing.
By analyzing these realities, I believe it is possible to build hope.
A second and final point—since I want this prologue to remain brief, as what truly matters is what follows, what the authors of this book share and explain—concerns the urgent need to reclaim adult education.
Adult education has traditionally been rooted in people’s lives, in their communities, in the everyday contexts of work and home. It has sought to be a tool for fostering critical thinking and civic engagement, enabling individuals to participate in politics as Aristotle conceived it: as concern for the public sphere, for what affects us as members of a community, in educational and occupational settings where we live.
However, the lifelong learning policies promoted by the European Union over the past 25 years have centered educational policy on profit and corporate benefit, rather than on the construction of citizenship. The focus on education for employment and the concept of employability has reduced individuals to mere workers and consumers, neglecting the idea that education is a social practice that contributes to the making of the person in their community.
I believe this book is rich in valuable proposals to reclaim those adult education practices and, in doing so, to recover an adult education as a tool for personal and collective development. Perhaps this is the greatest challenge facing today’s adult educators.
University of Seville, Spain
Seville, April 2025
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2004). Imperio. Paidós.
Hooks, B. (2017). El feminismo es para todoelmundo. Traficantes de Sueños
Pattison, K. (2024). Hombres fósiles. Capitán Swing.
Quin, J. (2025). Cómoelmundocreo Occidente. Crítica.
Sennett, R. (2000). La corrosión del carácter. Anagrama.
White, T., Lovejoy, C. O., Asfaw, B., Carlson, J. P., & Suwa, G. (2015). Neither chimpanzee nor human, Ardipithecus reveals the surprising ancestry of both. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(16), 4877–4884. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1403659111