Thing-centredness revisited

One of the core arguments of the book by Vlieghe & Zamojski is the idea of a thing-centred approach to education. And this thing-centeredness is explored mainly in terms of passion, love and care for the subject matter. This raises, first, two questions (intimately interwoven): in what sense is a subject matter a 'thing'? And what do we mean by 'thing' if this can (has to?) be construed in terms of 'subject matter'? Moreover, within the horizon opened up by an engagement with these questions, in my response I will endeavour to show whether and how the status of the subject matter changes, once the love for and interest in the subject matter is turned into an (educationally privileged) experience of the love and care for the world, as Vlieghe and Zamojski suggest. The circuit thing-subject matter-world and its dynamics will finally be explored in the light of one more tenet of Vlieghe's & Zamojski's conceptual device, namely the paradigm shift from emancipation to responsibility and from value to virtue, which they recommend in their understanding of teaching.