Contemporary
Interrogations
in
the Philosophy of Education[*]
Venera-Mihaela Cojocariu
Abstract
Meditating upon the relation between what there is
and what there should be in a human perspective, remaking the climb of
existence towards being as it is on an educational tract in the context of the
contemporary society, I have identified a series of aspects which have to be
re-thought. Considering that the axiological foundation of the society and,
implicitly, of the education is affected as an expression of the lack of sense
and of ideal, I have identified, on one side, some of the main tensions which
feed this fact and I have proposed, on the other side, the type of paradigm
which tries to offer the solution: the prospective paradigm. Its shaping and
its supporting could have been achieved only by testing the necessary
equilibrium between continuity and discontinuity, by pleading for a series of
principles which should ground an efficient formation and by demonstrating that
the only form of education which is beneficial in this respect is the one which
becomes a means of obtaining freedom, conceived and achived from the
perspective of the uncertain, stormy future. From such a conceptual foundation
one can build an answer which is more adequate to the numerous, current
interrogations from the field of the philosophy of education.
The beginnings of eras have always
exerted a mysterious attraction over human minds and souls, being associated
with the overturn, the reshaping, the unknown and they ussualy generated fears.
More than any other one, the beginning of this millenium. For over half a
century, analysts of all categories have kept on warning that “civilization is
in a crossroads” and “mankind in a turning point”, that we are on the edge of
“the third wave”, or that we are crossing “the big transition”, advancing in
the epoch of postmodernism (in some analysts’
opinion) or in the one of supra- or
post- industrialism (in others’
opinion). The idea that from the “joint of history” we are heading to a “New
Age” which is not enough prefigured but foreseeable, has been sustained. If to
all these we add a multitude of apocalyptical prophecies and military
scenarios, we have all the reasons to be convinced that we are crossing a world
of anxiety, of absurdity, of dezorientation and devaluation where the “fear of
future” is in the foreground, fear which floods the personal and social
feelings. All these are an expression of the unprecedented rhythms of
transformations.
The fundamental cause of this lack of poise is the crisis of values, the lack of solid axiological reference points which could offer the communities the support which
is necessary for the efficient orientation in a world of rapid changes, of
interdependences, and which could radically change the paradigm of interhuman
relationships and could offer a new essence to the concept of responsibility.
The crisis gets deeper as the educative systems not only that are incapable of
adapting to the challenges of the contemporary world, but also their attempts
in this respect are very modest, in front of the unpatient time.
The
contemporary crisis of education is one of the lack of sense, of the lack of
ideal. The human project - not enough shaped – must be on the size
of the future time which makes the education of the future look more like a
search, an investigation, than a certainty or a model (9, p.21).
In the search of such a model, the
exigencies which appear towards education amplify and modify the content. The
answer to the question “how should education be achieved today for a
difficult-to-forsee-tomorrow?” must be interceded by the conscientiousness of
the main tensions which seem to feed the social existence of the beginning
of the millenium (3, pp. 11-12).
·
the tension
between global and local: step by step, people are learning to become citizens of
the planet, without losing their roots and keeping on playing an important role
in the lives of their own nations and local communities;
·
the
tension between universal and individual: the globarization of culture is a continuous
phenomenon which isn’t finished yet. The disregard of the unique character of
the human being is not a minor risk at all. Each individual has to choose his
own future and to reach his higher potential within the framework of the
traditions and culture, existences which must not be jeopardized by the
progress of the contemporary world;
·
the
tension between the short term reasons and the long
term reasons, in the
circumstances of the expansion of the ephemeral, of the moment, in a world in
which the abundence of information and of transitory emotions highlights
permanetly the immediate problems;
·
the
tension between the need of competition, on one side, and the
concern for the equalty of chances,
on the other side, an attempt from which the reconceptualization of the
permanent education has resulted;
·
the
tension between the extraordinary expansion of
knowledge and human being’s ability to assimilate and conceptualize it, which
may also be called human disparity;
·
the
tension between material and spiritual, the ontological break between what man is, as an
expression of the objective determinations, and what he wants to be, as an
expression of some values, ideals and models he aspires after.
The more serious signals received from the world of
philosophy and science beginning with the 70’s underline the imperative of the change of the attitude of the humanity in relation
to the becoming. One of the basic conditions of the development
becomes the living presence of the future (4, p.88) because “mankind can’t
afford to wait (anymore) for the changes to produce spontaneously and at
random. Man must initiate himself, in time, changes of a
necessary proportion, but bearable in order to avoid intolerable great changes
generated from the exterior”(6, p.159). This way we penetrate the kernel of the
prospective conception –
respectively, a new way of understanding of the transformation, of the
mechanisms of the becoming, of the relation between continuity and discontinuity.
History
may also be interpreted as an endless process of generating problems and
finding solutions for them. The approach to the socio-culturally moulded
problems is generally achieved from the perspective of the traditions, of the
solutions which are integrated in inherited patterns, of the values which are
recognized and inculcated in the sense of the keeping of the given, of the
conservation of the equilibrium of the status-quo, of the re-production. At the
same time, we admit that man is not just a homeostatic being, but also he takes
risks, he builds projects, he re-creates the world, being characterized by the
metaphysical restlessness. That’s how he comes to front problems or to generate
some of them (which do not “fit” the given algorithms), producing another
process of search or break, calling for creativity or for the determination of
the new. The two ways of solving the problems - on the axis of continuity and
on the one of discontinuity, respectively - must be understood in their dynamic,
indestructible unity, by outrunning the absolute, artificial disjunction
between them. The existence of man and of society, and mostly their progress,
although they are distinct realities, can no longer be completely and correctly
conceived unless they are looked at in the terms of continuity
in discontinuity, of continuity in change.
Here’s why
we consider that if it were possible for us to re-found our whole educative
effort we would start from the following principles, being
consistent in the attempt to reconcile continuity with discontinuity:
·
back to the child, as a fundamental value, bearer of future and
potentially generator of material and spiritual values, of progress, capable of
long lasting development;
·
forward to the future, as a
direction which focalizes all the efforts and energies, all the reserves and
hopes, the whole optimism and pragmatism of the pedagogues;
·
back to the initial
instruction of the pedagogues, as a
process which is responsible for the whole further development of the children
and of the adults;
·
forward to the reformation
of the educative systems, an
authentic transformation, in concord with the profile of the contemporary
society and with the perspective which is opened by the prospective paradigm;
·
back to the values, as a basis and essence of what the human side of
the being is, and what it should be, as a reality which generates the gradual
approach of existence to being.
Only in such an environment the prerequisites of the
ensurance of the child’s acces to culture appear, without affecting his
freedom; in the same way a new understanding of
education is generated, and it becomes a means of obtaining freedom
(apud 8, p.127), or a way to free the thing that provides each man from being
himself, offering him the possibility of fulfilling, of becoming somebody
according to his singular way of existing in the world (1, p.140).
As we get close to the 90’s we can observe that the
studies which were destinated to the transformation of education have
amplified. In 1995, in a UNESCO document, it was noted the idea that “school is
totally helpless in front of the formation of the competences and attitudes
which are useful and adaptable to a changing world. Instead of preparing for
autonomy and transformation, most of the times school develops passive and
routine attitudes” (7). An year
later, in The International Conference of Education from Geneve, they talked
about the causes which require the essential transformation of education; they
also considered future to be an element
which was “associated with the unpredictable, with the uncertainty and
discontinuity in the framework of the rapid mutations which the society is
familiar with” (10, p.1). That’s why they proposed the idea that the countries
from all over the world should critically re-evaluate their educative systems
(ibidem, p.2).
The summary analysis of the anterior ideas together
with the fresh look at the becoming emphasizes the fact that we are dealing
with a new global problem: the transformation of
education from the perspective of the impact on future. In the circumstances of a new
understanding of the becoming, the idea of a new education having as a purpose
the adaptation and the promotion of education
as means of knowledge, conception and building of the future is
necessary to be abandoned. The continuity of the transformation in an ample
rhythm ascertains the permanent inovation in the field of education by
emphasizing the future alternatives and the human ability to elaborate them.
This is not given by the increasing of the ability to adapt, but by the
development of the ability to anticipate the sense and the rhythm of the
changes, of the ability to elaborate the possible future or to articulate the persistent values on the background of these
transformations and, above all, by the development of the human by cultivating
its humanity, its dignity and its responsibility.
Such a reconceptualization has as a basis a new understanding of man. This conception which we call “from
inside – to outside” (2,
p.30) demonstrates its efficiency by postulating that we must “begin with our
own persons, mainly with the most intimate levels of the ego – with the models,
the character and personal motivations” (idem). Most of this conception’s
principles – be proactive, start by having your mind focused at the end, give
priority to the priorities, think only of winning, first try to understand and
only after that to be understood, act sinergically – proove to have tried to
model in the terms of the future but also by keeping and increasing the
persistent values. Such a manner of conceiving the human and the inter-human
relationships seem to be the most suited for the establishment of an essential transformation of education.
Essentially, we are talking about a double turn of
education: from past to future, from outside to inside. For the first one to be possible, the second one is
priorly necessary.
Going up from the concrete educative level to the one
of amazements, which is specific to the philosophy of education, we can proceed
to a systematization of the absolutely justified interrogations, which
are generated by the current socio-cultural context:
·
from the
ontological perspective: What is education (anymore)? How is the essence of the
processes of communication and learning understood (anymore)? What are the real
relations of the child’s existence with his consciousness, with his ego, his
intelligence (the forms of intelligence which were recently highlighted begin
with the linguistic one and reach the emotional one), his personality, the process of its development, his creativity, its
possibilities of stimulation and of becoming objective (anymore)? What is and
what does the nature of the formative intervention consist of, in a society
which is marked by en mass communication, by the interdependence of the formal
chanels with the nonformal and informal ones? How big can the impact of the
educative intervention be in such a framework (anymore)? Which ones can become
the forms and the contents of education (anymore)?
·
from the
gnoseological perspective: Whether the child is able to know essentially the
realities which are to be learned (anymore)? What does the truth mean (anymore)
in the knowledge which is profoundly affected by the moral wear? How much and
in what way can the child be taught (anymore) to know, in an informatized
society? In what measure do the truth and the error intermingle, generating
perverse effects in an epoch which is marked by the mediatory revolution? To
what degree can the child separate truth from false, essential from
unessential, value from nonvalue in an hiperinformatized environment which laks
solid axiological criteria (anymore)?
·
from the
axiological perspective: Which is the meaning of the educative process (anymore)?
In what measure can the pedagogical tradition, in the line of Platon, Rousseau,
Kant or Dewey, be capitalized (anymore)? To what degree does the child
represent the central value of the formative approach (anymore)? Which is the
purpose of knowledge of a scholar type (anymore)? Which is the teacher’s role
in the school of the XXIth century (anymore)? Which are the sacred
things in which he believes and which he inculcates the children with
(anymore)? In what measure does the dignity of the pedagogue exist (anymore)
and is respected? How ample is the understanding of the teacher as a meaningful
agent of the change? What can the value
of truth, of good, of
beautiful, of justice be (anymore) in a school / society which is marked
by diversity, unequalty, discrimination, intolerance, conflicts, consumarism,
profit, sexuality, drugs, violence?
·
from the praxiological
perspective: How can the
contemporary pedagogue act (anymore) and how must he act? Which are the
methods, the means, the strategies and the technologies that can grant
efficiency to the formative intervention? How can the pedagogue lead the child
beneficially from the stage of dependence, through independence, to
interdependence (anymore)? How much does the formative travail cover (anymore)
out of the individual existence?
Our pleading is for the paradigmatic over-turning
at the level of understanding of the becoming-education-man starting from the
conviction that “the changes of paradigm set us moving from a way of perceiving
world to another” (2. p.18) and from a manner of intervention to another. Such
a moving is now absolutely necessary if we want to build and to lead our
destiny and not to be “played by the history”. The way in which this
overturning outlines, constitutes the object of the approaches which are
specific to the philosophy and the sciences of education from now on.
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