Provocative look at education
The Uruguayan Pablo da Silveira philosopher questions the achievements of free and compulsory school
The Nation, September 25, 2009
Mariano de Vedia
In light of the results seen in the classroom and unresolved problems, education should review the paradigm of free and compulsory school. A controversial conclusion reached that the renowned philosopher Uruguayan Pablo da Silveira, educated at the University of Louvain (Belgium) and education specialist, noting that "in America there are two million children who are educated at home because their parents refuse to send them to school. " Da Silveira explained his new approach against qualified education specialists gathered at the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA), where their ideas and entertaining and provocative style aroused particular interest.
In an interview with La Nacion, put in jeopardy the foundations for more than a century supporting the organization school in the world, saying that "the current model shows signs of exhaustion and all are dissatisfied with education." "The principle of the obligation could not build more than a century in a society in which all children attend school, much less that all may learn," said Da Silveira, minutes before presenting at the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA) his book Parents, teachers and politicians. The challenge of governing education (edited by Santillana), which calls to review and test certitudes and that the educational world and conceived as sacred truths, as his vision, not so. With the gesture of stating the obvious, the philosopher River Plate said: "Argentina today devotes many more financial and human resources to education at the time of Sarmiento and the results are better."
Da Silveira Accompanying the presentation of the book, the director of the Department of Education of the UCA, Charles H. Torrendell, who held that he "would bring us something new," and the director of the Master of Education from the University of San Andrés, Silvina Gvirtz, who said his ideas "challenge us to think.
Born in Montevideo, Da Silveira is a professor of political philosophy, a columnist for the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais and has given lectures and classes on AAU universities in Argentina, San Andrés and Di Tella. Its production literature includes articles in academic journals and several books, including stories of philosophers, Politics & time and John Rawls and distributive justice.
For the author and journalist, one of the reasons for compulsory schooling is that for a long time it became clear that the average teacher was someone better qualified than the average parent. "That is starting to change," he warned, and invited to look into the educational system and not outside the causes of the deterioration of education.
- Is it desirable and necessary that the school be mandatory?
"Even within the ideas of compulsory and free, with an almost axiomatic, there are many questions, uncertainties and false certainties. If these two ideas, on which stands the whole education system can be problematized, everything can be questioned. The idea that prior to free and compulsory school there was nothing manifestly false, an ideological construct to justify the construction of state monopoly.
- Is there space to think today in a non-binding model?
"We have to distinguish between compulsory education and compulsory schooling. The bottom line is that the child learns.
- Is there a drop in the level of teaching?
"Yes, and is the result of mass access. When very few people had access to secondary education, teachers were an elite, hand-picked. Today is a great labor force, with its problems and difficulties.
- What is the attitude taken by parents against teachers?
"There's a situation that illustrates a lot: the father in the house corrects spelling teacher. It is a situation unthinkable in 1910. Today happens frequently. Changing social perceptions.
- Family excessive hopes are placed in school?
families "Before high expectations for schools and they were right. The schools were vehicles of social ascent. My intuition is that today are far less expectations than in the 50's.
- Do families have tools to tell whether a school is good?
-have tools, but may be wrong. But the State is mistaken. Many of the educational policies promoted in the democratic states in the last century and a half have been very imperfect and erroneous.
- What were those mistakes?
"There has been of all types and color. Public education has contributed actively to promote machismo for a long time. Textbooks were used filled with male prejudice. The State also gets stuck in the same things that people get bogged down.
- Was it something general?
"Yes. There are local or regional examples. In much of the public schools in Argentina and Uruguay in recent years was a position diffusely transmitted between teachers and authorities not to be too demanding in correcting spelling errors. The important thing was to encourage spontaneity and creativity. He really hurt a lot people.
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