Education: questions and dialgues (at) work

The proposal is developed from a discussion on the nature of teacher education, particularly with regard to childhood. This invites us, as researchers and teachers involved in degree courses geared towards the training of future teachers, to reflect on the structure, content and purpose of the curricula. But in making this analysis - although necessary - the underlying question should not be overlooked: "What is the sense (meaning and direction) of education?". In this “simple” question, in reality, there is a plot of meanings, orientations, values, goals, resources... In its being a radical question - that is, that wants to go to the root of the meaning of education - a possible orientation of meaning is determined by existence itself. To educate is to educate to be, to be in existence, to understand oneself as part of a network of relationships, with other beings, with Nature, with Life. Educating to be is a process of humanisation, in the sense that one proceeds by gradually becoming aware of what it means “to be' 'human' and in the direction of its full realisation. Therefore, at the heart of educational plan there is the existential project of the person. In teaching profession, this means developing a profound reflective capacity, so that knowledge unfolds into knowing how to do and how to make people do, from the point of view of learning to be (UNESCO 1996). Through the exchange - in the form of a dialogue - between the different perspectives of study and experience of each of the Authors involved, the aim is to weave a plot from which can result the commitment to apply pedagogy on a theoretical-practical intervention appropriate to current challenges of future sustainability, for which education is both an objective and a resource: recovery of an ecological, eco-systemic, deep and unreserved human awareness. Technical and technological progress, the specialised deepening of knowledge and professional skills must be matched by a profound "human" maturity, capable of never losing sight of the global view in which every thought, discourse and action is situated, in a direction of meaning that promotes the quality of life. This means not lapsing into a reductionism of complexity and existential richness: human being “learns to be human” to the extent that he/she perceives and understands himself/herself to be part of a network of vital interconnection with every form, force, element and being of life. Education as a project colud be strongly characterised in an existential sense, rather than in a technical, disciplinary or 'professional' in a strict sense. This characterises education as a direct commitment to the growth of the person in his or her entirety. It concerns rather the issues of an intelligence that is qualified as profound sense of wonder for the mistery and the beauty of life, being one with the need to nurture experience of understanding and human sensitivity. Knowledge and understanding should not be conceived as mere function of the intellect with its only calculation and reasoning skills. Educating is not just about knowledge in terms of disciplinary enclosed information, rather a knowledge in terms of comprehension of one's own emotional world, in which there is acknowledgement for the other's vision and emotion. Educating means valuing the intelligence of the heart and the heart of intelligence, so that action is correct, integral and supportive of the quality of life, of wellbeing. Learning to be human should be realised in knowing how to be promoters of beauty, harmony and peace and feeling joy at geeting it real. In view of this, rethinking and innovation are characterised as a constant pedagogical-educational exercise that everyone in an educational profession is called upon. Recalling, among many others, the voices of Montessori ("I beg the dear children who are able to do everything to join me in building peace among mankind and in the world") and of Lodi ("to make the school a welcoming and beautiful place, where everyone has the pleasure and the happiness of entering and staying with others") we must admit that there is still much unexplored and unatched in the field of formation and education. So, what pedagogical-educational idea, discourse and action to put into the field of teacher education-training? What do we consider to be the "maturity" of the teacher able to be the promoter and guide of a learning to be? How can we deploy, in a project mode, the human qualities necessary for learning to be, for self-fulfilment and for a relational intelligence-sensitivity?