The following excerpt is from Solano Portela’s book What Are Leaching Our Children, Faithful Editor.
Schools in any society reflect the norms of society itself that house and maintain them. In this sense, we know that if the family structure is attacked; If the anchors of behavior are removed, if the stimulus to personal discipline tends to disappear; if selfish individualism is preached?schools will be mere communities in which we will find the same training and moral deficiencies, among students, teachers and even in the teaching itself. Disciplined societies that preserve moral norms house disciplined schools that promote morality; permissive societies, permissive schools. Flexibility, ideally, should not be random, but exercised within transparent and reliable limits.
- In the midst of our society.
- With increasingly discredited and attacked moral foundations.
- Parents seeking to manage their homes according to different standards.
- In accordance with the institution of the family; those who are eager to educate their children in more than irresponsible selfish individuals; In particular.
- Those who strive to guide their families according to the standards of God’s prescriptions found in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments?they can get to the brink of despair in the search for schools that promote and fail to destroy the basic principles necessary for children’s education.
But in this senseless quest, we must continue our pause for reflection: are schools simply returning to society what they have received?well, either they play a much more relevant role than we think, as generators of a misunderstanding of life, for our children, are our schools independent centers of methodology and pedagogical philosophy, or do they have some coherence and self-direction than serving more of a stimulus than a brake on the dissolution of our families and our society?
If in schools we seek a common orientation, a stream of identifiable thinking, a philosophy that prevails in them and in the pedagogical formation of recent decades, we will encounter constructivism. Constructivism is the theory of education developed from the ideas of the Swiss biologist and thinker Jean Piaget (1896 1980), who considers knowledge as the result of the interactions of the person with the environment in which he lives, in this concept all knowledge is a construction that is gradually formed from childhood, in relation to the physical or the physical. cultural objects that children come into contact with. The theory is relatively complex, full of specific terms, which require specific definitions; however, in trying to simplify and summarize, we can say that constructivism affirms that knowledge is something that develops subjectively and individually, like a crystal, in a saline solution; in this sense, it is not something that must be transmitted, given, by the master. and a facilitator in this growth process.
It seems that we are looking only at a sterile academic methodology, which would not have a great influence on the lives of our families, but it is not. parents and all those involved in the child’s educational process) can be harmful and not beneficial to the student, especially if they do not understand the so-called stages of cognitive assimilation of children, according to constructivism, at these stages, the child builds his own reality, if parents and teachers do not follow these steps and try to act as agents of knowledge transmission , impose their own realities and will not respect the individualism of each child.
But the great influence of constructivism on schools and society is not limited only to pedagogical methodology and rejection of direction, the transmission of knowledge, philosophy has been developed from logical extensions of these premises, which relate to areas of discipline. , the values and morals of people, the concepts of good and evil, etc.
Teachers and other education professionals certainly do not need these definitions or further clarification of the meaning of constructivism. Its concepts are extremely popular in the Brazilian educational environment. Not only should these professionals have studied this stream of pedagogical thinking during all their years of higher education, but may have absorbed and seek to apply this philosophy as the basis of their pedagogical practice. For others, however, the term constructivism may seem strange or meaningless. However, this educational philosophy is probably the current philosophy of greater scope, scope or influence in Brazilian society. The statement sounds bold and exaggerated. But is there any reason to do this?when we look at primary schools, we see a virtually universal acceptance by these educational institutions, both lay and religious, including evangelical calls. By observing this broad acceptance, we can see how important constructivism has been in the formation of several generations of Brazilians and continues, with all enthusiasm, to educate our children.
At first, constructivism seemed more the result of a pedagogical research aimed at establishing a new teaching methodology, however, in recent decades, the methodology has been consolidated in philosophy and has covered the subject of ethics and education. children’s morals. principles of constructivism, they themselves acted as multipliers; not only were they formed in constructivism, but they were consolidated as centers of teaching, dissemination and application of their concepts; in addition, renowned figures and important thinkers have emerged who bring with them fame the crystallization of constructivist concepts, developing this philosophy of education to levels still unexplored by Piaget.
Do we really need to find the answer to this relevant question?Are the advice given at home respected and applied, or are they questioned and challenged?What standards do my children learn?
In this book, Solano Portela makes a critical assessment of the current scenario of Brazilian education, both lay and religious, according to him, the predominant pedagogical proposal in Brazil goes beyond a pedagogical methodology and contains serious contradictions with the principles of the Christian faith. From this analysis, Solano proposes the development of a pedagogy for Christian school education, called redemptive pedagogy, which points to an education of excellence based on a biblical vision of the world of life and the world.
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