RELECTURE OF EDUCATION BY COMPETENCES FROM THE PRAGMATISM OF JOHN DEWEY
Introduction
John Dewey’s text covers six parts: the introduction, the competences in the framework of the search for a new individual, the rejection of dualisms, competencies in the logic of experimentation and finally, the conclusion. Born or originated from the scope of training and professional management, the need to adapt the education and training systems to the demands raised by the current society and the economy, has made this approach to pedagogical work be installed strongly in theNational and international educational policies.
The objective in this article is to show the possibilities of affiliation that exist between the learning by competencies and the proposals of the American philosopher and pedagogue.To do this, in the first place this identity is tracked or seeks within the framework of the Deweyan effort of democratic reconstruction, through reflection to a new individualism that managed to adjust the development of individuality with the participation in a spirit of community life of life.Next, the analysis moves Dewey’s rejection of the dualisms and debates that he maintained with respect to the articulation of professional training and general education.Finally, the consequences for the approach of competencies are explored or investigated, which could be extracted from the proposal of a change from an absolutist logic to a logic of experimentation.He insisted a lot on the need to approximate education to the social needs of the moment, without being caught by the ancient difference that would reduce professional education and practice to a second category training.But it would have been opposed to a training in competencies according to a closed and pre -established list in advance, which established a certain profile of the person to want to achieve, obstruct and/or obstructing the student’s freedom and creativity.
Developing
Dewey began to be interested and captivated in educational theory and practices since he was in Chicago. It was in the experimental school that he created in that same university when he began to compare the educational principles. Pedagogue understood and perceived school as a space for the creation and reflection of the important experiences of social life. According to him, this was what made possible the development of full citizenship. John Dewey thought that what was offered in the educational system of his time was insufficient to provide adequate preparation, which would fit life in a democratic society.
That is why the so -called "experimental method" of his pedagogy was based on an education that indicated the relevance or importance in which factors or elements were found such as individual skills, initiative and spirit of business. His vision of education had a great influence on the changes or modifications experienced by the United States pedagogy at the beginning of the 20th century, these situations or circumstances being the consequence of the person’s own interests.
This is concluded then that to learn it is mandatory to have experiences in the world. As for the role or function of the teacher, Dewey reiterated that it was the teacher who should take care and create stimulating environments for the student. In doing so, the teacher could develop, guide and guide the ability of students to act. This should be so because students are active individuals or subjects. Although he defended the student -centered pedagogy, he understood that it was the teacher who should do the job of connecting and linking the contents present in the curriculum with the interests of each of the students.He said that this blind imposition of the contents made the student lose the possibility of understanding the processes that were carried out to achieve the construction of that knowledge. The Book Democracy and Education, published by Dewey in 1976, has been one of the most important pedagogy works in the twentieth century. The author showed in this book the political and moral issues that were on the educational discourses of the time.
Dewey states that the education system of a democracy should be characterized by the commitment between teaching centers and the promotion of cultural content, as well as organizational modalities. The educational system contributes to the formation of people committed to both the values and the democratic models of society. Therefore, Dewey states in this work that education is also a modality of political action, since it imposes on people to reflect and value the different social, economic, political, cultural and moral dimensions of the society in which they are found.The importance of this book in the world of pedagogy is in all the issues that the author addresses in it. Dewey not only reflects on issues related to the reason for education or social function, but also with issues related to teaching methods, the importance of cultural contents, educational values, social aspects, among many others.
The American author, in this work also highlights an important issue about the magnitude of the child’s learning at school. Dewey believed that people manage to develop their talents, all with the purpose of doing good in the community. Based on this idea, he considered in any society, the main function of education must be to help children develop a ‘character’, that is, a set of skills or virtues that allow them in the near future to achieve their purposes.This argument faced Dewey with the supporters of a traditional education ‘focused on the program’ and also with the romantic reformers who defended by a ‘centered child’ pedagogy.
The traditionalists defended hard knowledge over centuries of intellectual struggle and considered that child -centered education was disorderly, anarchic, while the romantics celebrated naturalness and change and accused their adversaries of repressing the individuality of thechildren through boring, routine and authoritarian pedagogy. Dewey’s criticism is recognized to the traditionalists for not relating the subjects of the study program with the interests and activities of the child.
They often overlook their aggressions against childhood -centered education supporters for not relating the child’s interests and activities with the program’s subjects.And Dewey ended with these words: ‘The facts and certainties that enter the child’s experience and those that appear in the programs studied constitute the initial and final terms of a reality. Opposing both is to oppose childhood to the maturity of the same life;is to face the trend in motion and the final result of the same process;It is to maintain that the nature and destiny of the child are libiring battle ’.
Dewey Pedagogy requires that teachers perform an extremely difficult task, which is ‘reincorporate the subjects of study in experience’. The subjects of study, like all human knowledge, are the product of man’s efforts to solve the problems that his experience poses, but before establishing that formal set of knowledge, they have been extracted from the situations in whichfounded its elaboration.
Two conclusions can be extracted for the subject that occupies us from the pedagogical debates in which Dewey embarked on his rejection of dualisms. The first is the obligation of a greater articulation between a professional preparation, is set in social circumstances and needs, and a general training focused on action with meaning. The second, derived from the same idea or conception of knowledge, is that of the replacement of the old authoritarian or absolutist logic, for a logic of experimentation. If the first conclusion can support the current policies of competency learning, the second indicates the way of realization from Dewey’s pedagogy, realization that, as we intend to show in this last section, enters into contradiction with practicesthat promote these policies, which do not consent or obstinate in establishing the profile of a competent person, by establishing endless catalogs of competencies that anticipate the learning results to be achieved.It is also Bruner says that in action you can see the use that the subject makes of the knowledge and skills he possesses to solve problems. Bruner, when describing the elements of the discovery act, raises six subproblems in which he divides the problem of getting the student to appropriate what has been learned to use it again or transfer the learning.But Bruner makes it totally clear that such learning by discovery, the important thing is that the student can turn knowledge into action, thus extending their skills.
Another theoretician called Gagné argues that in the classification learning is distinguished by intellectual skills, skills or skills, here is a type of higher learning in which it includes the solution of problems. This pedagogical monitoring allows us to distinguish how the concept was built, in addition to the role that these theorists of learning and evaluation, still since the beginning of the 20th century, gave action and transfer.
conclusion
To conclude, education has the objective or need to adapt the education and training systems to the needs raised by the current society and the economy, which has made the learning by competencies established in pedagogical discourse and policieseducational. Dewey’s approaches around learning through action show some relationship with the approaches collected in the document.
The legacy of Dewey’s work has been to leave an approach to the critical reflection of educational models open. In addition, its foundations are a must for those who want to commit to the social problems present in school institutions. For many scholars, the problem of education today continues to have its root in what Dewey said, that the problem of most schools is that they are not intended to transform society, but only to reproduce it.
Bibliographies
- Jover, g., & Fernández, A. G. (2015). RELECTURE OF EDUCATION BY COMPETENCES From John Dewey’s pragmatism. Education in the Knowledge Society, 16 (1), 32-43.
- Westbrook, r. B., & Teixeira, A. (2010). John Dewey. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco.
- Restrepo Gómez, B. (2013). Theoretical Fundamentals of Competencies Evaluation: Historical Traceability of the concept. UNI-PLURI/VERSITY. 13 (2).
- Serodio, a., Kopelman, b. Yo., & Bataglia, P. OR. (2016). Promoting Moral and Democratic Competencies: Towards An Educational Turn of Bioethics. Bioethics Magazine, 24 (2), 235-242.
- War, d. V. (2017). A look at the construction of pedagogical knowledge, education theories. Digital Magazine Word, 5 (1), 94-103.
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