The great desire that motivates me to learn
The desire to learn
Almost 15 years have passed since I made the decision to study at the Artigas Teachers Institute. If I had to argue why I chose to be a teacher, it would probably present very good reasons that the reflection and later analysis give me to justify something that in principle responded to factors that the course of time has been in charge of modifying in my memory.
Yes, I am sure of one thing: since I started my teaching practice, the discipline that I impart was transformed into a fascinating instrument that allows me to analyze reality and consequently, it constitutes a knowledge of which no one would have to remain alien.
The reader will believe me naive, but until the moment of facing a group of boys in a classroom, I did not become a true awareness that my intellectual adventure did not necessarily be a priori of interest to them. However, I must admit that after a lot of unease, I understood that it was more than reasonable. A personal decision led me to incorporate into my life the study of a certain discipline and it was I who was convinced of its vital importance, not my students.
Then I understood that in reality my main task was to go from wanting to want together or, to express it with the words of Philippe Meirieu, generate in the students the desire to learn.
The latter, sine qua non condition so that true learning occurs. Therefore, my obligation was to reflect on how to generate favorable conditions that stimulate the desire to learn.
I remember the advice of the teaching teacher, Carmen Appratto. I was insistently suggested not to present ourselves to our students as spokesmen for an already constituted and closed knowledge. Contrary, being able to create a mobilizing “enigma” based on the study of a permanent reconstruction science that inevitably exceeds the stage of certainties and must face the uncertainties and complexities inherent in scientific knowledge.
We cannot give them all the answers, but to teach them to ask themselves questions from obstacles of interest facilitators of knowledge and learning. Undoubtedly in that direction an infinity of possibilities and great challenges opens. For example, class constitutes an excellent opportunity to offer adolescents the alternative of knowing different realities from those that are easily recognizable. This current basic educational need must always be articulated by establishing “support points” – indispensable for the development of an individual – between the academic contents and the reality of the students, without falling into the absurd “flirting” with the youth culture, but reaching ametastable balance between the three components of the pedagogical triangle: the student, the teacher and the knowledge taught.
Learning always puts us in a complex situation that is never mere information circulation: the “transmission” of knowledge is only possible when a teaching project meets a learning project. In this dialectical relationship, the teaching role must be that of a true pedagogue and its function, irreplaceably that of an education professional.
Didactic reflection constitutes our main tool. It allows us to become aware of the limitations and successes that have the teaching proposals we adopt and how they impact our students within the framework of the new challenges that education faces. It is necessary to think of the didactics – using the expression of Ángel Díaz Barriga – “to reconcile the historical perspective of the discipline with the needs of our time, characterized by a new rationality where, among other things, culture no longer fosters the eagerness to learn to learn".
Since its inception with Enoio to Hargreaves, Perrenoud or Charlot, explore what didactics can still tell us about the relationship with knowledge and learning experiences.
As regards me, although sometimes the fear of great challenges usually stalks, I keep the vocation intact by an trade that is proud: that of being a teacher.
Bibliography
- Bauman, Zygmunt (2007). The challenges of education in liquid modernity, Gedisa, Buenos Aires.
- Charlot, Bernard (2006). The relationship with knowledge. Elements for a theory. Trilce, Montevideo.
- Díaz Barriga, Ángel (2009). Think Didactics, Amorrortu, Buenos Aires.
- Meirieu, Philippe (2001). The option to educate. Ethics and Pedagogy, Octaedro. Barcelona.
- Meirieu, Philippe (2002). Learn, yes. But how?, Octaedro, Barcelona.
- Illustration:
- Scene of the movie "Among Les Murs" by French director Laurent Cantet (2008)
- I graduated from i.P.A. as a secondary education teacher in the specialty history. Although the reflection intends to cover the trade of being a teacher regardless of the particular knowledge that is taught.
- Meirieu, Philippe (2002). Learn, yes. But how?, Ediciones Octaedro, Barcelona.
- Díaz Barriga, Ángel (2009). Think Didactics, Amorrortu, Buenos Aires.
Leave feedback