BarcelonaWhen the professor of philosophy of education at Ramon Llull University (URL), Anna Pagès, announced at home that she wanted to study pedagogy, her maternal grandfather told her that they were going to see someone. In a flat in the Eixample, they were received by Angeleta Ferrer Sensat, a teacher at the republican high school in Parc de la Ciutadella. The meeting was “total chaos” between the grandfather and the pedagogue, recalls Pagès. “When we were at the door, already leaving, he said to me: “If you want to dedicate yourself to education, you must have a lot of culture and a great intellectual curiosity”. Pagès recalled this Thursday in front of half a hundred people – including anxious educators – at the third session of the Pedralbes Dialogues cycle organized by Barcelona City Council and the monastery with the collaboration of the ARA and the presentation of ‘Antoni Bassas.
The provocative title, Boy, shut up! Authority at school!, has served as a starting point to address the degree of permeability of education in a hostile society. “It’s a place where teachers teach lessons in a protected environment. It’s a kind of testing ground where you can experience good things that, as adults, they can apply to society and thus make a better world”, according to the speaker. The ideal level of isolation, however, is debatable: “Hannah Arendt was very clear that the school had to be a place where children could experience peace, solidarity, cooperation, so that, when they were adults, they would transfer this experience to the society John Dewey, however, disagreed: school must prepare for life, but it must also be life itself. There must be conflicts”, said Pagès. But they shared a conviction: the school must anticipate the atmosphere of a “democratic society” in order to pass it on to the outside world, the will of “the foundational optimism of the pedagogues”.
talk less
In this relatively safe environment, the educator’s role must be, above all, to ask and listen a lot and talk less. Back to the origins, at the beginning of Western civilization: “The pedagogue, in Ancient Greece – he recalled – was the slave of the family who accompanied the children to school. It wasn’t a kangaroo running down the street: the slave was talking to it. He wasn’t free, but he wasn’t stupid: he knew a lot, he was the ChatGPT of the time”, he joked. He knew more, he added, than all the members of the family combined, even than full-fledged citizens. The educator of educators has vindicated the teachers of the school groups of the Commonwealth and the Republican Generalitat and has shown herself in favor of having teachers who ask questions and listen, as defined by Rousseau: “The teacher must have a simple conversation with children. Talk to the child in a normal way, ask him lots of questions and interact with him in a Socratic way. If we talk too much to children, they will never talk. They should not be observers but converse with them”.
The education of emotions is a harmful thing. Adults have a problem with emotions, not children”
Anna Pagès Professor of philosophy of education at the URL
Pagès has confessed that she is worried about what she considers to be an excessive preponderance of the methodology and the invasion of adults into the children’s world: “The adult must be in a different place from the child, he must respect the child’s world, not to colonize it or break into it”. And he stated conclusively: “The education of emotions is something harmful. Adults have a problem with emotions, not children.”
The authority of teachers
At the same time, he has claimed the authority of teachers like Angeleta Ferrer. “They didn’t have to do anything for the children to listen to them. They recognized them as interlocutors they respected. The authoritarian is the one who represses because he has no other way to assert himself”. And he called for a return to knowledge: “Today everyone talks about learning and nobody about teaching. It’s good that we learn, but who teaches? The children have been happy, but what have you taught them?”. And he made a final reflection on the contents: “Those who dedicate themselves to teaching should have a high cultural level”, he claimed, faithful to that valuable teaching of Angeleta on a landing in the Eixample.
2024-03-07 21:40:19
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