20 juillet 2016

Neil Postman, The End of Education (note de lectură)

Redefining the Value of School
Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., New York, 1996.

Education is not the same thing as schooling. In fact, not much of our education takes place in school.
Poverty teaches hopelessness. Politics teaches cynicism. Television teaches consumerism. But not always.
Schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.
Most of the questions about schooling are as if we are a nation of technicians, consumed by our expertise in how something should be done, afraid or incapable of thinking about why.

Part I.
1. The Necessity of Gods
There are two problems to solve in order to conduct the schooling:
a) an engineering problem (the problem of the means – where and when things will be done; how learning is supposed to occur);
b) a metaphysical one (a reason to learn). Not a motivation, but a reason, somwhat abstract, not at all easy to describe. “For school to make sense, the young, their parents, and their teachers must have a god to serve, or, even better, several gods. If they have none, school is pointless.” (p. 5)
There is no surer way to bring an end to schooling than for it to have no end.
The author uses the word narrative as a synonym for god, with a small g.
We need a narrative that tells of origins and envisions a future, a story that construct ideals, prescribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority, and gives a sense of continuity and purpose.
Our genious as humans lies in our capacity to make meaning through the creation of narratives that give point to our labour, exalt our history, elucidate the present, and give direction to our future.
We can call these narratives: myth, illusions, ideology.
“Without a narrative, life has no meaning. Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without a purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention.” (p. 6)
The most comprehensive narratives: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita.


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10 juillet 2016

Henri Roorda, Le pédagogue n’aime pas les enfants (note de lectura)



Edité par le Bourlapapey, bibliothèque numérique romande, www.ebooks-bnr.com

... ils n’en meurent pas
La réalité est que la vie peut continuer dans des conditions très défavorables. Le problème avec une école très peu satisfaisante est qu’aucun élève n’en meurt. “Il faut le reconnaître, quelles qu’aient été les fautes commises par nos éducateurs, nous n’en sommes pas morts. Nous sommes encore là. On nous compte lorsqu’on fait le recensement annuel de la population. Et, ça, c’est énorme!” (p. 3)
L’Ecole décharge les parents, cinq, six ou sept heures par jour, du soin de surveiller leur progéniture.
Les écoles jouissent de l’adhésion muette et distraite de nombreux citoyens.
L’Ecole forme le jugement de ceux qui pourraient plus tard la juger.
Thèse de l’ouvrage: “Je me propose de montrer que les écoles d’aujourd’hui sont mauvaises, et qu’on pourra les améliorer beaucoup dès qu’on le voudra réellement.” (p. 5)
Dans quelle direction devrait agir le pédagogue, quant à l’action sur la mentalité humaine?
Chez ceux qui portent le nom d’éducateur, un certain idéalisme est de rigueur: ils doivent croire en un Mieux réalisable, en un perfectionnement possible de l’être humain.


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