In this graduate thesis we describe and link some of the elements of education that can amend, and that on some occasions already have amended, beliefs concerning education and its purpose. The aforementioned amendment comes as a consequence of family life transformation, which has
changed the perception of the child. Therewith have also changed beliefs about the role and the form of authority of teachers and parents, the status of knowledge in comparison with competences, abilities and skills, and socialisation: the imparting of values. The elements of education that we
follow in the graduate thesis are those described by Frank Furedi in his book Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating , which are becoming progressively neglected under the influence of modern economics, as fear of an uncertain future and heeding to useful knowledge are brought to
the forefront. We sketch changes in the cognizance of childhood through history, emphasising the concept of authority, where, referring to the findings of Conditions of Education by Dominique Ottavi, Marcel Gauchet in Marie-Claude Blais, we attempt to problematise the present-day
conditions of education. Deriving from Kieran Egan’s work Getting It Wrong from the Beginning:Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget , we demonstrate how advancements in science and developmental psychology contributed to a novel definition of the child and his or her needs, and where it went amiss. Finally, by the agency of The School Is Not a Company: The Neoliberal Attack on Public Education by Christian Laval, we call attention to the changes in school politics demanded by the modern globalised market. Through the selected literature we appertain various views on the authority of both teachers and parents, the conception and status of knowledge and the intent or meaning, or better yet, the purpose of education, and seek to connect them as well as possible.
|
