Education and Democracy: A battlefield Kindle Edition

Real teaching must stem from what children experience in order that they can understand the problematic nature of their beliefs and lives. Our own (ineffective) teaching dispenses with their knowledge and experiences altogether; instead, it offers them the final outcomes of the learning of others which turn out to be nothing more than dogma, lacking in zest or vitality. Nothing else matters: not the students’ lives, not their thinking nor their spontaneous outlook; this second-hand learning, which supposedly refutes the students’ lived experience, is not only imposed upon them but must also be taken as gospel.This book neither analises nor diagnoses the educational system, it neither sets out a pedagogical proposal nor a curriculum model. Zuleta’s visionary approach is to reflect upon all of these themes enabling him to state that “education and teachers did us a disservice: they spared us the anguish that comes with thinking for ourselves.” In Zuleta’s opinion, the manner in which teaching is done restricts children - natural thinkers and investigators that they are - and channels them down a conformist path through the repetition of useless facts. This kind of education produces people who lack independence of thought but who excel at following orders. Education and Democracy was first published almost thirty years ago; it is yet another enduring book by Estanislao Zuleta, one of the most important thinkers in the history of Colombia, who is still remembered thanks to the transcendent validity of his ideas. Read more