The Non-Obvious Obviousnesses of Education About Education: What Is Said; What Is Not Said; What Is Forbidden to Say; What Is False to Say; and What Should Be Said.

Abstract

Inglês:
Education is a minefield because it is permeated by power dynamics. Its importance is not in the sublime whispers of a formative nature, in the obliging ethics of pedagogy, or in the commitment to student learning; these exist, but tend to be part of the embellishments. Its importance lies in its political nature, the capacity it holds to align with or disalign from the dominant power. The practice of education involves a power relationship from above in the educator, also a natural or usurped hierarchical one, and in the learner, the opposite side of the same divide. In the educator, there may be an attempt to restrain the learner; in the learner, there may be an emancipatory conquest, even against the educator's will. It is also important to consider that, since they are dynamics of life, they are ambiguous, complex, largely unpredictable, and always incomplete (DEACON, 2012). Some students learn despite the teacher, and some teachers perform well despite the student. All of this is possible because the relationship is not mechanically causal as a rule: education is not caused, it is mediated. Mediation is easily an intense political tangle because no control is linearly effective. Moreover, education is a heavy global industry (VERGER et alii, 2016; WORLD BANK, 2018; KLEES, 2017; NARAYAN; WEIDE, 2018), also because it is a typical “investment,” computed in terms of competitiveness and productivity, involving large institutions and ever-increasing budgets, focused on “human capital” (RINDERMANN, 2018), considered the most decisive “capital” to secure global leadership and accelerate economic and technological progress (LEE, 2018; DUDERSTADT, 2003). The idea of considering university access as a fundamental right also spreads the race for higher education exponentially. The notion of learning to learn or lifelong learning means stretching the process throughout life, which, on one hand, only recognizes the natural evolutionary dynamics of endless self-formation, and, on the other, turbocharges the “business” of education. This mix of “business” and “right” poisons its political nature.