Pillars for an educational conception
By: Sergio Edelstein
A great diversity of defiant dilemmas brings us to search in depth regarding the outstanding characteristics of the shaping and modeling process of a youth. An educational process brings him on a creation path, action and realization, when he is part of a framework of thought, profound, and truthful human creativity. I see educational creativity as an art. An art carries in itself responsibility, contents, commitment, love, dedication, initiative and personal example. It is an enriching art not only to the receptor but also especially to the educator. A true educator – pupil relationship carries in itself all these rich characteristics common to art, poetry, and to my way of seeing it, to education.
For educators who are part of an [real] educational process its essence will leave a print as profound as the meaning that it will have on the pupils. I fervently believe in education as a personal formative process that is devoted to the sheer act of guiding a pupil.
I establish education as the “end of the dependence between educator and pupil, after having traveled together through an educational process that brings about a change, a process which ought to have a clear cut final for both and whoever it surrounds…”. “The educator should encourage the pupil’s development as a being capable of thought. In the education process the capacity to think, together with the act of reasoning and creativity bring about and intense interchange of thoughts between both of them”.
Modern education will carry us through new paths. Being pioneers is the central challenge of informal education. I see, in the basic conception of this form of education, the profile that it can give to youth institutions. The voluntary service and self-teaching, the moratoria and the symmetry are its foundations. As people dedicated to the world of education, and seeing in it a horizon, which produces the most authentic changes in the human being, we should take our toil with the necessary responsibility and dedication. Youth movements are a real, truthful and special, alternative.
The human being is characterized, amongst other qualities, for being a creative being. The creativity consolidated in education gives us a treasure: the truthful and wonderful challenge of guiding a youth in a process of growth and development of his personal thought. This is the unique and essential characteristic of the human being, there are not two alike, each human is unique and his essence is his possibility of thought… and as the song says: “Fly pigeon, cut through the sky, fly to wherever you wish…”
Non-formal education as the motor of a growth process toward a conscience of a democratic and critical action.
As I already exposed before, the educational process that develops in a youth movement has its own characteristics, which give it a particular idiosyncrasy. If we take the educational process that takes place in a youth movement as a unit, which has continuity within its specific stages, we will appreciate that the same (NT the youth movement) allows us to constantly navigate toward the formation of a democratic conscience in the pupil and in the educator. The intrinsic values in that such important concept is transmitted en each activity, in each action. The implicit and explicit messages in each stage of the educational process should be clear and should reach the pupil to teach the values immersed in them, to live them in practice and accumulate them in our formation, as part of our personal baggage.
The development in the pupil of such a democratic conscience is an essential quality of the educational process in a youth movement. The content of the concept and idea of democracy many times are not clear by themselves. The democratic conscience is deeper than that representation in front of the law; the same holds, above all, among self-teaching, the moratoria and the symmetry are its foundations. As people dedicated to the world of education, and seeing in it a horizon, which produces the most authentic changes in the human being, we should take our toil with the necessary responsibility and dedication. Youth movements are a real, truthful and special, alternative.
The human being is characterized, amongst other qualities, for being a creative being. The creativity consolidated in education gives us a treasure: the truthful and wonderful challenge of guiding a youth in a process of growth and development of his personal thought. This is the unique and essential characteristic of the human being, there are not two alike, each human is unique and his essence is his possibility of thought… and as the song says: “Fly pigeon, cut through the sky, fly to wherever you wish…”
Non-formal education as the motor of a growth process toward a conscience of a democratic and critical action.
As I already exposed before, the educational process that develops in a youth movement has its own characteristics, which give it a particular idiosyncrasy. If we take the educational process that takes place in a youth movement as a unit, which has continuity within its specific stages, we will appreciate that the same (NT the youth movement) allows us to constantly navigate toward the formation of a democratic conscience in the pupil and in the educator. The intrinsic values in that such important concept is transmitted en each activity, in each action.
The implicit and explicit messages in each stage of the educational process should be clear and should reach the pupil to teach the values immersed in them, to live them in practice and accumulate them in our formation, as part of our personal baggage.
The development in the pupil of such a democratic conscience is an essential quality of the educational process in a youth movement. The content of the concept and idea of democracy many times are not clear by themselves. The democratic conscience is deeper than that representation in front of the law; the same holds, above all, among
Non-formal education rests on three pillars: Do, Live, Learn
With the title of this paragraph, we could combine a large range of legitimate “pillars” in the area of education. I am referring to “the world” of youth movements, in which particular and characteristic processes develop and define them as such, and without which they cease being what they are (voluntary, self-education, moratorium structure, commitment, alternative, etc.).
Practical experimentation and research are basic principles in the development of the human being. Since always, man progressed thanks to the capacity to experiment; to try new ways; to change small things to already existing situations; and then to create new possibilities. This description is also true in our days. It is real, true and efficient in an education that has as a conception the natural development of the young, adequate to his possibilities, interests and aptitudes.
Vivid experimentation has to be endorsed with an orderly and systematic apprenticeship, not always logically deduced or rationally ordered, but based in knowledge, legitimate contents and values, which are worthy of being taught.
When I started my training process as a madrij, I was taught the trilogy that has kept me company in my education work, and which I believe is the base of a truthful and significant non formal education for the youth: Do, Live, Learn. These three concepts carry several premises within, whether together or separate they are essential.
An action should be actively completed. There is no room to be passive. This action has a great margin of expectations, possibilities, decision-making, of choices, and of creativity. Hind-sights bring us to experimentation, which within the frame of the youth movement they are together within the group. The group is part of the experimentation, which allows de individual to also learn from his peer. Learning and studying are fundamental to progress and develop in the process of formation. We utilize already acquired and coded knowledge. Generally, that knowledge is the contents by means of which our institution guides us to them.
I see in the educative conception, a conjunction between the three pillars. The relation between each one with the other and the three together are indispensable to give an instance of wholeness to the educational process, a comprehensive vision. That integrity is the one the makes it possible to achieve the central objective of non-formal education: the formation of youth that thinks and is critical in their thoughts and actions.
