Desinstrumentalizando la educación

Abstract

With the term “subjectification” Gert Biesta intends to draw attention to the role of the subject in education. To highlight subjectivation means to understand existence as subjects and not as objects and to try to exist as adults in the world. A life lived in such a manner requires assessing one’s wishes and feelings, constantly questioning whether your wish is what you should wish for. Bearing in mind this question is already a characteristic of grown-upness. It is for that reason that it can be said that education has something to do with the interruption of desires. In turn, “learnification” emphasizes that, on many occasions, when talking about education what we are talking about is learning. The main aim of education is not mere learning, but that students learn something for specific reasons and from someone. The author also highlights the idea that education is not an instrument that must be effective for the fulfillment of certain political agendas. Education has its own identity, which is why we need our own language in education, one capable of capturing its singularity while avoiding becoming embedded in a progressive or conservative vocabulary. This paper also discusses the liberating limitations of critical pedagogy by pointing out that emancipation can be an act of control, since the question is not whether schools can emancipate students, but what schools must emancipate students from. The author ends by proposing that pedagogy should be at the heart of the curriculum. This pedagogy must confront students with reality and with their desires to help them to live in the world as adults.