The Handcrafting Activity of Goldsmiths and Conceptual Thinking

Abstract

Contemporary society overvalues scientific knowledge. Being at the central axis of society, a place formerly occupied by the Church, modern science has the power to govern and set ideologically desired parameters to human life. It perpetuates the image of an ethically neutral science, in which all is explained and proved empirically. It also spreads the idea that science is able to guide people through the conflicts and tragedies of life, promoting their dependence on the canons that dictate their ways of living. One of the social institutions that perpetuate this ideology is the school, with the promise of preparing children and youth for life, making them critical citizens, adapted to social standards. It serves governmental programs and market logic, and it is regulated and protected by law. Under the yoke of the law, people are required to fulfill years of schooling, having as a goal the acquisition of certificates that work as a guarantee of the fulfillment of market requirements. In this chapter, we carry out a critical examination of the idea that the responsibility of offering students the basis of scientific thinking, or at least scientific initiation, belongs exclusively to the school. In order to do so, we initially examine the way schools transmit scientific knowledge by describing the characteristics and function of this process. By analysing goldsmithing activity, we then seek to show that daily human social life is full of other activities that allow thinking through scientific concepts. This analysis showed that this activity has numerous links between procedures, operations, concepts, and results of conceptual organization systems, and logically coordinated clusters of concepts, subordinated and supra-ordered.