1. Introduction In the actual knowledge society, the issue of economic education is more important than ever, but professional-economic elements remain the easiest to teach and to learn: that is because education in their direction does not need special efforts from individuals, being on a most "natural" line, from the point of view of the millenniums of surviving on this planet; there are not necessary special orientations and transformations of the human being, because they are not related to cultivation and to human personality development, but to surviving. They are consistent rather to what any living creature on the earth learns: they are in our instincts and need no special educative intervention. But for humans, the human superior ones are essential, defining for our specie (compared with other creatures). That is why the care for youth' education was mostly for cultivating the qualities that put and keep them over the animal kingdom (Popovici and Jivan, 2011: 39). Even in the modern times of market culture, teaching should contain all the components, in different proportions; by its nature, level and speciality, it should not be partial, simplistic or conducting young people to perceptions that could badly make them not human (non-superior) beings (Popovici and Jivan, 2011: 39). In his book "Democracy and education", John Dewey proposes a philosophy of education, which places it among the great theories of education, next to Platon and Rousseau. His philosophy differs from the one of his outstanding predecessors from two points of view. On one hand, being a social philosophy, it is a philosophy of a democratic society, in which the individual inserts himself through the free game of his intelligence. Not of an individualist intelligence in the sense of "capricious" or "whimsical", but in the experimental sense, that implies putting to the public test his ideas. On the other hand, being a philosophy of nature, it is the philosophy of a nature reflected by science. "Democracy and education" is grounded on the principle of continuity: continuity of the human being and of nature, of the individual and of the group, of the child and of the adult, of the education and of the society. This continuity involves an interaction in which the terms are not distinguished in fact--except by abstraction--one from another. Dewey will later speak more accurately about "the transaction" of the experience. The continuity has as a place of practice the lived experience, whose nature is not different if lived at the school, in the street or at the house, in play or work. Education is the experience of all, child or adult, including educator, in all the moments of life, in all the game or work or leisure situations. Education is, by excellence, according to Dewey's definition, "the continuous reconstruction of the experience" (Deledalle in Dewey, 2011: 41). An important motivation of individuals to invest in education is based on the idea according to which accumulated knowledge and competencies tend to lead to a growth in productivity and, implicitly, of the potential earnings. Another important reason for accumulating a high level of education is getting a higher stability on the labour market, which implicitly reduces the risk of unemployment. Educated workers have a higher rate of participation on the labour market, and the length of their active life is generally higher than in the case of the persons with a lower level of education (Popovici, 2011: 194). Educational capital presents itself in two different forms: on one hand, there are the abilities acquired as a result of participating at the formal educational systems, knowledge confirmed by diplomas; on the other hand, there are any other knowledge and abilities that have been acquired during the life time, by personal efforts or by contacts with experts in different fields finalized with knowledge gains as a result of assimilating the knowledge received by interaction with them (Popovici and Jivan, 2011: 40). …
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Sep 14, 2022
Fábio Luciano Violin + 3
