Education and life project amidst civilisation collapse. Part I

Abstract

This two-part essay implies the existence of a continuous civilisation collapse, making it imperative to inquire into the subjectivity construction processes of the educational experience and the life project. The passive education model is seen as the main source of the social permissiveness that creates individualistic, passive and uncritical subjects easily manipulated by the social control media in the service of the domination system. As opposed to passive education, participatory education proposes that subjects can only develop their own knowledge through the exercise of criticism via the transformation of teacher and student roles and the promotion of critical learning that has the life experience of each subject as primary material. By reflecting upon the life experiences with considerable emotional charge, the subject is able to interlink cognition and affectivity, therefore constructing his or 
her own self-awareness and contextual knowledge. This never-ending process offers the possibility to clarify the possible conflicts of the life experience, and the development of strategies to overcome them, which entails gratifying effects on the subject, awakening the passion for knowledge as the core component of the life experience.
Finally, small children and mature adults, two very different and polar opposite experiences of participatory education are used as examples of the model’s feasibility, representing the author’s answers to the question raised by the aforementioned civilization collapse.