THE CONTEXTUAL PEDAGOGY

• The terms pedagogy and education are often confused. Nevertheless, they should be precisely defined.

• Pedagogy is the theoretical construction underlying those human relations whose explicit objective is the transmission of codes.  Education is the implementation of a pedagogy in practice, that is, the creation of a human relationship with the explicit purpose of transmitting such codes (or messages, information, contents, etc.)

• As a result, a pedagogic paradigm,
a) Is concerned primarily with establishing and supporting human relations;
b) Consciously formulates a definite theory with explicit objectives, aimed at transmitting fragments (objects, phenomena, information) of the surrounding reality to the educated.

• The inconsistencies in pedagogy, education, and didactics produce elevations of anxiety both in the educator and in the educated. The absence of review of the pedagogic paradigm based on which educators (school teachers, parents, politicians, media leaders, etc.) act necessarily results in a society with high levels of anxiety and their correlatives.

• A pedagogic paradigm that is willfully damaging or inconsistent or unknown to the consciousness of the educator can produce pathologies in individuals and societies.

• Contextual Pedagogy, based upon a holistic worldview, must consider at the very least:

- The reality defining dimensions: the subjective, the objective, the cultural, the social dimensions

- The human being defining dimensions: physical, biological, emotional, cognitive, spiritual dimensions

- The levels of interaction (from the deepest to the most superficial, that is, according to its influence on the following level): basic needs, feelings, self-images, thoughts, desires, (body, mind, emotional) attitudes, behaviors.

- The relationship (bond) as a specific development of interaction / communication.

- The individual basic needs of the human being: belonging, security, affection, companionship, acceptance, being valued, knowledge, expression, self-defense, self-affirmation, maturation, expansiveness.

- The individual development and its stages, each one with its specific worldview; the individualized development of abilities and capacities on the base of potentialities and environmental stimulation.

- Universal principles and culturally established values, rights, and obligations.

- The characteristics of the present world (7 billion human beings, unequal distribution of resources, computational abilities, less need for labor, lack of jobs, better, more, and more manipulated information, globalization of techniques and lack of globalization of reason, ecological situation, security poles group / individual, anxiety elevation and increase of controls, redefinition of gender roles, changes in solidarity), as the social and ecologic characteristics of the local environment.

• When the educated is a child, the school should not dedicate itself only to the child, but should consider the child as a reference point of a context (in general, the family). The school of the future will not be a school for children, but rather for families.

• The ultimate aim of pedagogy and education will be, therefore, the creation and the maintenance of health, understood as a state of bio-psycho-social well-being. This state of well-being of the human being, studied in all its dimensions, is only achievable through the enrichment that education produces.

• Contextual Pedagogy should be basic to themes such as literacy, computer literacy and emotional literacy for everyone; human rights of all people and particularly of children; early intervention; regular education; special education; educational quality; educational policy; educational economy; peace and health; minority and violence; transdisciplinary university; among others.

• It is obvious that the training of educators should be seriously reconsidered.