Constructivism and education; Prospects ... - unesdoc - Unesco
Constructivism and education; Prospects ... - unesdoc - Unesco
Constructivism and education; Prospects ... - unesdoc - Unesco
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134 Jose’ Joaquin Brunner<br />
mation channel with which rising generations enter into contact; the media for commu-<br />
nicating what schools have to teach are what the teacher imparts verbally <strong>and</strong> the writ-<br />
ten word; schools’ efficiency is demonstrated by the successful inculcation of certain<br />
types of knowledge <strong>and</strong> behaviour, as borne out by examination; the type of intelli-<br />
gence that needs cultivating is essentially of a logical-mathematical nature <strong>and</strong> school-<br />
ing has the support of the family, the local community <strong>and</strong> the churches.<br />
The contemporary <strong>education</strong>al revolution<br />
Today, we are on the threshold of a new <strong>education</strong>al revolution. Both the context<br />
in which schools operate <strong>and</strong> the purposes of <strong>education</strong> itself are undergoing dras-<br />
tic <strong>and</strong> rapid transformation through the action of material <strong>and</strong> intellectual forces<br />
beyond the control of the <strong>education</strong>al community, but with inevitable consequences<br />
for the latter.<br />
Indeed, on a world scale, <strong>education</strong> is facing an unprecedented period of<br />
change <strong>and</strong> adjustment in its progress towards an information society. As Jacques<br />
Delors points out in the Report of the International Commission on Education for<br />
the Twenty-first Century, ‘Now more than ever as a world society struggles painfully<br />
to be born, <strong>education</strong> is at the heart of both personal <strong>and</strong> community develop-<br />
ment’.<br />
While the sheer size, intensity, velocity <strong>and</strong> impact of global networks, flows<br />
<strong>and</strong> interaction are forcing all countries to re-examine <strong>education</strong>’s links with poli-<br />
tics, economy, society <strong>and</strong> culture, the establishment of a technology based on infor-<br />
mation <strong>and</strong> telecommunications systems facilitates such processes <strong>and</strong> creates new<br />
contexts in which individuals’ <strong>education</strong> will in future take place. For the time<br />
being, the most characteristic outcome of this twofold change is a series of imbal-<br />
ances, giving rise to what the World Bank describes as a ‘knowledge gap’, UNDP<br />
‘networked societies with parallel communications systems’, <strong>and</strong> the United States<br />
Department of Commerce ‘a digital divide between those with net access <strong>and</strong> those<br />
without’.<br />
Globalization above all means growing worldwide interconnectedness, result-<br />
ing in phenomena described by various authors as accelerating interdependence,”<br />
unintended consequences at a distance, I6 time-space compression” <strong>and</strong> environments<br />
operating as real-time units on a planetary scale.18<br />
In the realm of politics, it implies a weakening of the distinction between the<br />
international <strong>and</strong> domestic spheres, the emergence of new forms of sovereignty <strong>and</strong><br />
a redefinition of the functions of the nation-State. Concerns over legitimacy in regard<br />
to national governments are gradually giving way to a preoccupation with global<br />
governance.”<br />
In the realm of the economy, it implies transformation of the relationship<br />
between states <strong>and</strong> markets, an intensification <strong>and</strong> reorganization of world trade, a<br />
growing emphasis on the comparative competitiveness of nations <strong>and</strong> an increase<br />
in the number of ‘systemic risks’ such as environmental destruction or the spread<br />
of crises, especially financial crises, as it were by contagion.<br />
<strong>Prospects</strong>, vol. XxX1, no 2, June 2001