QThe role of school today has the role, and what part in the training of boys and girls? What idea of the future should he prepare? We talk about it with Marina Garcés, professor of philosophy at the open university of Catalonia where he directs the master in philosophy for contemporary challenges. The professor is a guest of the Festivalfilosophy which takes place from 19 to 21 September in Modena, Carpi, Sassuolo, with Over 150 appointments, all free, including masterful lessons, exhibitions, philosophical dinners, readings, shows and a program involving 170 cultural partners.
Professor Garcés, her lesson, which will be held on Friday 19th at 16.30 at the Carani Theater in Sassuolo, has as its title “learning life. Education as opening to the future”. In your opinion, what is the sense of education today, what must understand and what not?
Education is not a search for knowledge and information for practical life. What really matters is to learn to live together and learn together to live. The school is not the only place where this happens, but it is difficult to imagine how you can build this possibility of meeting without the school. In the end, education has to do with the possibility of meeting people not close to us as the family but the whole society.
The Catalan philosopher Marina Garcés is a guest of the festivalfilosophy that takes place in Modena, Carpi, Sassuolo, from 19 to 21 September.
Why do you think it is so important to learn to live together and learn together to live?
We are not an AI that can be coached with certain skills. We are human beings, we live with others through what we know and what we do not know of others, of the world and the future. The relationships, the certainties we have and the fears that make us suffer together or against others count.
How can school favor this encounter with others?
The school is a place where we find ourselves with people – students, teachers, families – who are not part of our daily lives. It is a public space where we learn with others called to do the same, in a equal way in diversity.
What is the role of teachers?
The school has the task of welcome, has an inside and an outside that defines with its rules based on its ideal of reception and how this space lives every child.
Recently a professor, in a letter to Courierhe complained that today the teachers are asked to be psychologists, sociologists, pedagogists when instead their task should be, in fact, to teach. What do you think?
I agree. To say that the school is a reception institution does not mean that it is assistance. Accepting in an educational sense means inviting to become part of the knowledge and knowledge all in an equal way. Everyone has the right to do their own path thanks to the teachers. This is the welcome, an invitation for everyone to knowledge and knowledge.
In Italy there is a lot of talk about merit. Do you think the school should recognize it?
The word meritocracy is ambivalent. On the one hand it is the recognition of the effort, which is right. On the other hand, however, it leads to a competition between the results, as if these were the objective of the educational system. But we know well that the results are conditioned by many extracurricular factors, such as social conditions, inequalities, the quality of life. There must be equality of the conditions to talk about merit. Education transforms society.
The poster of the FestivalFilosofia 2025. The word of this year is Paideia.
The title of its lesson refers to education as an opening to the future. How?
Today we are all conditioned by the fear of the future, even young people do not open to what is about to come. One of the objectives of the school is to help imagine the future in a desirable way, not for itself but for society, and to have some hope.
Garcés at FestivalFilosofia: “School must not be suffering”
One of the criticisms that we do to the school is to be too competitive and individualistic. How can the boys be involved all together?
There are many teaching methods, there is not only one answer. It is important to think about the value of what you are doing. Do you aim to make a single has a better career than that of a partner? Or who has a quality life, together with the others? In class the others are present. Learning together does not mean learning the same things but sharing the goal and consequences, for everyone.
Another theme on which we think of us is the relationship between the school and the labor market. Many argue that this relationship must be tight, and that students must be prepared with this perspective. Does it agree?
The labor market changes very quickly. We cannot think, for the future of our boys, of a linear path as once and less to offer skills that life will be useful. It is no longer so. Preparing means being ready for different life paths. There is no single exit.
Our minister of education and merit, Giuseppe Valditara, claims that young people must rediscover work and effort.
If work and effort mean suffering, I disagree. The school must offer the joy of learning together. Of course, effort, discipline, attention, continuity are needed. But not suffering.