REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION

Abstract

The onset of modernity has brought in its wake historical ruptures that have introduced new dimensions and tensions between people and society. Since then, important techno-scientific evolutions have occurred, consolidating new ways of being, thinking and living. In the present context, scientific and technological evolution has reached unprecedented levels. It is the spreading of a new way of producing life on a global scale breaking barriers of time and space and spreading in seismic waves so fast that no single place is left without marks of its presence. However, it is not a linear movement similar in all kinds of context. It imposes social, economic and cultural adaptations on society. Rooted in culture, education also undergoes changes in order to adapt to this new modern technological level. Unesco, the global agency which deals with education, science and culture, directs the lines of action of education throughout the world through its policies. Among these is the Delors Report (2001) which states the objectives for the 21st century. This study sets out to question the kind of human education proposed by the Delors Report, which sees education as the mere transmission and socialization of accumulated knowledge which becomes the information, abilities and skills demanded by the globalizing movement of modernity. The reflections that follow are based, especially, on the thinking of the Frankfurtians Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, and seek, at the outset, to investigate if what is put forward corresponds to the télos, the essence and meaning of education.