The critical thinking that we want to stimulate here in the humanitas community teaches us among other things that the lines that frame knowledge as a science are not really absolute, because, in reality, it is not simply a matter of structuring a discipline according to established standards but it is necessary to go beyond and realize what is necessary for that discipline to find its real essence. In the case of pedagogy, which is the topic that this week is for us to reflect on in our initiative, I think we can notice it in a diaphanous way.

The art of going to the well

Both for those of us who have experience teaching in a classroom and for all of us who have had people who have taught us some education, it is clear that educating is an art, because a good educator is not made by a title but by that particular charisma and talent to awaken the love of knowledge and life as a whole, since, as Unesco points out, we must educate to learn to know, to learn to do, to learn to live together and to learn to be.

An image that I like to bring to mind when talking about this topic is a person who goes to those old wells to draw water, goes to the place where it is located, lowers a pipe tied to a rope and then raises it full of crystal clear water. So is education, which according to the root of the Latin word Educere ("to draw from...") consists of extracting from within people the best of them, therefore, for me the most important thing is not to fill the head with knowledge, especially in this era of the Internet where everything is literally at our fingertips, but to help each one to be formed with a critical conscience before the life that lies ahead, in which not the one who knows the most but the one who has learned to integrate the much or little he knows to his daily life, is the winner.

Thus we can say that pedagogy is the art of directing people to teach them to discover that everything that life gives us (knowledge, experiences, techniques, etc.) we have to process by ourselves so that we really assimilate what we have received and it is of benefit to us. Hence the phrase that I once heard has all its validity: "Sometimes you go through school (college, university, or institute) but it does not go through you", since you do not leave with healthy criteria, strong values, or an attitude that helps you to progress. This is where the task of educators is shown in all its great when we are able to point towards these objectives in each and every one of the pedagogical processes that we open.

Blessed pedagogues

I am very grateful to life and to God because excellent educators crossed my path and from their personalities, they have helped me to be what I am today, to bring out the best version of me, and what is more important, never to stop growing in each and every one of my existential areas. Thus I remember with pleasure the integral education received in my childhood and the attention received from the teachers who were so concerned about us learning that they did not spare their time or efforts even outside of class hours.

From my youth I am grateful to those teachers that although at the time one did not understand or accept, hahaha, they were demanding in their subject, looking back one realizes that in the end it is from them that one can learn the most, which is related to what is the mission of the educator, to give high goals to their students so that they can really get the best out of themselves. I cannot avoid bringing to mind figures like Socrates who with the method of mayeutics made his listeners "give birth" to the knowledge, or Jesus Christ who spoke in parables and said, "You will hear again and again and will not understand; you will look and look again, but you will not see.... Blessed are you, for your eyes see and your ears hear" (Mt 13:14,16).

I make special mention here to one of my best philosophy teachers, Fernando Santamaría, of happy memory, because from him I learned to be critical of knowledge, history, circumstances, and life in general, to go beyond what books teach us and what we know in the classroom, he constantly told us referring to the philosophy that the important thing is to learn everything we can from the various thinkers and systems of thought but in the end to build our own philosophy of life.

Judgment of current education

An issue that I do not want to overlook regarding pedagogy is not so much how it is understood today, because I think we are more or less clear about the concepts, but how it is put into practice. For example, the natural tendency of a teacher in a classroom is to judge everyone more or less according to the same measure, when this is not possible in most cases because we can get a student who, while being terrible at mathematics, is an excellent artist and even in the same field is average in sculpture - for example - but spectacular in painting. For this reason, Albert Einstein's phrase "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will believe all its life that it is good for nothing" will always be current when the truth is that it is not good for that in particular, but it can develop as an excellent swimmer.

For this reason, pedagogy in its different approaches must help everyone to find their place in the world, in the end, a true pedagogue is a teacher of life, he personalizes what he transmits, and he does not make generalizations because each well (person) to whom he addresses is different and also has its particular ways of learning. That is why, when I teach, the most interesting thing is not to give the content but to solve the doubts, questions, or learning difficulties of my students.

So, it is a great challenge that is presented to pedagogy today, the challenge of not only expanding the mind through the knowledge that is transmitted but also the heart to embrace life with all that it means and the attitude to not be afraid to go out into the world to give the best, because we are all qualified to do so, although in different ways. The following video complements this point and illustrates it in a spectacular way, I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you very much for having accompanied me in the reading of this post, wishing you always the best and that we can meet again in the next publication, I say goodbye, see you later.