Teaching to discern. Hernando Arturo Estévez Cuervo
other times, for scientists and academics to be aware of both local and global knowledge they need to be mentally and emotionally open; all of this in order to be sensitive to unfamiliar wisdom and to exchange knowledge with outsiders.
Conclusion
Universities should focus less on teaching specific contents and more on experiential learning and problem-solving objectives. Although teaching contents is important, sometimes these tend to be decontextualized. Nowadays, global training depends on human development + capacity building + problem-solving skills. In this regard, some ideas are developed in what follows:
Students
Universities should focus on setting contextualized learning objectives rather than vague and abstract learning outcomes. This means determining what the university wants students to achieve while they are studying and, most importantly, how these achievements are connected to the problems of their surroundings. Students do not only need to acquire knowledge but also skills, attitudes and values for working in a local environment from a global understanding.
Staff
Staff needs training and international immersion experiences for acquiring those skills that are important to replicate with students. As the world changes at a rapid pace, staff must be part of a learning community that is permanently reflecting upon the new challenges of society.
Faculty
All faculty members (not only educators) should be in touch with the global agenda. This encourages a view of themselves as facilitators of the students’ development. The institution should help faculty members to achieve their own developmental objectives. A way to do that is to create a program to recognize potential faculty leaders for international training. The institution must determine what abilities the leaders need to strength for improving their intercultural/international competencies; also, it must encourage them to motivate other colleagues to achieve personal objectives to acquire the same skills.
Mobility
Learning a second language is a priority for accessing the knowledge developed elsewhere in the word; however, it is not necessary to get an advanced level of that second language in order to initiate a mobility program. One strategy should be to promote academic exchanges with peer universities that have some expertise on internationalization.
Those exchanges are possible through the establishment of personal relationships: Internationalization programs into the university are the result of the networking of local faculty members and students with researchers from different international universities who share an academic interest. Even short-term visiting scholar programs helps faculty members and students in widening perspectives and enable further intercultural interchanges.
On the other hand, we are positive that contact with small colleges or universities around the world is sometimes more fruitful than expecting exchanges with the large ones, as the former are more flexible and eager for that international contact. The size of the institution does not matter; what matters is the convergence to tackle social problems.
Those contacts do not necessarily end in local faculty members or students visiting a foreign institution; there are many models of effective programs that can be created locally, regionally, or nationally that simulate an international immersion experience and enable students to develop intercultural/international competencies without great investment.
It is possible to create programs “at home,” and they can have significant impacts in changing the students’ and faculty’s perspectives and enable them to develop competencies, such as intercultural communication, acquiring knowledge of different cultures and of different ways of dealing with societal problems. In our case, and as this anthology shows, the Summer Academy at Universidad de la Salle is a good example of a very successful way to bring the world to the institution.
Finally, reflections on world sustainability and development cannot be limited to the classrooms. Students need to implement what they have learnt and to experience the specific needs of the outer world, creating solutions to societal constraints. The internationalization activities give them the theoretical background for doing that; the institutional philosophy of service and research for social change pushes them to apply that knowledge.
References
Izecson de Carvalho, A., Looi, Y., Saad, F., & Sinatra, J. (2013). Education in Colombia: Is there a role for the private sector? Retrieved from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/education-in-colombia-is-there-a-role-for-the-private-sector/
UNESCO. (1996). Our creative diversity, report of the world. Commission on Culture and Development. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000105586.
UNESCO. (2009). Higher education, research and innovation: Changing dynamics. International Centre for Higher Education Research. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000183071.
02
Education, Pedagogy and the Content of Education
Hernando A. Estévez
Education and pedagogy have different spheres of action within the educational system. Education is a practice, a social activity and an action, while pedagogy is the pondering and reflection about educational theories. However, they possess the common goal of guiding individuals’ activities and behavior in any given society. This distinction is measured by the realm of their concern and their function in society: While pedagogy is concerned with the precepts and principles behind an educational theory, education’s main interest lies within the process involved in the practice of imparting knowledge.
In addition, pedagogy and education share a common political goal. Behind every given educational theory and pedagogical reflection is a political ideology. Every educational theory and pedagogical practice contains a political ideology. Every educational theory deploys in its practice a set of social principles and political rules conducive to perpetuating a given social and political structure, or, in the best case, it promotes a critique of the social order ruling society and its citizens. A pedagogical reflection in this sense aids the understanding of the social and political aspects of an educational theory by providing a rubric by which educational theories can be evaluated and understood. Most discourses on education have the structure of any given theoretical practice since they guarantee a desirable educational objective, presupposing an understanding of those who are going to be educated and demand specific procedures to reach and realize its objectives. Intrinsic to education’s role in society rests the need for a pedagogical practice consistent with the principles and the rules governing society in order to reaffirm the social structure and reflecting the principles governing the relations between citizens. If Plato is correct in The Sophist (1892) when affirming that education’s role in society is to release individuals from the affliction created by an excess of accepting opinions and the lack of truth and knowledge, then education must always be a catalyst towards some form of political change and pedagogy should be a reflection about its practice and principles.
When I was first invited by the Office of International Affairs at Universidad de La Salle in Bogotá to be part of the Summer Academy Program during the summer of 2016, I was also informed that one of the general aims of the program was to bring the world to the students of the university. Besides other general considerations, the program finds its uniqueness on the premise that the study abroad experience can be brought to the students of the university through a series of pedagogies, methodologies, academic contents and life experience from different professors from a variety of cultures; that is, the study abroad program at Universidad de La Salle invites researchers from different countries to discuss interdisciplinary topics, current trends on contemporary themes in order to provide a greater understanding of the global context to the students of the university. The rationale behind such an approach to studying abroad programs derives from the economic challenges that most of the students at Universidad