“ The problematization, in the first place, we understand it as a radical questioning of the being and acting of the teacher. When problematizing, the professor-researcher questions himself about his function, his role and his figure; wonders about his what to do and his teaching goals; reviews the contents and methods, as well as the instruments and procedures it uses; controls the results and evaluates their achievement "(Sanchez, 1993)
Traditional education is based on a methodology and programmatic contents tending to perpetuate the formation of uncritical and functional beings to the current system of power. That is, it has a reproductive character. The guarantee of this perpetuity arises from the authoritarian way in which the programmatic contents of education are elaborated.
Since this does not arise from the open participation of the educational community, but as a result of the agreement of ideological, economic, and political interests outside the democratic interests of the majorities.
This is how these top-down contents emerge, decontextualized from reality, oblivious to the problems and interests of the students, producing in them, as Paulo Freire says, the “estrangement” towards these contents and lack of interest in learning.
Due to this, the image of many classrooms with totally unmotivated students, who "are on something else", continually questioning "what is the purpose of what they are intended to teach is useful for them". Where within the classrooms, only through "disciplinarism" is it possible to maintain a coexistence that silences their needs and rights.
And outwardly they confuse society with an educational rhetoric that raises the objectives of forming critical, participatory citizens, full of knowledge to integrate into society and the world of work. This rhetoric contrasts with reality, since what is achieved is the framing and adaptability of people to the constituted system, politically and ideologically absorbed by the information and communication machinery they use for this purpose.
Increasingly contradictory and conflictive adaptability due to the impossibility of the system to solve the minimum needs of the population, and the latter's inability to understand this contradiction in order to transform it, due to their formation as citizens without a critical conscience.
This deepening crisis of values, in which education is inserted, leads to its loss of significance, generating in educators the feeling of loss of meaning in their teaching work, to question why and for what is educated.
In this framework of situation, as critical educators it is necessary to recover the meaning of teaching work, starting from being clear about the objectives from the social plane of training people capable of critically intervening in the necessary transformations towards a better society.
"What should interest us is to help form critical, participatory and politically and democratically committed subjects with progressive social change" (Unit III - LTE Centro e-Learning UTN)
Assuming these objectives, inserts us in the need to resolve the contradiction between these objectives and the contents of traditional education, based on universalism, generality, and their decontextualization with the problems of students.
The verticality of these contents constitutes a serious obstacle that requires a firm participatory attitude to achieve a progressive political change that reforms the anachronistic curriculum, which is uncertain in time but not impossible, and in accordance with the above, promotion in the classrooms themselves with content that promotes critical and creative thinking.
Promoting critical and creative thinking requires dialogue, but this in a problematizing and democratic education requires that it begin with the discussion of the issues that constitute its programmatic content. (Freire, P. - 1985)
Despite the inevitable coexistence with the already established curriculum, in which the educational community does not participate in its elaboration, it is possible to develop practices to encourage the criticality of the students, problematizing its contents.
These practices are based on two resources:
1.- Thematic research.
2.- The problematization of the contents.
Thematic research is based on determining together with the learners their subjective needs, the topics and issues that really interest them. And in awakening their interest in the affairs of the real, objective world that surrounds and conditions them.
It is about breaking with the "estrangement" and motivating them in the desire to learn, since without it a liberating teaching and learning process is impossible.
This research will allow us to open the classroom so that it becomes the natural place where students express their uncertainties, tastes and learning needs.
The second resource addresses the implications of school content far from promoting students' critical thinking.
Starting from the fact that it is decontextualized content, elaborated more for a memoristic treatment than to awaken the critical spirit, which do not constitute triggers to promote interest and its subsequent deepening, away from the social, economic, political and cultural problems that surround to the student.
This problematization begins by revealing these characteristics of the official program with the critical reading of its content with the students.
It is about exposing the intent of deception and manipulation that these contents imply.
Although the critical mediation of the educator will allow working with them and avoid falling into deception, the need to work with other materials of better scientific and critical quality is evident.
The own elaboration of complementary contents is also an important resource that in a problematic way and generates expectations, stimulates interest in the subject and the desire to learn.
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Bibliography.
Sánchez Puentes, R; (1993). Didactics of problematization in the scientific field of education. Profiles Educativos, () Recovered from
APPLE, M., (1987): Teachers and texts. Barcelona: Paidós. MEC
APPLE, M., (1996): The official knowledge. Democratic education in a conservative era. Barcelona: Paidós.
CURLE, Adam, (1977) Liberating Education. Barcelona: Herder
FREIRE, P. (1985): Pedagogy of the oppressed. Mexico: Twenty-first Century Editions. 32a. Edition.
FREIRE, P. (1977): Letters to Guinea-Bissau. Notes from a pedagogical experience in progress. México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.
FREIRE, P. (1995): Education in the city. México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.
SCHARAGRODSKY, Pablo (2010) Report in the Clarín newspaper, Zona section, on 1/10/2010, by Claudio Martyniuk.
TORRES, Rosa María (2000): Itineraries for Latin American education. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
VARSAVSKY, O., (1973) Science, Politics and Scientism. Buenos Aires. Latin American Publishing Center.
EPISTEMOLOGY Material provided by Unit III - LTE Centro e-Learning UTN.
