About education[1] it is constantly debated from different points of view. This is one of the areas in which “non-professionals” intervene very often, much more often than educational experts, and there are more and more of them. And, from a certain point of view, it is legal for it to happen that way. Because education is a typical concept all encompassing, it considers and involves us all. Whether we were students, whether we are students, whether we are parents, teachers or teachers and parents. Or grandparents who were once students and now watch the changes in the education system that their grandchildren are going through and find that “it’s not the way it used to be.” And this aspect is true because the education system is in an interdependent relationship with the social and political system. importantly mainstream this is reflected in school curricula and textbooks. Simplifying, we can say what may seem like a banality: a change in the historical context also changes the educational system.

Education is more complex than what happens inside the education system because it also includes activities that happen outside of it. However, education, be it formal, at the compulsory level, or extracurricular, continuous education, happens with people and about people. Thus, the demarcations are relatively obvious, the two learning times are not mutually exclusive, but interdependent: no student will leave his baggage of knowledge, skills, accumulated in the extracurricular environment, at the school gate when classes begin. On the contrary, informal education personalizes and individualizes it.

The differentiation is rather related to the chronological register, with the duration of the two types of education: extracurricular education begins with “7 years at home”, which today has been reduced to even 2 years, and continues throughout life. Formal education in the education system begins with pre-school education, which has become compulsory, and continues through elementary, middle and high school. Be sad, a long-term result.

If a child goes to kindergarten at the age of 4, this means two years of preschool education. We add 13 years to them (education, secondary school, senior school). We have already talked about 15 years of learning from 19 and a half lives. The figure is relative, but not far from reality and appropriate to the importance of the topic under consideration. It can be said that a significant part of the active life of the first 19 years of life is spent at school. It is in the interest of all of us, first of all the students, as well as parents and teachers, that this time be of quality, that they learn, develop their skills, but do it with pleasure or at least without fear and suffering. This aspect is also in the interest of society as a whole, because there is a high chance that students who develop in an environment conducive to learning will become engaged citizens who contribute to the development and maturation of society.

A few references to the historical past can help us better understand the current situation in the education system. Thus, we can better understand who are the main subjects of education and why education should be adapted to the current social context. Using a term introduced into sociological science by Max Weber, we can ask what is an “ideal type”[2] student and teacher throughout historical eras and whether we can discuss the ideal type of educational couple that we are talking about today.

Since the presentation is not intended to be historical in nature, I will not describe in detail the peculiarities of education in different eras, but will limit myself at the beginning to stating that for most of history, there was no education system as we know it now, with its main features being compulsory and free. Its foundations can be chronologically placed in the Romanian space, in the second half of the 19th century. An era when terms borrowed from religious language were used to describe education, the mission of teachers was considered “apostolic” and teachers were “cultural sadderdo”.

Throughout the world, education is closely related to the process of creating what Benedict Anderson called “imagined communities,” namely nations.[3]. So, in order to build this concept, to reach the masses, it was necessary to make them literate. With the introduction and spread of compulsory and free education, people’s imaginations expanded. In this way, common founding myths, national heroes, and common enemies were created, since in cases where the new “imagined communities” were geographically contiguous, often the heroes of one nation were the enemies of the neighboring nation. It was a common process for all mankind, but each historical space had its own characteristics. And the transformation was not radical. On the contrary, it was a slow process that encountered resistance even from those who should have been the main beneficiaries of the innovations of modernity: the peasants and their sons. In the rudimentary agricultural system, child labor was an important, relevant aspect also in the case of school holidays, which corresponded to periods of tillage and harvest. The priority was the existence of the economy, not the education of children[4]. This prioritization of child labor to the detriment of education would also be characteristic of the interwar period, an aspect also revealed by the high percentage of illiteracy, the highest in Europe at the time.[5].

Among other things, one of the ambitions of the communist regime was to eradicate illiteracy. In this sense, state nurseries will be created, the number of kindergartens, secondary schools and lyceums will increase. However, the politicization of the education system reaches its highest level in a totalitarian system, and Romanian communism is no exception in this regard. So, this time, ideology prevails to the detriment of the quality of the educational act. In the specified historical periods, what is called “black pedagogy” in the special literature[6], based on physical, moral or verbal violence, was very common. So, beware of idealizing educational models from the more or less distant past. For the most part, the idealization of the “old school” is based on stereotypes without any empirical coverage.

After a short historical essay, in which we tried to observe where the education system began, what path it took, it is legitimate to ask where?

In recent years, Romanian society has gone through great transformations, known historical events: the fall of communism, a long transition period, joining NATO and the European Union. Political aspects, but political influence on society, and society and education are in an interdependent relationship. Without joining the mentioned structures, it is unlikely that the status of a student would change, for example, so that each School Regulation would have a consistent part that deals with the rights of students.

The most important thing I would like to emphasize is that the teacher-student relationship has undergone unprecedented transformations. In the 19th century, rural teachers knew how to read, write and organize elementary mathematical operations. Exaggeration or not, it can be said that a primary school graduate probably has more knowledge than many teachers of the 7th decade of the 19th century. I say this only to emphasize how much the world has changed, not to mock the knowledge of teachers from about 150 years ago. Society, the world in which they lived and acted, were completely different. Over time, like many other teachers, teaching also became professional. But the status of the teacher has also changed, as society has experienced numerous transformations. Among other things, it no longer has a monopoly on information.

Regarding the discipline that I teach, I can say that history is such a large field that it is impossible to master the peculiarities of each historical era equally well. And often, when faced with various curiosity of my students, I have to say that “I don’t know, but we can find out together.” Not with sadness, not with regret, but with joy traveling along the path of knowledge together with his students. Because the teacher is no longer the only source of information for students, and, not infrequently, not even the main source of learning. Today’s generation learns from more sources than any previous generation and dares to ask questions more often than previous generations[7].

Another significant change is the educational resources available to the teacher. And at this level, the transformations were significant. For example, I will take my own experience: in the late 90s – early 2000s, when I studied in primary and secondary school, the educational process did not use a video source. In high school, watching a documentary was a rare event that was more of a carnival than an educational resource for the students. So, in less than 20 years (very little on a historical scale), these aspects have changed radically. A modern teacher cannot ignore digital sources. Or he can do it, but in doing so loses his relevance to his students. Because if technology is not part of the teaching activities of all teachers, most of the sources of information students take from the online environment.

ago sourcestheir access is not internal knowledge. Because there is a big difference between having access to information and turning that access into knowledge. In today’s world, information is often considered synonymous with knowledge. From here to what Tom Nichols calls The end of competence and the discrediting of experts[8]be just a step.

In this context, it is inevitable for the educational process adapted to 2023 cooperation between teacher and student. The teacher’s role is (also) to manage this information avalanche, to direct students to a new learning path, to promote the transformation of information into knowledge, and the formation of skills. As a student, it is always critical to be aware of the information I have access to how to differentiate between true information and between fake newsknow how to apply information, in other words “to think with your mind”, to become independent. Because knowledge helps us to be independent. The loss of professional (including social) relevance, this fear of the postmodern world, can be avoided thanks to knowledge, and not only due to access to information.

Thanks to education, it is possible to change the attitude towards the educational system for the benefit of students: passing it will no longer be considered, as they often say among teenagers, “a waste of time.” On the contrary, it should be, become a time invested in each student, a long-term investment with corresponding results. Because educated students will create educated communities, and this will help strengthen a society that values ​​freedom because its members value knowledge.

We must not forget that freedom is not given forever. Vice versa. Each generation must fight for its freedom, and one of the most useful weapons in this “fight” is knowledge. The stake should be an educational system that provides additional knowledge. – Read the rest of the article on Contributors.ro