FROM THE METAPHOR OF HUMAN ENHANCEMENT TO LIFELONG LEARNING

the unfolding of the concept of education

Abstract

Two ways of conceiving education appear interwoven in contemporary pedagogical discourse. On the one hand, education is understood as a way of human enhancement, a conception that emerged with the modern humanism and the Enlightenment, and was intimately linked with schooling. On the other hand, education appears as a factor and an indicator of economic and social development, a perspective whose colophon is the lifelong learning, described as an individual responsibility performed, preferably, in non–scholar sceneries. Even that conceptions are not completely incompatibles, the differentiation exercise proposed in this paper offers some clues to think about two issues: the professional training in pedagogical field and the educational politic design.