FORMATIVE PRINCIPLE OF "LEARNING-BY-DOING" IN THE SCHOOL-WORKSHOPS PROGRAM

Abstract

This work presents an analysis of the formative project of the School-Workshops Program, which is based on the "learning-by-doing" principle. The aim is to understand the linguistic and pedagogical implications of that principle in contrast to the standard teaching model. The starting point is the case of the School-Workshop for the Revitalization of the Historical Patrimony in the city of João Pessoa (Paraíba/Brazil), with the intention of making a critical and reflexive description in which we establish the linguistic and pedagogical particularities of the principle of learning by doing. The reality of the school-workshops made evident the homogenizing and excluding practices of the standard educational model, which is based on the command of abstract content and on the teaching method, while, at the same time, following an old formative principle characterized by the transmission of a craft, based on the respect for the abilities and physical capacities of each student, the intensification of human relations and the community references in language use. The analysis is done from a historical perspective, taking into account the ideas of two Spanish thinkers: Juan de Valdés and the philosopher and physician Juan Huarte de San Juan. Both advanced, in the 16th century, the linguistic and pedagogical issues identified in the formative activity and in the reality of the students of school-workshops.

Keywords: craft, natural intelligence, live language, integration.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/19827199805