Abstract

RINCON-GALLARDO, Santiago. Why Educate? The Purposes of Education in and beyond Collapse. Rev. latinoam. estud. educ. [online]. 2024, vol.54, n.1, pp.71-92.  Epub Mar 11, 2024. ISSN 2448-878X.  https://doi.org/10.48102/rlee.2024.54.1.608.

This essay proposes four purposes for education in the current context of social, political, and environmental collapse. It is argued that the conventional school hinders the full realization of these purposes. The metaphor of social movements is proposed to shape a new paradigm that redefines how to understand and practice leadership and educational change. To build the arguments presented here, historical and scientific works that validate the existence of the current stage of collapse are reviewed and some key criticisms of schooling as a means of domination, control, and dehumanization are examined. The thinking and work of scholars and activists such as Margaret Wheatley and Marshall Ganz are reviewed and discussed. It is proposed that, in the current collapse, education must care for and protect the power of children and young people to learn and, with this, safeguard the human spirit, not because there is a certainty of the success of the endeavor, but because it is what it is right to do. The essay offers direction and conceptual and practical guidelines for action in the face of the terrifying scenarios of the current civilizational and planetary collapse.

Keywords : education in crisis contexts; purposes of education; educational leadership; educational change.

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