La escuela de la maestra Raquel (Querétaro, México)

Rosa María Torres

Casi no habló durante la reunión de directores y, cuando lo hizo, porque era su turno de presentación, le temblaban las manos y la voz. Tímida, de muy bajo perfil, nadie habría dicho que la maestra Raquel iba a ser quien nos mostrara luego una escuela memorable, su escuela, la “16 de Septiembre”, en Querétaro, México. 

La escuela, pública, rural, ubicada en medio de un paraje seco, tiene un amplio terreno al frente, senderos encementados, y plantas y árboles sembrados por todos lados. Fueron los padres y madres de familia quienes plantaron los árboles hace tres años y quienes los riegan y cuidan junto con sus hijos. En el panorama semidesértico y desolador de sus alrededores, la escuela se levanta como una especie de oasis. 

La escuela está linda, pulcra, bien cuidada. El espacio exterior no da la idea de una escuela sino más bien de un parque: además de los senderos y del verde, están las mesas redondas y las bancas circulares, de cemento, que la maestra Raquel tuvo la idea de poner, también con ayuda de las familias, inicialmente para la hora del almuerzo. Primero, las madres les llevaban el almuerzo a los hijos; luego, ella les instó a que vinieran a comer junto con ellos. Así, bancas y mesas pasaron a usarse para picnics familiares dentro de la escuela. Más tarde, se integraron al currículo, transformándose en mesas de reunión, de dibujo, de lectura, de arte, de manualidades. De hecho, en estas mesas y bancas al aire libre transcurre buena parte de la vida escolar de estos niños: aquí comen, hacen sus trabajos en grupo, sus dibujos, sus tareas. Dentro de la escuela, pero fuera de la escuela. 

La recepción por parte de los profesores es cálida y sencilla. Todo fluye con naturalidad. El profesor de música - un joven que viene todos los miércoles, cargando su teclado a cuestas, y enseña a todos los grados - me pregunta si me agradaría que los niños cantaran algo. En un abrir y cerrar de ojos, saca al patio a todo el alumnado, de primero a sexto grado. Mientras nos servimos una ensalada de frutas, preparada por madres de familia, escuchamos a los niños cantar dos canciones y vemos a este joven músico no caber en sí de orgullo. Puesto que la música es sumamente importante y puesto que no está financiada en el presupuesto de la escuela, la maestra Raquel contrató aparte a este joven músico. Cada alumno le paga una cuota mensual de 2,50 pesos (un cuarto de dólar); en el caso de los que no pueden pagar, la directora y dos profesores pagan las cuotas de sus bolsillos. Así de simple. 

La vinculación con la comunidad es parte del secreto de esta escuela. Los padres, y sobre todo las madres, almuerzan ahí a menudo, son visitantes frecuentes y colaboradores. El año pasado, la maestra Raquel tomó la iniciativa de celebrar en la escuela el Día de los Ancianos. Vinieron y se juntaron por primera vez todas las personas mayores de la comunidad, junto con sus familias. Fue un día maravilloso, relata la supervisora, un día de unidad familiar, de homenaje a los abuelos y abuelas, de integración escuela-comunidad. Están en marcha los preparativos para repetir la celebración este año. 

Otra clave importante de esta escuela es que la maestra Raquel es al mismo tiempo directora y maestra, maestra de primer grado, más exactamente. A la mañana hace de directora y a la tarde enseña a los más pequeños. Su aula es un aula alegre, llena de dibujos y textos infantiles. Con cartones de desecho y papeles de colores han fabricado ayer un trencito en el que cada caja es un vagón y en cada vagón va un niño o niña. El tren será la principal atracción en la fiesta de clausura que tendrá lugar pasado mañana. Contentos con la visita, los niños piden mostrarnos a las visitantes cómo va a ser la función. La maestra Raquel accede y ahí tenemos, ante nuestro ojos, la fiesta de clausura anticipada. 

Antes de concluir la visita, la maestra Raquel corre a sacar de un armario el libro de visitantes y dos paneles de cartón en los que están pegadas fotos de la escuela: en un panel está el ANTES (tres años atrás, cuando ella se hizo cargo de la escuela) y en otro está el AHORA. El cambio es en verdad notable. La escuela de antes era de tierra, no había una sola planta, las dos alas de aulas estaban deterioradas, el patio rajado. Lo hecho en estos tres años se hizo con el mismo presupuesto, pero con la colaboración y el valor agregado de los padres y madres de familia y de los propios alumnos y profesores. 

Ya afuera, me detengo a observar nuevamente la escuela, el verde, los senderos, la limpieza del lugar, las mesas redondas con sus bancas circulares de cemento, los alumnos trabajando a gusto al aire libre y la maestra Raquel despidiéndose con la mano. Con poco, con casi nada, con cosas muy simples, esta directora ha logrado para su escuela cosas que escuelas mucho mejor dotadas y más ricas no consiguen (ni se proponen) para su alumnado, sus padres de familia y su comunidad. 

De hecho, las claves más importantes entre ese ANTES y este AHORA que ella muestra en sus fotos, no están a la vista: una directora que no deja de enseñar y que está a cargo del grupo más numeroso y difícil; un estilo de dirección democrático, amistoso, informal; una voluntad por integrar no solo a las familias sino a toda la comunidad; una escuela que valora la música, el canto, el baile, el arte; una escuela que sale de la escuela, que entiende que ni los niños ni los aprendizajes se llevan bien con los muros y los encierros. 

* Incluido en: Rosa María Torres, Itinerarios por la educación latinoamericana: Cuaderno de viajes, Paidós, Buenos Aires-Barcelona-México, 2000. 

El modelo de preparación docente que no ha funcionado

Rosa María Torres

EL MODELO DE PREPARACION DOCENTE QUE NO HA FUNCIONADO
▸ Cada nueva política, plan o proyecto parte de cero	(se ignoran o desestiman los antecedentes, el conocimiento y la experiencia acumulados)
▸ Piensa la formación como una necesidad mayoritaria y principalmente de los docentes	(no también de los directores, supervisores y otros agentes vinculados al sistema escolar a los diferentes niveles)
▸ Ve la formación aislada de otras dimensiones de la condición docente	(reclutamiento, salarios, condiciones laborales, mecanismos de promoción, etc.)
▸ Ignora las condiciones reales del magisterio	(motivaciones, intereses, inquietudes, conocimientos, tiempo y recursos disponibles, etc.)
▸ Es vertical, viendo a los docentes únicamente en un rol pasivo de receptores y capacitandos	(no consulta ni busca la participación activa del profesorado para la definición y el diseño del plan de reforma y del plan de formación en particular)
▸ Parte de una propuesta homogénea destinada a "los maestros" en general	(en lugar de buscar ajustar la oferta a los distintos tipos de docentes y a sus necesidades específicas)
▸ Se basa en una concepción instrumental de la formación docente	(la formación en servicio es vista como una herramienta para implementar una determinada política, programa, proyecto o incluso texto)
▸ Asume que la necesidad de formación es inversamente proporcional al nivel y grado en que se enseña	(desconociendo con ello la importancia y complejidad de la enseñanza a niños pequeños y en los primeros grados)
▸ Apela a incentivos y motivaciones externas	(tales como puntajes, ascenso, escalafón, mejoras salariales, etc. antes que al objetivo mismo del aprendizaje y la profesionalización docentes)
▸ Se dirige a docentes individuales	(no a grupos o equipos de trabajo, o a la escuela como institución)
▸ Se realiza fuera del lugar de trabajo	(típicamente, se saca al docente de su escuela, en vez de hacer de la escuela el lugar de formación permanente)
▸ Es puntual y asistemática	(no es parte de una política y una estrategia de formación y actualización continuas del magisterio, vinculada a su práctica docente)
▸ Se centra en el evento - curso, seminario, conferencia, taller - como la modalidad privilegiada y hasta única de formación	(desconociendo o viendo como secundarias otras modalidades: intercambio horizontal entre pares, trabajo en grupos, pasantías, viajes, autestudio, educación a distancia, etc.)
▸ Disocia gestión administrativa y gestión pedagógica	(lo pedagógico se considera patrimonio de los docentes y lo administrativo de los administradores, desconociendo la necesidad de desarrollar competencias integrales para ambas funciones)
▸ Disocia contenidos y métodos (saber la materia y saber enseñar) y privilegia los contenidos	(ignorando la necesaria complementariedad de ambos saberes y la importancia del saber pedagógico para el perfil y la práctica docentes)
▸ Considera la educación/ formación como un asunto formal, revestido de seriedad y solemnidad	(despreciando la importancia de crear un ambiente informal, relajado, apto para la inter-comunicación y el desarrollo de componentes lúdicos)
▸  Está centrada en el punto de vista de la enseñanza: enseñar como objetivo	(antes que en el punto de vista del aprendizaje: lograr aprendizajes significativos en los docentes y en los alumnos)
▸ Ignora el conocimiento y la experiencia previa de los docentes	(en lugar de partir de ellos para construir sobre ellos)
▸ Está orientada a corregir y mostrar debilidades	(antes que a identificar, valorar y reforzar fortalezas)
▸ Es academicista y teoricista, centrada en el libro	(niega la práctica docente como espacio y materia prima para el aprendizaje)
▸ Se basa en el modelo frontal y transmisivo de enseñanza	(la enseñanza como transmisión de información y el aprendizaje como digestión pasiva de dicha información)
▸ Es incoherente con el modelo pedagógico que se propone a los docentes para su práctica en el aula	(se les pide promover la enseñanza activa, la participación, el pensamiento crítico, la creatividad, que no experimentan en su proipio proceso de formación)

  * Tomado y adaptado de: Rosa María Torres, Formación docente: Clave de la reforma educativa, en: Nuevas formas de aprender y enseñar, UNESCO-OREALC, Santiago, 1996.

¿Qué pasaría si quienes deciden las políticas educativas tuvieran a sus hijos en planteles públicos?

Rosa María Torres

Ministra de Educación y Culturas

Quito, julio 2003

Escuela privada y escuela pública - Claudius Ceccon (Brasil)

Una de las primeras críticas que recibió Bill Clinton al llegar a la Presidencia de los Estados Unidos fue su decisión de poner a su hija en un colegio privado, después de haberse declarado firme defensor de la enseñanza pública en su país. Esto, que al menos en Estados Uni­dos puede ser convertido en crítica pública y elevado a la categoría de incoherencia presidencial, es en verdad lo que hacen todos -o la inmensa mayoría- de presidentes en todo el mundo. Y lo que han hecho concretamente en nuestro país.

Entre broma y broma suele llamarse la atención sobre el hecho de que asesores y consultores en materia de políticas educativas tienen a sus hijos en planteles privados y que, por tanto, al no experimentar en carne propia las carencias y problemas de la enseñanza pública, no se sienten mayormente comprome­tidos ni vivencialmente urgidos a cambiarla.

Entre broma y broma, no obstante, es preciso tomarse el asunto en serio. Otro sería en efecto el estado y el destino de la educación pública si los altos mandos del poder, los decisores de políticas y de planes educativos, tuvieran a sus hijos e hijas en planteles públicos. Otra serían las energías financieras y sociales invertidas en profesionalismo y calidad docentes, en evitar los paros del magisterio o bien en resolverlos de inmediato, tan solo aplicando la coherencia entre el discurso y la práctica.

Presidentes de la República y colaboradores cercanos tienen a sus hijos en universidades, colegios y escuelas privados, a menudo estudiando en el extranjero. Allí mismo hijos y nietos del gabinete ministerial, del cuerpo diplomático y del congreso. Los funcionarios del Ministerio de Educación que pueden fi­nanciarlo no dudan en hacer lo propio. Igual cosa los abogados que redactan las leyes y decretos educativos. Investigadores, expertos y asesores nacionales e internacionales estudian y hacen propuestas de cambio para la educación pública, pero prefieren entretanto tener a sus hijos en planteles privados. Y nos asombra­ríamos de saber cuántos rectores y profesores de planteles públicos -incluso de los más pobres y apartados- tienen ellos mismos a sus hijos en planteles privados, haciendo los ahorros y los sacrificios económi­cos del caso.

El día que presidentes, vicepresidentes, ministros, secretarios, directores, sub­directores, asesores, jefes, dirigentes gremiales y autoridades de todo tipo tengan a sus hijos y nietos en planteles públicos, empezará a modificarse en serio el panorama de la educación pública. Entonces vendrá la urgencia, afluirá el dinero, importará en serio la calidad, se pondrá la pedagogía en el centro, se apurarán las gestiones, se ejecutarán las decisiones, se harán los cambios de verdad. ¿Sería mucho pedir que el Presidente, el Vicepresidente, el gabinete en pleno, los dirigentes gremiales del magisterio, los defensores de los derechos de la infancia, los promotores de una educación de calidad para todos, empezaran dando el ejemplo?.

* Pubicado en Diario Hoy, Quito, 17 julio 2003 

Artículos relacionados
- La doble moral de los políticos en materia educativa, Luciana Vázquez, La Nación, Argentina, 5 julio 2011
- ¿Deberían nuestros políticos llevar a sus hijos a colegios públicos? En Reino Unido lo hacen, Blog de Amparo Polo, 04/03/2013

Textos míos relacionados en OTRA∃DUCACION

Rosa María Torres, Pobre la educación de los pobres

Children's rights: A community learning experience in Senegal

Children's rights: A community learning experience in Senegal

(Visit to Thiès, Senegal, 18 November 1994)

by Rosa María Torres

Four o'clock. The expected day has arrived: by foot or by bus, chanting and singing, children and adults from a nearby rural village begin to stream into this village. Learners - children and adolescents - from another village want to share what they have learnt in school around children's rights, through a special act they have prepared with the help of their facilitator. Children and adults are present, many of them students of either the adult or the adolescents programme, parents, the facilitators, and the members of the Village Management Committees of both villages. This is part of the non-formal basic education programme in national languages initiated in 1988 and implemented in Thiès by TOSTAN, a Senegalese NGO, with UNICEF and CIDA support.

The village comprises of barely a dozen homes. The houses are small and built with mud and straw, clustered together and separated from another cluster by wooden fences made out of branches. A few scattered trees and dusty narrow streets complete the scenario.

Most adults present are women. Many of them are mothers of the students, many are students or ex-students themselves of the adult education programme. Today, Friday, many men are at the mosque.

The entertainment has been organised in the open air, at the entrance of the village, next to a big baobab tree. A huge canvas hung between the tree and a fence provides a tent to protect against the sun. Children and adults sit on the floor, on mats or on small wooden seats. According to my count, over 200 people are gathered here. Facing them is a big map, a blackboard, a flipchart and a table.

Several signs with written texts in Wolof are to be seen all over the village: on the tree, on the wooden fences, on the houses. They are part of an effort to create a "literate environment", surrounding villagers with written texts. Streets have been baptised with such names as STREET OF KNOWLEDGE and STREET OF PEACE. The Boutique (a small village shop where mainly matches, oil, salt, are sold) -which, together with the school, is the only "modern" cement house in the village - displays on its facade a sign in Wolof that reads:

BOUTIQUE / CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT

The facilitator is the master of ceremonies. He has made the drawings to illustrate children's rights, prepared his students, and promoted and organised this encounter. Everything is conducted in Wolof, one of Senegal's six national languages.

A series of songs introduce the act. The “alphabet song” seems to be one of the most popular ones: they tell me that the words remain the same, but each village puts it to its own melody, some of them with chorals. Most of the songs have been written by the students with the help of their facilitators. Thus, through music and rhythm, they welcome the visitors, praise the facilitator and acknowledge the organisations in charge of the education programme. A special song has been created on children's rights.

The facilitator announces the official start of the programme and explains it al length to the audience. Then he begins to unfold the flipchart.

Children of the world

The first picture is an introduction to the flipchart and presents children of different races and countries, wearing different costumes. The facilitator asks the students to describe what they see in the picture, and then asks them to point out differences. Children raise their hands and snap their fingers. They all want to speak. They give all sorts of answers: the hair, the shoes, the skin colour, the height, the clothes, the eyes. He then asks about their similarities and the children again answer: they are all people, they all have joys and problems, they all have to eat food. One small girl shyly states:

- "All the children have rights."

Everyone claps. Now the facilitator asks for a volunteer to come to the front, identify and choose a sheet of paper on which a text is written corresponding to the subject of the drawing, in this case, "All the children of the world have rights". A girl comes to the front: she studies the sheets displayed on the table, picks the right sheet, and then "reads" it aloud while turning around so that the phrase is visible to the entire audience. While "read" is here a verb between inverted commas - these young learners have started school only two months ago - since it is rather visually recognising words and phrases, this is actually the very first step to real reading, to reading with meaning and with fun!

Adults are expectant, laugh and applaud, seem both proud and annoyed. Perplexed and uneasy at the beginning, they begin to feel increasingly at ease as the act unfolds.

The whole presentation on children's rights will follow this pattern: introduction of the picture; questions to children on what they see illustrated; discussion of the right suggested by the picture; interpretation of the right by the children through a short, often provocative, dramatisation or poem they have created; discussion of the play or poem; and identification and reading aloud of small texts written on sheets of paper and which correspond to the drawings.

The right to good nutrition
The picture shows millet, chicken, tomatoes, fish, papaya, monkey bread (a fruit from the baobab tree), and eggs. After an introductory discussion on the right to good nutrition, a child reads a poem about a selfish father who wants all the good morsels of food saved for himself, and is not concerned about his children's nutrition. A man in the audience, who has been listening to the story with evident anxiety, raises his hand and says, genuinely annoyed:

- "But I hide when I do it. How do you know?"

Everyone laughs. The facilitator then asks the children how they would answer the selfish father. Further discussion follows among the men. Volunteers come to the front and pick up sheets with colourful drawings of food and short phrases written in Wolof:

children and chicken
children and papaya
children and millet
children and good nutrition

The right to health
The illustration shows a mother immunising her young child. Following the questions and answers on children's right to health, a skit is staged with a husband and wife discussing the immunisation issue. The wife - a young volunteer who has borrowed a baby from a real mother in the audience - asks her husband for money in order vaccinate the child. He says he does not have the money. She blames him for spending the money in playing the lottery and buying tea. Finally, he agrees and she takes the baby to the vaccination post. Laughter and applause follow from the audience as the boy (playing the husband) dances off into the crowd. A lively discussion among the parents ensues in reaction to the husband's attitude. A girl volunteers to identify, pick up and read aloud the message "Children and health".

The right to a clean environment
The picture shows a woman with a broom, cleaning up her yard, and several garbage baskets aligned by the fence of the house. After discussion, the children present a skit in which they have been working on a village clean up and are discussing further actions to assure success. Then an older man comes along and throws down paper from the food he has been eating. When the children try to explain to him that he should not dirty the environment they are working to clean up, he becomes angry and says that children do not have the right to tell adults what to do. Discussion follows this skit among the children and the adults.

The facilitator asks:
- "What will happen in the future if everyone continues to pollute the environment?"

The children respond in unison:
- "Our whole country will be a garbage pile!".

The adults are delighted with this outburst.

The right to education
The drawings illustrate four types of learning ("houses of learning"): a woman teaching her child to cook (life learning), a blacksmith teaching a young apprentice (traditional job learning), a boy with a wooden slate on his knees (religious learning), and a boy and a girl with modern clothing and books under their arms (learning brought in from the outside, the French school system). The facilitator asks questions on each type of learning: what for? what methods? what differences?. A child comes forward and reads a poem on the importance of learning in national languages.

The right not to work too much
In this drawing, a girl is busy with many domestic chores. A girl comes to the front and reads a poem that speaks of a girl who does all the work in the house and has no time to play. She ends the poem with:

"At night, when I finally lie down to sleep,
I think and think and think about life.
My heart is full and I begin to cry
Because I do not know
When all this suffering will end."

Adults - and, particularly, mothers - seem uncomfortable and distressed.

[A parenthesis on children's responsibilities]

At this point, a sheet on RESPONSIBILITIES is inserted in the flipchart, apparently to counterbalance the many rights of children and the increasing anxiety of parents. There are no pictures on this paper, only written text. The facilitator asks the children to name their responsibilities and duties. Some of the answers are:

to be polite
to be respectful
to love oneself
to love one's country
to be obedient
to help out
to promote peace

The right to play
The illustration shows several children at play: a boy and a girl playing together; a girl on a swing; another girl dancing. The facilitator asks volunteers to show the audience certain traditional Senegalese games. Five girls come to the front and show two such games, combining song and rhythm.

The right to free expression
The drawing shows children talking to each other in a circle. A boy recites a poem that ends with "all children have good ideas, so let us speak up". Adults laugh nervously.

The right not to be exploited
The illustration shows a Marabout - traditional teacher in the (religious Koranic school) - with a child chained next to him, and another child begging near a bus full of people. The issue appears to be very sensitive. A man, visibly upset, asks for an explanation. The facilitator explains that there are different types of Marabouts, and that this one belongs to the type that do not really educate children under their care, but instead exploit them and live off them, forcing children to beg and to bring them money, or else they get punished and chained. Then, he tells his own story while he lived in a with a Marabout: he begged for alms, but only in his own neighbourhood and at that time begging was considered a formative experience, learning to be humble and to see how hard it is to be poor. Everyone is really attentive to his explanation. Many mothers nod their heads in agreement.

The right not to be punished
The drawing shows a father beating his son. Children comment that no one has the right to beat anyone (literally, in Wolof, "no one has the right to take the personality away from another"). Parents remain quiet.

One of the visitors intervenes and challenges the children with the question:
- "But how do you teach children if you do not punish them?."

A small, skinny girl immediately responds:
- "You take him or her to the back of the house or into a room, and there you talk to them and advise them."

There is sustained laughter. Many seem surprised at the young girl's quick, sharp and wise response.

In concluding the act we, the visitors, are introduced. The Presidents of both Village Management Committees address the audience. They congratulate and applaud the facilitator. A girl spontaneously reminds everyone to also congratulate and applaud the facilitator's trainer.

In his brief address, one of the Presidents of the Committee says to the children:
- "If I were you, and had learnt what you have learnt in two months, I would be shouting and praising your teacher more than you do".

A father in the audience thanks children because "they have brought a lot of knowledge to the adults".

A mother says: "It is the first time that three neighbouring communities have met together. And this is thanks to the education of both the children and the adults."

A young boy, full of enthusiasm, jumps into the centre of the stage and starts to dance. Someone grabs a huge plastic bowl and uses it as a drum.

And the big party begins. Girls and boys, children and adults: all are in the mood to dance. The same spot, different choreography. Brief, intense, frantic, individual dancing performances that commit the whole body, the mind, the entire person. While one dances, the others clap hands, and others - mainly women - play on improvised drums (plastic, metal, wood) that multiply very quickly. An educational act turns into a village celebration. The critical issue of children's rights has brought children and adults closer, and two villages in contact for the first time.

We have witnessed a memorable occasion in the lives of these children and adults, and of these villages. Nothing here has been conventional. Education and rights, school and life, students and parents, parents and teachers, teachers and students, reading-writing and singing-dancing, flipcharts, poems and plays: they all seemingly interact and go together naturally. Conventional categories and classifications - formal/ non-formal/ informal education, school/out-of-school, or the distinction between children/ adolescents/ adults, or between children's education/ adult education, or even the term "community participation"- do not help to capture and explain what this is all about.

There is definitely an innovative approach to literacy; not necessarily a new method but a renewed understanding and a fresh insight on the meaning and joy involved in teaching and learning to read and write. Literacy as something that involves both children and adults, as a creative undertaking on the part of both teachers and learners, as an intelligent act, as a communication challenge. Literacy not per se but to know about one's rights, to reflect upon and to discuss them. Literacy as a social and cultural capital to share with others, with other children, with other adults, with other villages. Children and adults learning together, becoming literate and aware together, in a genuine family and community learning process.

No conventional terms or prefabricated educational jargon can describe what the villagers and ourselves, the visitors, experienced in those two hours in Thiès. This is why I have preferred to describe it, and to describe it as I saw it, to share it with you.

Related posts in this blog
Rosa María Torres, Children's right to basic education
Rosa María Torres, Open Letter to School Children

Education in the Information Society

Rosa María Torres
(ver texto en español aquí)

This text is part of the book Word Matters: Multicultural Perspectives on Information Societies, a collaborative effort of CMIC (Canada), FUNREDES (Dominican Republic) and VECAM (France), coordinated by Alain Ambrosi, Valérie Peugeot and Daniel Pimienta. The book, published by C. F. Éditions in various languages, was officially launched at a special session at the World Summit on the Information Society; (Tunis, 16-18 Nov. 2005). Much has happened in the world since then and in the ICT field specifically. However, many of the facts and critical issues highlighted in this text remain valid and are challenges requiring further elaboration and action in the increasingly complex intersection between education, information, communication, learning and the Internet.

Introduction

Are we really dealing with a concept when we talk about Education in the Information Society? The term does not appear with its own drive and meaning, but rather tied to the rhetoric of the “Information Society” (IS), proclaimed to be the society of the future, of the 21st century. It does not have one single meaning; it exists side by side with many related terms without clear borders, and with poor conceptual, theoretical, and pedagogical development. Both IS and Education in the IS tend to confuse information, knowledge and learning, and to reduce them to so-called "modern Information and Communication Technologies" (ICTs). ICTs have created new identities, forms and levels of inclusion/exclusion: the connected versus the not-connected, and huge differences within the "the connected" in terms of availability, modes and quality of access.

Technologies, for what kind of education project?

In order to approach Education in the IS we must approach each of its constituent terms: “information society” and “education”.

Traditionally, the term education evokes the school system, formal education, and childhood. Emphasis has been placed on teaching rather than on learning. Little importance has been given to learning, with quantitative indicators of access and completion dominating the scenario. Learning is confused with assimilation and repetition of information. More importance is given to things - infrastructure and equipment - than to people and to teaching and learning conditions, to the supply rather than to the demand, to results over processes. The school mentality has contributed to limit the vision and the field of education, conceiving it as a sector, thus separating it from political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. Also, education is traditionally viewed as a service rather than as a right.

In the history of education, “modern” ICTs are in fact the last wave of a continuum. Educational or instructional technology has had a high profile in the education field over several decades: in the 60s and 70s, it was radio and television; in the 80s and 90s, school textbooks, video, and the computer as an instructional aid; since the mid-1990s, the computer and the CD-Rom started to dominate the scenario and, in recent years, the Internet, increasingly displacing “conventional technologies”.

In the late 1980s, UNICEF adopted the term “Third Channel” to refer to “all available instruments and information, communication, and social action channels that can be used to help transmit basic knowledge, and inform and educate the population regarding social issues”, assuming formal and non-formal education as the other two educational channels (UNICEF, 1990). The World Conference on Education for All (Jomtien, Thailand, 1990), organized by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, and the World Bank, placed great hopes on this “third channel” to reach the six Education for All (EFA) goals by the the year 2000. However, in 2000 the goals were reduced and the deadlines extended to 2015. Today, the goal for countries in the South ("developing countries") is no longer “basic education” ("meeting people’s basic learning needs", as defined at Jomtien), but "primary education” (completion of 4 years of schooling is the indicator set by the Millennium Development Goals). The “Third Channel”, originally viewed as a broad channel shared by traditional and modern technologies, disappeared from EFA goals and was reduced to ICTs. Over the past few years, Education in the IS rhetoric has focused on the virtual world, leaving behind the discussion on basic learning needs, adopting as central topics such as competitiveness and the "new skills" required by the market in order to “adapt to change” -- rather than to actively promote, redirect and control change.

It is necessary to place the “technological revolution” in space and time, as well as the announcement of the IS and the “Information Age”. They all originated in the North ("developed countries"), particularly the United States, and were later transplanted to and appropriated by the South. They emerged in the 1990s, a decade that marked a turn in the history of humanity, with the globalization of the neoliberal model and its great paradoxes: technological revolution with growing social exclusion, globalization with greater localization, concentration of political and economic power in few hands together with (also global) expansion and articulation of social protest and social movements. Largely inspired by the growing life span and by the expansion of ICTs, the old “lifelong learning” utopia reemerged in the 2000s and was proposed as the guiding paradigm for education, capacity-building/training, and research systems in the North and especially in Europe. Inaugurating the new century, an embrionary vision of "the school of the future”, "the school of the 21st century", started to take ground (Delors et. al. 1996; European Communities Commission, 2000).

In this context, intertwined with powerful interests and conflicts, very different visions of the IS have emerged: an IS understood as access to ICTs, aiming at reducing the “digital divide” and ensuring a "connected" world “; and an IS “with a human face”, that transcends ICTs, committed to lifelong learning and to the building of a new social paradigm with economic justice, equality, and well-being for all. Both visions remain in conflict and have been present at the World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS: Geneva 2003; Tunis 2005).

Often the terms society and age, as well as information-communication-knowledge-learning are used interchangeably, without due differentiations. A clear example is the International Adult Literacy Survey - IALS, which in 1997 spoke of competencies for the “knowledge society” and in 2000, of competencies for the “information age” (OECD/Statistics Canada 1997, 2000). The WSIS made the term IS official, thus choosing to talk about society and information. An ongoing and much-debated decision and terminology.

An Information Society that increases inequality

“Education for the Information Society” does not have a clear or unique definition. In fact, it has not been incorporated in international Glossaries related to education. Parameters or indicators referred to its feasibility, relevance, and quality have not been established. The Education Index, a component of the Human Development Index (HDI) calculated by the UNDP, is limited to adult literacy rates and enrollment rates for the three education levels (primary, secondary, tertiary), and is clearly insufficient to capture the educational profile and status of any society.

Given the dominant trend to reduce IS to ICTs, Education in the IS also tends to be reduced to ICTs and ICT potential for educational and learning purposes, in and out of school, to assist educators and/or to replace them. “Education and ICTs”, “Use of ICTs in Education”, “digital literacy”, are some of the names adoped by this vision of Education in the IS. Many confuse it with virtual or electronic education (e-learning), often romanticizing it while undermining the credibility and relevance of the school system, thus reinforcing the trend towards privatization and/or towards the elimination of the school system altogether.

Characteristics attributed to Education in the IS usually refer to the greater flexibility allowed by ICTs, thus allowing greater diversification and individualization/personalization, all of them old dreams within the education field. However, concerns continue to be centered on supply, opportunities, and access (to the computer, to Internet, and more recently to bandwith) rather than on the relevance and the quality of content and methods, production and dissemination conditions, and in general what type of information/education and for what purpose (personal and social impact). Hardware predominates over software technology and education itself, and information over communication, knowledge and learning. There is a rather passive and reactive approach to ICTs - seen as tools capable of disseminating information - rather than a more active and proactive approach where individuals may see themselves not only as consumers but also as creators of information and knowledge.

From the first telematic networks (1980s), aimed at interconnecting schools at the national and international levels, we have moved into macro policies and projects that propose to install computers in every school and, ideally, to ensure one computer per student. Many believe that ICTs will be able to make personalized and  lifelong learning a reality, with the help of the many mobile devices and gadgets that continue to emerge.

In fact, the possibility of lifelong learning has never been so close and at the same time so far away: close for the minority that can access and take full advantage of the learning possibilities of ICTs; far for the majority of mankind, the poor, the illiterate, the millions around the world living on less than one dollar a day, those being prescribed four years of primary school for the “school age” population. This is what the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) propose for education today - acritically adopted by the WSIS - together with gender equality in primary and secondary education;  no goal for adult education. We are thus participating in a curious Information Age, where the right to education shrinks while the economic and social divide between the North and the South, between the poor and the rich, grows.

Key topics for debate and reflection

Some problems and dilemmas (conceptual, political, social, ethical, pedagogical) linked to the Information Society (IS) and to Education in the IS (EIS) within this framework may be summarized as follows:

"Education in the Information Society" (EIS) is a vague term, difficult to grasp, trapped within two problematic terms: education (in times when learning becomes a key word, together with learning to learn and lifelong learning) and information (when the objective is to transcend data, to build, advance and use knowledge).
 The weak or nonexistent differentiation between information and knowledge, between Information Society (IS) and Knowledge Society (KS), and the use of both as interchangeable, with an emphasis on information rather than on communication.
 The lack of clear differentiation between information and education, capacity-building and training, education and learning, and even teaching and learning. These confusions often attribute ICTs characteristics and roles that do not correspond. It is essential to differentiate the informative, communicational, and educational/training potential of ICTs and of each of them in particular.
 Modern ICTs associated with information and communication, ignoring the role of traditional ICTs and key information/communication institutions such as the family, the community, the school system, mass media, social networks, the street, the workplace, etc.
 ICTs (and actual notions on information and communication) reduced to the computer and the Internet. In addition, the use of “modern” to classify ICTs is relative; there are other modern technologies, others came before, and these will soon cease to be such.
 ICTs between resistance and fascination, with fascination winning the battle so far and maybe for a long time to come. “Access to a computer and to English teaching” have become expectations and false indicators of the quality of a school, whether public or private, and increasingly also in many non-formal educational programmes.
 Between domestication and empowerment: the double edge of ICTs, which may serve both for globalization of consumption, competition, and other values permeating the neoliberal model, as well as for globalizing knowledge, protest, solidarity, and the building of a different world (World Social Forum).
 “Reduce the digital divide” established as an objective in itself, without paying attention to the structural gaps that explain and support the digital divide (political, economic, and social, between the North and the South, and within each country).
 Powerful political and financial interests behind the race for ICTs remain hidden behind the IS rhetoric. The field of education has become a privileged marketplace, disputed by politics as well as by private companies and large multinational corporations.
 Tension between the local, the national, and the global, with a devouring trend of global cultural industries and powers, resulting in increased homogenization and "one-size fits all" in terms of thinking and doing.
 Great expectations placed on ICTs as artifices of the much awaited "education revolution", diverting attention and financial resources from essential conditions and structural factors that condition education supply and demand: the economic ans social well.being of the population, basic rights being served, and a highly professional and well paid teaching force for all levels of free public education. A bad school with computers continues to be a bad school.
 The IS and the emphasis on information contribute to reinforce rather than to alleviate old and well-known problems of the school system and culture such as memorization, encyclopedism,   superficial and fast reading,  reading to get information rather than to enjoy knowledge and good writing, fast writing, Internet quick searches confused with research, copy and paste, etc. “Banking education”, in sum, has left the classroom and is being expanded on a global scale.
 Reiteration of errors, ignoring lessons learned. Countries and international agencies continue to repeat the same problems and errors in the design and implementation of policies and projects linked to ICTs and education. Purchase and distribution go first, teachers - as usual - go last.
 Double discourses and dual agendas for the North and for the South. In full emergence of the IS, the North adopts lifelong learning for itself and prescribes 4 years of schooling for the South. "Think globally and act locally" seems also part of this scheme that divides thinkers and doers. The “official aid for development”, nor by its volume nor by its conditionalities, by no means resolves a historic and structural problem of asymmetry, inequality, and growing foreign debt.

Towards universal literacy

The Information Society (IS) is a new and ongoing process. The true aspiration is building Knowledge Societies, and Learning Societies. In this framework, education in and for the information society should be an education that:
 Ensures universal literacy and basic, relevant, and quality education, for the entire population, both in the North and in the South.
 Promotes and aims to articulate learning in and outside the school system, formal, nonformal, and informal learning, in the family, in the community, in the workplace, in every space where there is production, creation, recreation, social participation, etc.
 Takes advantage of all tools and technologies available - not only ICTs - towards integral communication and learning strategies for all and for all ages.
 Teaches a critical approach, selection and use of information and knowledge; to identify, produce, and disseminate relevant information and knowledge; to develop autonomous and complex thinking; to actively participate in transformative social action.
 Defends and embodies the right to education in its practices, understanding the right to education fundamentally as the right for all to learn, to learn to learn, and to learn throughout life through all available means.

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Web sites
@LIS: Alianza para la Sociedad de la Información entre Europa y América Latina http://www.alis-online.org
Commonwealth of Learning http://www.col.org/
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