For a compromised history of education

Abstract

The role of the humanities and of History n his fascinating work My unwritten books (2008), George Steiner addresses the issue of the Humanities, specifically education reform, secondary and higher education, and we realize that the only way to consistently and effectively defend this cause today is to reach far beyond the repetitive commonplaces, which often lead us to useless feelings of absence that bear no relation to the serious thinking about the fight against ignorance and mediocrity. The Compared Literature lecturer talks about the need to reintroduce stringent criteria that enable the establishment of an order of merit that distinguishes "the authentic excellence of forms of parasitism that today proliferate like mushrooms". For this purpose, it is important to realize that knowledge and understanding must adapt to the requirements of the modern world. Why do we refer to Steiner"s concern? Precisely to stress that the Humanities are inseparable from the natural world and the motions of spirit. We are faced with pedagogy of hope focused on the humanistic culture and on the search for the vital balance between the two cultures, to which Charles Snow referred. Etymologically, the word school derives from the Greek scholé, which means the place of idleness, the time needed to develop reflection and the ability to think. And so we find the homo cogens and the homo ludens, capable of discerning the spirit in mathematics, the humour in music, the game in architecture, and the beauty in molecular structures, capable of combining pleasure and demand, as only pleasure can strengthen