Digital Pedagogy under debate

XII Secondary school conferences

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David Rabadà

Ecology is not the same as enviromentalism. The former is a science, the latter is ideology. The same could be said about Christology versus Christianity, or pedagogy versus pedagogism. Sciences such as biology, geology or pedagogy, try to explain reality, while ideological positions such as Nazism, Islamism or pedagogism just defend their possession of the truth. Currently, pedagogism is the hegemonical ideology that runs the national education system, which would be like astrologers governing NASA. Every day, there are more and more critical teachers and pedagogues who question these official positions with scientific arguments. This forces us to ask ourselves what is pedagogism? Why is this dogmatic fundamentalism opposed to authentic pedagogy? How has this replacement of an auxiliary discipline by a civil religion that does not admit of replies or revisions has occurred? Why are pedagogues usually firm defenders of California-style digital innovation? What interests and what ideology is lying behind these alleged innovations? And finally, how can we improve academic results by contributing to equal opportunities for our students?

All these questions have been debated during these XII Secondary Education Conferences registered and approved within the framework of the Permanent Teacher Training Plan by the Department of Education. The attendance of experts of proven value allowed for a broad debate and the event was well-attended with more than 80 attendees. The presentations were given by Dr. Francisco Villar, clinical psychologist, Dr. Dori Huertas, graduated in Pharmacy and doctor in Molecular and Structural Biology, and se’s running as well The Families’s Platform Support to Quality Education, and Dr. Antonio Hernández, expert in cognitive science, in this event that was held under the Secondary School Catalan Teachers Union,  the Epìsteme Foundation ande the Association of Senior Professors (ACESC)and (ASPEPC·SPS) under the direction of Dr. David Rabadà, scientific communicator. It is also interessing to note the presence of the Director of Innovation, Digitalization and Curriculum of the Department of Education, Mercè Andreu, and the interest shown by the catalan Minister of Education, Esther Niubó. The event took place on November 22 and 23, 2024 in the Assembly Hall of the CSIC Research Residence in Barcelona. The sessions were presented by the Executive Director of the Episteme Foundation, Eva Serra, and the President of ACESC, Dr. Josep Oton. However, and during the final debate, we enjoyed as well the presence of professors Míriam Gallego and Maria Josep Raïch.

All of them pointed from different points of view that the abuse of digital tools advocated by official pedagogy brings more problems than benefits in education. Problems such as lack of concentration in the classroom, schoolwork done with AI, false Internet information, or a general loss in the culture of effort and demand on students. Dr. Dori Huertas, having dedicated herself to basic and applied research in the field of Biomedicine for 25 years, made it clear that digital pedagogy has done more harm than good. She denounced the decline in educational standards that pedagogy has brought. As a mother herself, she has tried to transfer to her children the passion for learning from a very young age. With her presentation “Educational transformation. The vision of families”, Dr. Huertas told us that to understand the world around us, the curricular and academic function of the school is essential, but not the currently massive digital pedagogy. In recent years, the academic vision has been compromised by an educational transformation driven by the administrations which, according to her, has had a negative impact on students’ learning, which she has been able to verify, live and suffer in her youngest children. Since she’s convinced that families need for families to defend quality public education, she has founded the Families Platform Support to Quality Education, which claims, among other things, that schools and institutes make rational use of screens and support clear and structured curricula as a fundamental step to being competent.

Physicist, linguist and cognitive science professor, Dr. Antonio Hernández -@therfer in the digital universo-, has been a Secondary and Vocational Training teacher for 27 years, and he is currently an associate professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). As a member of the Catalan Society of Technology (SCT) and UPC’ Ethics Committee, he denounced that digital pedagogy is destroying the fundamental objective of teaching, the transmission of knowledge. With the presentation entitled “Digital Education or Technological Ignorance?” he made it clear that the abuse of telematic media, although it seems that a lot is learned by playing and enjoying the applications, is increasingly bringing more ignorant people into the classroom than traditional knowledge transmission methods: Not all that seems to be understood with a click remains in the long-term memory.

The clinical psychologist and specialist in childhood and adolescent behavior at the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona, ​​Dr. Francisco Villar has studied in depth the educational relationship between the environment and families with minors. For this reason, he promoted several lines of research, publications and doctoral theses on adolescent behavior. He is currently a Master’s professor at the UAB (Autonomous University of Barcelona) and the Abat Oliba CEU University. As an advisor to the Generalitat de Catalunya and the City Council and Provincial Council of Barcelona, ​​he made it clear that during childhood and adolescence we must be very critical of the massive application of screens and new technologies. With his presentation “Mental health and screens” he exposed the multitude of harmful effects that digital pedagogy implies in the face of the tiny benefits. In a way, screens are devouring our children, while in the meantime large technology companies obtain a lot of information about the habits of our students and future citizens for free, not to mention the risk of obesity, loss of sleep, deterioration of maturity, worsening of academic results, or access to uneducational pornography, among many other problems caused by screen abuse.

In short, these XII Secondary School Conferences, and with the aim of helping to improve the current education system, provided many facts against digital pedagogy. We just hope that the history of our education does not continue to be three steps forward and four steps back.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons