How to Foster critical thinking in the MA Program of Teacher Training and Education: the Debate as a Tool to Re-think Education

Abstract

Education is living harsh times. Traditional ways of teaching, such as master classes and unidirectional transmission processes, co-exist with innovative methods, which imply uncertainty and permanent change. Therefore, new teaching methodologies and strategies find themselves in nowhere land, with a long way to go still. It looks like Education has never found itself in the middle of so many social transformations, so it needs to become flexible and tolerant to answer to society’s challenges and demands. Critical thinking and analysis must appear in every teacher’s theoretical horizon, so he/she incorporates it in his/her training, as well as in his/her everyday practices. Therefore, the key to transform Education might be to re-think and to re-build it from within. Aware that critical thinking is needed in the classroom, we have conceived a project of experiential learning. It consists of organizing debates and using them as pedagogical tools with the students of the MA Program in Teacher Training and Education, especially with those who are trained to teach Economy in Secondary Education schools in the future. With this activity that we carried out during virtual sessions of the subject “Learning & Teaching Economy”, our goal was to confront our students (and teachers-to-be) with the main problems and challenges of present-day Education. They were asked to discuss around different topics, according to the rules and structure that they decided, and asking their colleagues to participate in the debates actively. The initiative was successful. In fact, an unexpected consequence of it was that discussions went on in the Forum of the subject involved, because the students that could not attend the virtual sessions were so interested that they felt eager to express their opinion anyway. Another consequence, in this case expected, was that all the students regarded respectful dialogue and discussion as proper tools for learning and attempting to change our social conditions. Debating requires linguistic and critical skills, which one can only develop those skills exercising them. And above all, discussing implies to question everything, and to accept that other interpretations, different or even better than ours, are possible. To sum up, the experience has taught us that words can work as tools to re-shape the concept of Education.