Active Methodologies in Education for Sustainability and Development of Action Skills

Background

It seems recurrent throughout history the demand of a part of society for changes in educational institutions, possibly at the same time that other changes have been occurring at the social level and have pushed to demand or require a new way of doing education more in line with the values and circumstances of each historical moment.

Socrates, Cicero or Erasmus of Rotterdam criticized the education that was being developed at the time and demanded reforms that would update the paradigms of the times. Some authors place the origin of active methodologies centuries ago, more specifically in the times of key figures such as Pestalozzi, Herbart, Fröebel, Dewey, Montessori or Freinet (GIMA, 2008).

Luelmo (2018) indicates that the principles that govern these methodologies do seek to promote a teaching in which learning prevails over instruction, in which the students are the protagonist and their interests and needs are attended to; where the promotion of autonomy is the catalyzing force of the work and where, as the ultimate goal, students manage to develop competencies and not only knowledge.

There are some key moments throughout history that have been the seed of education through active methodologies. One of these moments was the 17th century, when the educational tradition of previous centuries was broken with the methods, programs and the treatment given to discipline were changed and softened. In the 18th century, the Swiss pedagogue Johann Reinhich Pestalozzi, one of the key figures in the history of active methodologies, already indicated that children should not be provided with ready-made knowledge, but with learning opportunities that revolve around themselves through personal activity. He also believed that teachers should be prepared for the holistic development of students. Pestalozzi changed the methods and marked the path to be followed by the rest of the renovating pedagogues of later centuries. It is indicated that finally in the 19th and 20th centuries emerged some institutions that favored the definitive change towards a pedagogical and educational renewal based on a new conception of education that derived from a new concept of childhood and that rejected traditional rote learning, the students were the center and protagonist of the teaching-learning process and the critical spirit was encouraged through the evidence extracted from the application of the scientific method (GIMA, 2008).