Abstract
The present case study brings reflection on the power of pleasure (joy) to better the classic education system. Whilst pleasure was overlooked as an instrument to make positive feedback in students for classic education, PANCOE (and the laboratory of pleasure) goes in the opposite direction. The laboratory of pleasure stimulates students´ skills and performance through the articulation of pleasurable experiences. The results notably show that those students who participated in PANCOE have better degrees than those who did not take part in the experiment. At the same time, the endorphins liberated by positive interactive communication paves the ways for the rise of pleasurable experiences which dispose from better academic performances. Originally PANCOE was designed to standardize the learning process of foreign students. The goal was chiefly oriented to retain the student reducing the academic desertion, which means the rate of students who fail to earn a degree.
Top1. Introduction
The term education comes from Latin Educere, which was employed in Ancient Rome with a two-pronged approach. On one hand, it denotes a type of emancipation, or so to speak liberation given by the learned skills, but on another, the word associates to the act of feeding the cattle. The latter meaning mainly marks the ideological nature of education, which is often used as an instrument of domestication –if not massification-. For some reason which is very difficult to precise here, education has evolved according to a positivist dominant paradigm which was based on the Cartesian dualism. Such a dualism emphasized on the division between the mind and emotions (Rozemond, 1988). For the Cartesians, the mandate of the mind subordinates not only the body but also the emotions. Traditional education and Cartesian dualism are inevitably entwined. For traditional education, reasoning situates over human emotionality in the same way that the mind governs the body. In tourism fields, the positivist viewpoint takes the lead in the Academia over other voices and paradigms (Su 2014; Sheldon, Fesenmaier & Tribe 2011; Ayikoru, Tribe & Airey, 2009). Educators give certain prominence to the traditional methods which are drawn to stimulate the skills of students for labour competition. Even if the resulting syllabuses are carefully designed and credited by the national authorities, it is unfortunate the traditional education has serious problems to offer efficient solutions to the new global challenges that are today threatening the industry (Lew 2014). It is noteworthy that major risks as terrorism and political instability seconded by natural disasters or even global virus outbreaks –like the recent COVID-19- without mentioning the effects of climate change ignite a hot-debate revolving around the future of tourism (Sigala 2020; Bagri & Junaid, 2020; Korstanje & George 2021). Without any doubt, big problems need big solutions!
Over the recent years, tourism education has evolved as a promising object of study within the constellations of tourism research. Tourism education not only lays the foundations (curricula) in the process of formation for tourism professionals but also sheds light on the methodological problems of empirical research (Lewis, & Tribe 2002; Tribe 2002). One of the goals of tourism education consists in shortening the gap between theory and practice. Tourism education should be defined as a process that trains the next professionals, policy-makers, researchers and workers in the tourism industry. The learning process is aimed at coping with the nagging problems of the sector as well as the conflicts derived from the interaction of the different stakeholders (Cooper, 2002; Belhassen & Caton, 2011; Paris 2011). Of course, tourism education has developed many methods and techniques but for some reason it leads to an unparalleled crisis. This crisis has been discussed by many studies and works published in leading journals. Academicians and colleagues of all pundits have called the attention to a mix-balanced discussion whilst contemplating the pro and cons of the current tourism higher education. Nevertheless of this fact, tourism education crisis include problems of employability, low-wages paid to workforce as well as students` frustrations once they are incorporated to the front desk staff. Scholars allude to the curricula reformation as a vehicle towards a new type of tourism education in the years to come (Paris 2011; Hsu 2018; Airey 2013).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Pleasure: It is a state of comfort derived from a good experience or good external stimuli.
Higher Tourism Education: It signals to the set of rules, protocols, infrastructure, and social capital oriented to train the workforce in the industry of tourism and hospitality.
Education: It is a process directed to achieve certain goals while transmitting knowledge and future skills to other generations or citizens
Entrepreneurship: It is defined as a set of practice aimed at combining creative experiences with solutions for the problems of the industry. Based on the concept of change, the term was widely applied in the fields of businesses and management.
Cartesian Dualism: The term refers to a philosophical tradition coined by Rene Descartes which emphasized on the logical division of body and mind. At the same time, technique related to cartesian dualism stress on the importance to regulate and subordinate emotionality to logical protocols.
Joy: It is a basic emotion where the subject reaches self-accomplishment or fulfilment.
PANCOE: It is the name of a new experiment conducted by Joy Labs at the university of Palermo, Argentina. The experiment is designed to improve students` academic performance through the stimulation of pleasurable experiences.