“Educability” and the future of pedagogy

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to try to understand if there is, as far as pedagogy is
concerned, the possibility of building a bridge connecting the humanist and post-
humanist dimensions, after the advent of cognitive neuroscience.

The crisis of the human sciences and cognitivist pedagogy has found a biological drift at
the beginning of the 21st century in the transition from the human sciences to cognitive
neuroscience, as the basis of development that absorbs almost all of classical education,
creating a gulf between the humanist and posthumanist dimensions. Is it possible to
bridge this gap?
If the object of pedagogy is the individual in training, in a process that the Latin term
“e-ducere” describes as coming out, in a dialectical and never static perspective,
pedagogy cannot ignore the results of experimental research and cling to didactic
proposals consolidated by daily practice, at the cost of running into cognitive dissonance
in the relationship with a world in perpetual change, which demands adequate
processes and a method based on the scientific nature of experience. It would be
unthinkable, today, to enter into pedagogical questions without the results coming from
the neuroscientific field. In particular, investigations into the brain, aspiring to rewrite
the history of cognitive and emotional processes, have inaugurated a dialogue between
neuroscience and the humanities, building “bridges” between disciplines considered
incompatible towards new hybrid disciplines (Bruer, 1997). Pedagogy and biology are
seen in a new light, made up of intertwining and reciprocal links, where dogmatism
disappears.
Thanks to humanistic research it is possible to enrich neuroscience, to propose
hypotheses about neural correlates, the minimum set of events and neuronal
mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious perception. Only after relating a cognitive
experience to a given neural activity does the latter become intelligible as a neural
correlate, and thus usable as an indicator for subsequent investigations. Pedagogy will
then be able to enjoy an overview by carrying out studies that relate educational
practices to changes in the structure and functioning of the brain, in which the results
of brain studies will be usable for educational practice.
In this regard, Frauenfelder, an italian pedagogue, has worked on finding the link
between learning and education, considered different moments of a single process,
moving from the traditional concept of education to that, lasting throughout the life of
the subject, of educability:
“human educability is a concrete potentiality that finds its tools precisely in the processes of
communication and interactive experiential exchanges that guarantee the relationship with the
environment and with other individuals” (Frauenfelder, 2018 p.3).
What becomes crucial is not how much a structured training environment can give in
terms of learning possibilities, but how these possibilities are managed at a personal
level, also in view of the experiential and social variables that interact with the
development of learning. Learning, therefore, for Frauenfelder (1983), consists in the
possibilities of each individual to modify himself through his own actions, more
specifically in the capacity of the brain to react in an adaptive, plastic way, to the
environment by altering its structures, and therefore modifying behaviour and cognitive
faculties. In the final analysis, the individual transforms himself, modifying his
cognitive system over time, thanks to that process of maturation, which accompanies
him throughout his life and which is defined as educability.
Conclusions

Thanks to the concept of educability (Frauenfelder 2018) we have created a bridge

between the humanist and posthumanist aspects of the educational sciences,
understanding that the properly human dimension does not prescind from the genetic
basis, but is its guide and interpreter. Indeed, without the interpretation of the mind,
what use would be a picture of how the brain works? The function of man is still
fundamental in the sciences concerning man. In order to defend what remains of
humanism and the related discipline known as pedagogy, it is necessary to give a
horizon of meaning through the importance attributed to educability, affirming the
autonomy of education and consequently of general pedagogy. In order to achieve this
goal, the neuroscientific study of learning needs to become field research, i.e. it must
take place directly in the learning environment in order to reach a shared perspective
on the relationship between mind and brain. This will be essential if a humanistic
discipline, which deals with mental aspects, pedagogy, and a scientific discipline, which
investigates aspects of the brain, neurobiology, are to work together, converging their
results and overcoming their own limitations.

Bibliografy

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