Fostering Critical Social Thought in Education

The teaching of "Media" should be based on the creation of critical social thought. The purpose of education should be to prepare people to participate in society, providing them with tools and resources to develop their own critical social thought. We need to provide the resources to know how to, and to want to, make social decisions, resolve day-to-day problems, and exercise their role consciously, constructively, and responsibly. Citizen awareness and commitment to the world we live in should be encouraged, starting with awareness between science and social problems, and the correlation between the decisions of individuals on the group as a whole.

The Critical Model

• Objectives: Teaching a critical thought approach, thoughtful and committed to improving society.
• Knowledge: Understanding of social criticism (knowledge is an interpretation of the world conditioned by ideology, criticism, and formulation of alternative proposals).
• Students and Teachers: All have a role: active and engaged.
• Education: Decision-making and problem resolution.
• Learning: By guided discovery.
• Resources: Various informative sources (cinema, newspapers, internet, library).
• Classroom Setup: Teamwork and dialogue.
• Evaluation: The importance of standard learning techniques (how to learn). Model required in the information and knowledge society.

Concretions of Social and Civic Basic Skills

1. Consider and solve relevant social problems.
2. Understand how to act and take part.
3. Encourage rationality.
4. Relate space and time.
5. Learn about the future.

Criteria for the Selection of Social Content

• They must be meaningful to students.
• They must be relevant to science.
• They must be able to be translated into behavior and coherent social action.
• The concepts must be interdisciplinary and relevant from different social sciences.
• They must allow us to structure and generate knowledge.
• Allow us to explain the current situation and be useful in practice to achieve the goals of the social science curriculum.

Exploration Phase: Initial and Diagnostic Evaluation

• Objective:
  • Introduce the “theme we will study.”
  • Identify the “problem.”
  • Share own points of view.
  • Recognize the work objectives.
• Must do:
  • The diagnostic of the initial situation in each student to be conscious of the personal starting point.
  • The prognosis of the class-group.
  • Real, concrete, and simple situations must be shared.

Introduction Phase: Communication and Representation of Goals

• Objective:
  • Question previous ideas, pre-concepts, and host structures.
  • Introduce new information.
  • Cause the conceptual change-conflict.
• Need to:
  • Confront different ways of analyzing the “problem.”
  • Reinterpret personal experiences.
  • Analyze the new.

We need to design a process that helps the students to get closer to the logics of the expert.