From the factory model to the classroom-workshop: Learning from practice in the fields of health and education

Abstract

In this article, we engage in a dialogue about structural competencies based on the proposal of the classroom-workshop, aimed at educational and work environments in the fields of health and education. Our starting point is the notion that practical experiences do not merely represent a collection of specialised technical knowledge, as they are part of the complexity of the social game. Drawing from the theoretical frameworks of Pierce, Gadamer, Freire, and others, the proposal of the classroom-workshop recovers the power of collective praxis. Learning from and with others becomes central in the social game in order to collectively appropriate knowledge by making the autonomy of learning as horizontal as possible. By centering the relational world of learning and working, the classroom-workshop recovers the circular structure of understanding that enables a reflective appropriation of the territory–understood as the social space where life takes place–while de-instrumentalizing the reading of theoretical traditions and resignifiying the practice of writing. It establishes connections, links, and anchors that enable a dialogue between theory and practice, so often dissociated and fragmented.