The natural method and the complex thinking: A possible relationship for school education

Abstract

This paper was written with the central objective of showing how two authors-Celestin Freinet and Edgar Morin-, apparently with different trajectories, are approached by the need to build another school, which is not only concerned with transmitting abstract and isolated contents of concrete reality of its students, but that develops an educational process that effectively cares about the human being in all its completeness. To this end, we sought to describe, albeit briefly, some methodological clues for this purpose. In the case of Celestin Freinet, there is the natural method used by him in his pedagogical action; in Edgar Morin, we have the notions of complexity and transdisciplinarity. There is still the world of ideas and knowledge in both. From this description, the following approximation between the two authors' thinking can be evidenced: there is a school that devitalizes, that compartmentalizes knowledge, empties the contents of what has meaning for students, is more concerned with coping with the curriculum than with the formation of the human person, being necessary, therefore, to look for ways to form a social being integrated to his/her particular group and to the world in general. In the end, it is hoped that this approach will help in the search for different views from what is put in school education, valuing thought and emotion, knowledge and action, the future and the present, in short, human complexity.