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Abstract

Using Bachelard's metaphor of the house as our first home in the world, this paper argues for the need to know the archetypical and epistemological cellars and foundations which support our daily educational practices and give meaning to them. By differentiating militancy (as a manifestation of an actio militaris) and activism (as a reflected practice that seeks the transformation), the text discusses the importance of the epistemological vigilance and the hypercritic ethos, both able to render effective our efforts of individual and social transformations. The contingent nature of our pedagogical beliefs and practices becomes evident when we go down to the cellars and examine the historical conditions in which these beliefs and practices have been produced and have turned into truths. Examples of this are some of the presuppositions that support the main modern educational metanarratives - such as catastrophism, salvationism, prometheism, methodologism and messianism.