Informal education

This study carries out an analysis of the tacit or informal influences that teachers have on their students both trough the way they are an the way they act in the daily dynamics characteristic of ordinary teaching. It shows how, in ahidden, latent and subliminal way, in the thousand and one daily interactions, the teacher contributes strongly to the development of the basic moral personality of his students.

An example of this informal moral education is given in a practical case taken from the observations of a woman mathemathics teacher during a series of classes. Finally, it is strongly suggested that the data analysed should contribute to awaken the professional conscience of teacher in order to form a moral responsability in them that qualifies them for to be reflexive and morally competent as regards their specific educational and educating tasks.

 

Key words: Moral education. Tacit knowledge. Teacher's moral influence. Informal education. Professsional ethics.

From the earliest publications of the sixties about the deschooling society, the crisis of the educational system, the new concept of Lifelong Education and the need of Out-of-School educational activities for the new concept of community development, and, specially, from the articles and books published in the seventies by American authors, like Philip H. Coombs, Roy Prossser, Manzoor Ahmed, Cole Brembeck, Roland Paulston and others, the concept and the term of nonformal education started to be a word in use with strength in the world of education. Now, there are an international consensus about the need, importance and concept of nonformal education, but the process to arrive to this situation was long and, sometimes, difficult. In this article we try to analise chronologically and discover the events and discussions along this process.

 

Key words: Nonformal education, formal education, informal education, alternative educational conceptions, theories of education, lifelong education.