Resumen de Astronomy in the frame of the transdisciplinary education
Magda Stavinschi, Mirela Mureșan
This paper aims to point out the unexpected and generous perspectives the transdisciplinarity approach can bring to the astronomical education. 1. What does transdisciplinarity really mean? Will try to clarify the distinction among inter-, pluri-, and transdisciplinarity. Transdisciplinarity– TD is a term and a concept largely used today, in many fields and all over the world. Presumably, it is most frequently used in the educational area. Yet, unfortunately, this term is used in various meanings which bring about conceptual deviations, semantical slippings that give rise to dangerous confusions. The most frequent and inconsistent uses of this term and concept, entailing errors in understanding and application – aim at the confusion between inter-, pluri-, and TD, on the one hand; on the other hand, on the relation among them as well. Therefore, we do consider that a minimal updating of the concept of TD is absolutely necessary. 2. TD education –the key for the integral education of the human being. Taking into account the three axioms the TD is based on (the multiples levels of Reality, the logic of the included middle and the knowledge as an emergent complexity) it is obvious that this methodology offers a different new key of understanding the present world. The most important is the fact that the Subject is recovered in the process of knowledge. The “integral education” means in this perspective the education of an integrated human being (mind, body, soul) in order to achieve the inner harmony of the individual and the harmony with the society and the big universe. The TD education seems to be the solution the mankind was looking for in order to solve the complex crisis which the 21st century society is confronted with.As the author of TD – Jean Piaget – claimed, “only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual”. 3. The benefits the TD methodology could bring to the astronomical education. Today the astronomical education must face some major constraints. On the one hand, the information about the cosmos are invading all media channels, on the other hand, young people are not getting, in most countries of the world, systematic education in this field, astronomy being removed from school curricula. Or we need to educate young people in this area, proving its role in environmental protection, its utility to save Earth resources and supplement them with other cosmic ones, in the intellectual development of the child, in fighting against the superstition and pseudo -sciences, in the knowledge of ethnic traditions in relation to a globalized world. We must face the ever decreasing number of hours in the curriculum, simultaneously with the unprecedented diversification of the scientific disciplines, which are already over 8000. In these circumstances, students must be prepared to choose the closest one to their talent and expectations. We believe that, from this point of view, a TD approach on astronomy will help them to face the challenges of modern society. We will point out some arguments for the imperious necessity of changing the educational approach on astronomy in the field of public education. And this major mutation has to be the TD methodology.
