PROBLEMATIC EDUCATING

A child always finds himself in an educative situation as the

totality of concerns with which he and an adult have to deal.  During

an educative event, the possibilities of acting momentarily become

actualities when the adult and child participate together in

actualizing the fundamental pedagogical structures.

In a problematic educative situation there are noticeable moments

of aggravation in the relationship between child and adult that have

to be dealt with adequately.   In a problematic educative
event,

indeed there are activities but they are inadequate and it can be

qualified as an event where a child's becoming  adult  is

actualized  inadequately  under  the  guidance  of an adult and on

that basis he  is conspicuous.

That a particular child's becoming adult does not occur as it should

usually is noticeable because on the basis of particular behaviors he

                                   

* South  African  Journal  of  Pedagogy  (1979),  Vol.  13,  No.  1,  183-191.23

becomes conspicuous, especially in the sense that they are not in

accord with what can be expected of him in everyday interactions.

Being rebellious, telling falsehoods, neglecting obligations,

manifesting learning and/or behavior problems indeed make a child

conspicuous.  These symptoms are nothing more than an indication

of a gap between his achieved level of becoming adult and his

presently achievable level.  Also, this is a summons to the adults to

now engage in "special" intervention with him and to help him with

"his problem".

Any practical problematic situation asks for clarification--also

whether there is a founded theory that can serve as a point of

departure.  Thus, for example, Adam did not ask Eve what

problematic educating is but what now has to be done with Cain.

The age-long hit-and-miss intervention with a child in a

problematic educative situation especially is attributable to existing

inadequacies in fundamental notions regarding the phenomenon

of  educating  as  such.

To be able to help a child effectively in a problematic educative

situation, first he has to be understood as a personal actualizer

(Dasein) in his being educatively situated.  Only then can the

educator determine where the educating is "distorted", how the

educative  guidance and under  actualization  of potentialities

have let a child become pedagogically "distorted" and how this

"becoming distorted" possibly can be abolished.