The Language in the Classroom. An Invitation to Think with Social Psychology

Abstract

In the conventional educative practices, the language usually is conceived as the vehicle of thought, as what takes the private to the area of the public. This is the idea that has dominated the educational framework, guiding the work inside and outside of the classrooms since a long time ago. With it as a permanent reference, we discuss the importance of addressing the language as a social practice in the classroom, not as a translator of thought but as the thing that creates it. Suggesting that, if the language does things, when using it in other ways in the classroom other possible worlds discern. The proposal is to make Athenian agoras out of the classrooms, places of intense collective discussion -for the sake of the oxymoron-. Understanding that the language produces the thought, and starting from the controversial nature of the social life, when teaching students how to discuss in the classroom, we would also be teaching them how to think in an argumentative way.

Translated by Rafael Guzmán de Luna