4th Teaching & Education Conference, Venice

LIFELONG EDUCATIONAL CARE OF THE SELF IN THE AGE OF METAMODERN

VICTORIA PICHUGINA

Abstract:

The paper points out that the modern tendency of continuous education presents a special phenomenon: "self-care "— personal care of one’s identity at the edge of the postmodern era changing for the next one. The antique conceptual idea of the man, who cares for his self and takes not only the choice of an educational path responsibly, but also follows it throughout his life, turns out to be close to the modern person who is the subject of pedagogical lifelong-reality. The concept of "a continuous education" corresponds to such concepts and conceptual complexes as "care of oneself", "simulacrum", "pseudo-education" or "quasi-education", "e-learning", "m(obile)-learning", "a learning city". This correlation lets us characterize the modern student (in a broad sense of this notion, who is of uncertain age and out of any time borders) who gains an ability to "learn ways of learning" at school and doesn't lose them during his all life. The experience of understanding and modernization of the antique project of "self-care" in the plane of lifelong education allows to answer a question how it is possible to carry out continuous educational care of oneself during the metamodern era, dictating new understanding of a role and place of education in human life. Orientation to the educational ideal, which appeals to the person’s need in continuing his/her education, creates a problem of real educational life being separated from the educational non-existence with its threat of losing oneself and one’s ability to purposefully search for one’s own "I" by self-discovering, self-development, self-understanding, self-improvement and others. The conclusion is that the idea of the person who is continuously caring of himself through education was developed by antiquity and focuses the modern theory and practice of continuous education on different ranges of "care" for the sake of identity preservation and finding it in the culture.

Keywords: care of the self, lifelong education, e-learning, quasi education, simulacrum

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