FRANCISCAN PAIDEIA AS A PROPOSAL FOR INTEGRAL FORMATION

Abstract

This article aims to present some considerations about Paideia to highlight, support, and organize its living presence in education. It provides a theoretical approach to the trajectory of educational life and its opportunities, which, in addition to seeking to know and understand the integral development of the human person in the educational field, aims to discover and rescue the construction of a thought that sustains the idea of a ‘Franciscan humanist pedagogy’ not only in practical life but also in the effort to systematize and/or recreate it in written productions. This process should seek to understand the role of Paideia in the integral formation of man, to expand and contribute to Franciscan pedagogy in its ability to go beyond curricular aspects to achieve its ideal of integral and humanistic education. It is necessary for such pedagogy to establish relationships capable of encompassing the development of all dimensions of the human being, whether physical, motor, aesthetic, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, political, economic, or social. The human being that emerges from the formation based on Franciscan education should be courageous enough to embrace risk and creativity and never cease to be noble in the pursuit and creation of beauty, grandeur, and love. The Franciscan pedagogy, stemming from a ‘Franciscan vision of life and the world,’ understands education as transformative, aiming to develop a just, ethical, and conciliatory human being in all educational perspectives.