ONION: THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE: A METAPHOR FOR THE PEDAGOGY OF PLURIDIVERSITY

Abstract

Have you ever stopped to observe an onion, explore it, get to know it? Generally, we cut, chop, and savor it, but we don't pay attention to its composition and structure. Our intention is to lead the reader to a metaphor: the onion – the fruit of knowledge. What is knowledge if not the overlapping of theoretical and practical knowledge and socio-emotional skills? Of course, we can distinguish the layers, separate them didactically, and this can occur from different perspectives: classroom management; student profile management; school management; people management. The layers, tunics, scales, or cataphylls interconnect. We can analyze them in their particularities, but an onion is not just one of its layers. The choice of the onion for our example is not limited to this issue. Onion is synonymous with diversity. The onion synthesizes interdisciplinary work. Its cataphylls, metaphorically, represent the curricular components/disciplines. They are important in their individuality, but only together are they the onion. Certainly, the onion metaphor can be transformed into the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere, or we could resort to a dozen other comparative situations that elucidate the theme. The crux of the matter is that we understand that the main agent of change is concentrated in the teacher and in the didactic-pedagogical actions that are built daily in the school. Technological advances are evident, and we cannot forget the significant contributions of information and communication technologies, blended learning, and online education (edtechs) to individual learning, but the teacher-student interaction is still a fundamental element for the teaching and learning cycle to be completed efficiently. However, we are not referring to the teacher as an individual, but to the educational organism that shapes the school.