Alicia Camilloni; El Saber Didactico

A very brief, curious, and chaotic review of Alicia Camilloni's book, *El Saber Didáctico*, which addresses the rationale for didactics as well as the difference between general and specific didactics. "Why and for what purpose?" a. Different societies with different conceptions of society, humanity, and education have educated according to their objectives. If all methods and all forms were equally valid, didactics would not be necessary. b. As we have stated, if all methods were equally valid, a didactic discipline would not be possible. c. The knowledge taught didactically comes from disciplines with methodologies and epistemologies distinct from the school environment. If we believed that the research methodology should be the same as that of teaching, didactics would not be necessary. d. Content has historically varied according to the context. Each society has determined which knowledge is valuable to teach and when is the appropriate age to do so. If we believed that this discussion is closed, didactics should not exist. e. Although education and training have been democratized, reaching broad sectors, there continues to be a high rate of academic failure, and some privileged individuals achieve higher levels. If we believed that this situation is desirable or irreversible, Then, didactics would not be necessary. f. Some argue that a person's limits are fatally determined by their genetics or their context. If we believed this to be the case and could not be changed, then didactics would not be necessary. g. Evaluation is often regulated and standardized at the national and institutional levels. If we believed that teachers have nothing to do with the process of evaluating what their students have learned, then didactics would certainly not be necessary. h. If we thought that teaching is easy, an intuitive task for which teachers are born with a certain natural talent, if we thought that everything is fine in education or that little can be improved, then building didactic knowledge would be futile and pointless. 1. General Didactics and Specific Didactics. General didactics attempts to respond to the questions raised in Chapter 1 without specific considerations and delimitations such as "age," "establishment," "discipline of knowledge," or "educational level." These criteria will not be "exhaustive," since teaching itself, knowledge, and Society is dynamic; others can emerge at any time. a. By Educational Level: Initial, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, or University. Subdivided into "Cycles" or Years. b. By Age: Children, Adolescents, Youth, Adults, and Older Adults, subdivided according to the classification of the evolutionary life cycle we use, for example, "early childhood." c. By Discipline: Mathematics, Language, and Humanities, achieving great didactic specificity in Literacy, Values ​​Education, or Second Language Teaching, even reaching a second division, according to Travel, Business, Conversational, etc. d. By Institution: Formal Education, Non-formal Education, Rural or Urban School, On-the-Job Training, Recreation, etc. e. By Subject: treatment of learning in war veterans, addicts, victims of trauma, and special needs, differing greatly from case to case, even depending on what has been experienced and what needs or requires; a person with hearing loss is not the same as a gifted person. Didactics of Disciplines; Comenius already differentiated education into Science, Arts, Customs, and Languages. It should be noted that the development of specific didactics was driven precisely by specialists in different fields of knowledge. They are often unrelated; they certainly do not contradict each other, but they are not a tree from whose common trunk branches emanate. They are even asynchronous processes. The general approach is not the universalization of the conclusions reached by the specific approach, and certainly the specific approach is not the particular application of the general approach. We could define the relationship in five theses: 1. It is not a hierarchical relationship but a complementary one. 2. Although it is based on equality and cooperation, they can differ. 3. A relationship of mutual necessity. 4. Specific didactics are not an extension of the discipline itself, but rather a meeting point independent of teaching and discipline. 5. While General Didactics postulates the most comprehensive knowledge possible about teaching, it cannot reach the level of specificity and detail of specific teaching.