A TOOLBOX FOR THE NEW UNIVERSITY TEACHER BETWEEN SOLIDARITY, EDUCATION TO THE COMPLEXITY AND DIGITAL SKILLS

Abstract: Although training young people has been extensively studied, similar attention has not been given to the training of adult learners already active in the contexts of high professional responsibility. In adult education a more active role on the part of the learners is certainly necessary. In practice this would mean the capacity to capitalize on past experience, the need to redefine the learner’s role and finally a dialogue based on exchange and reciprocity between teachers and learners. In order to give greater prominence to the subject, adult education cannot simply be understood as a different and updated version of the "old" pedagogy: the learning dynamics that arise require a different approach, and especially with regard to the type of cognitive involvement at play. In adult training, active involvement by both subjects is a necessary condition for obtaining a positive result. The training leads to a conscious evolution of the subject, especially when it comes to an atypical universe consisting of adults active in the same professional context. Compared to traditional training, which is understood as an intergenerational relationship, training which is implemented in a professional context is undoubtedly an unusual challenge. The traditional model of the University was, by definition, based on a drastic difference between teaching/speaking and learning/listening. This fundamentally dualistic, and practically oppositional model, came to an end when university attendance was opened up to the masses and access was granted to persons outside the university tradition, such as children of non-graduated parents. From that moment on, the teaching style and the ability to involve the learners increasingly became a competitive resource. However, the real turning point that radicalized the need for an effort to upgrade the teaching skills of teachers took place when the mass media - especially television - imposed itself as a form of elementary cultural socialization. Even more significantly, when the Internet required a paradigm shift from the traditional mainstream media to personalized media such as the PC, tablets andsmart phones, the skills of the media audiences, and sometimes their selfconfidence, increased to the point of seeing themselves in competition with the university teachers. In other words, the cognitive differences on the ‘pedestal of the distinction’ between those who teach and those who learn, mentioned by Bourdieu, were reduced. This created a real didactic training emergency: at the time of an abundance of media offers and the reduced prestige of the institutions, teaching became strategic to building the authority of teachers and their recognition.