Teaching-Learning to walk and the origin of intersubjectivity

Abstract

Introduction. The article discusses the meaning of education as a key to human uniqueness and a driving force in the process of humanisation, in order to nurture the empowerment of teachers, educators and caregivers; the concept of education is, in the author's opinion, a key to anthropology. Method. Tracing the results of the most recent anthropological research on the main milestones of the process in order to find the most significant elements of this singularity. It is the anthropologists themselves who, in their own publications, are unfolding the humanistic consequences of their discoveries. Results. Standing upright was always taken as the first indication that the process of humanisation was underway. The recent discovery is the firm demonstration that the process of standing was not gene-driven, but was the result of learning, and therefore its expansion was due to teaching behaviour: we always learn to walk in a teaching context. This process anticipated the stone culture by millions of years. Education put human beings on their feet. Discussion. The intersubjective process of teaching and education was thus the main framework in which the evolutionary dynamics of humanisation flourished; the culture of education was the evolutionary energy for the process of humanisation.