A great example of authentic pedagogy today is teaching students about "real life." How does this work?

Well, instead of learning square roots and multiplication of fractions in math, students will learn stuff that they will actually use throughout their lives, such as data analysis, which is the case today with the enormous growth of digital work.

Or in more social, moral, and philosophical issues, a problem will be presented for the students, and they will work on their own to find the solution. This is also called democratic teaching, according to Rousseau. "Don't tell the students anything, let them find the answer": this would be the line of thought of democratic teaching.

More than that, today we have a variety of manual work done in schools, such as crafts and the creation of small electrical appliances, to teach students both the theoretical and practical aspects of things. It would be a "hands-on" education, also called experimental education.

And speaking of experimental education, authenticity seeks this need for experience. After the student leaves school, what will he have experience in? Memorizing all the parts of a cell or creating an excellent curriculum with all the experience developed in school life?

In addition to all this, there is a certain "passivity" in relation to pressuring the student to achieve results. Neill argues that students should do things in their own time without being forced to do anything. This line of reasoning is also supported by Tagore, who states that discipline kills authenticity.

Although today we work a lot with authentic activities, the classroom model is still discursive, not promoting dialogue between students, forcing them to work individually, unlike the architectonic model. Activities today are still based on the socio-cultural model. Perhaps we should be a little far from evolving into intersubjective activities, thus igniting the fire within the student to awaken their interest in the activity.

People are different and learn in different ways, so we must be cautious with didactic education, so that students do not experience a kind of globalization, or to use a better term, "integration": Everything is the same for everyone, without authenticity and difference, as if everyone were the same. Authentic education values ​​the student discovering the truth, and not being informed about it. "Understanding is not what I've been told, but my own internalized figuring out".

In the end, all that authentic education wants today is the active participation of everyone as citizens of a society. However, it may not fit into some contexts due to its disadvantages: it is an open door to relativizing the truth because its teaching lacks objectivity. The other problem could be the inequality.

Which one is better, after all? Didactic or authentic? There is no definite answer to this, but you can give your opinion: which one is better for YOU?