School’s role in the “Rehearses” for citizenship

Abstract

Considering the studies developed by Hannah Arendt, this article analysis the school’s role in which the school is seen as a ‘rehearse’ for the public sphere. Modernity is characterized by the ascension of the social sphere and the dilution of the distinction that is made between the public and the private realms, just as the Greek and the Romans had experienced it. Therefore, it is relevant to analyze the school’s role in this scenario, since for Hannah Arendt, this is the institution that must enable the transition from the family sphere to the public one. Hence, a relation has been established between natality – as the fact that human beings are born to the world – and education – while situating school in the pre-political sphere. School’s role in it would be to ‘rehearse’ the student to become a citizen in terms of being acquainted with the ‘action’ and ‘tradition’ concepts, crucial for the “new-arrived” to engage in the world that is strange for them and where other adults live in. The school’s main role is then to educate and to teach, and it ends as the individual reaches the adult life and becomes a citizen. Education is supposed to provide the preservation of new beginnings and of the singularity of each child and adolescent as well as allow the ‘rehearses’ for the public life. Once these don’t occur, risks are taken of losing the possibility of renovation of the world and – in the contemporaneity scenario – the public life restructure through citizenship.