The relationship with others is a dimension that gives assets for the future of the school because a new pedagogy of mediation is outlined to make teaching more adapted to the needs of learners and to introduce in the class a link between what the student does and encounters on the outside and what he/she is as a person.

The role of the teacher-mediator is an object of current study and research because the teacher is increasingly supposed to identify the cognitive and behavioral dysfunctions of the students, in order to create the educational tools adapted to the objectives to be achieved. Apart from the transmission of knowledge and his own development, the teacher is therefore responsible for the development of the students. This presupposes adherence to “a certain ideology of humanity and moral values” (Annie Cardinet, 2000, p. 193), to a positive vision of the other’s capacities to assess and develop, to a new position as a teacher-mediator.

The active and nondirective listening of the teacher is close to the “here and now” of Gestalt therapy and mediation insofar as it focuses its attention on the process underway now without systematically returning to the past. If the teacher genuinely wants to pay attention to the immediate experience of the student, paradoxically he will be led to pay attention to himself, his experience and his own person and this, in relation to the other. The relationship is alive when everyone, the student as well as the teacher, dares to ask, give, receive and refuse. The creative relationship implies that everyone can assert themselves while respecting the points of view of the other. (Dr. André Moreau, 2007, p. 75 – 76).

Dr. André Moreau demonstrates that all the discoveries on the effectiveness of communication in therapy or coaching, also occur in several areas of human activity, including teaching where the teacher can be compared to the therapist or the coach and the student to the client. The personality of the teacher, his way of seeing the behaviors of students at school, the communication he establishes with the students, the dimension and the extent he gives to the subject taught contribute to the success of learning.

Playing an intermediary role between the content of the teaching and the person who receives this teaching, the teacher-mediator acts as a catalyst, leading the learner to discover his own learning mechanisms. These mediated situations have a particular impact on the development of intelligence and the ability to learn. However, no master, even an excellent one, will be able to make someone progress, provided that the learner is fully involved in the learning process (Annie Cardinet, 1995). The most immediate result of these educational actions is to restore confidence in students because they are based on listening and respect, and aim at autonomy. The learner regains the right to think, reflect, and the opportunity to use the intellectual means at his disposal. By giving his actions meaning and a goal, the teacher-mediator can include the learner in a social project, empowering him and leading him towards autonomy.

In her book School and mediations, the author Annie Cardinet structures what mediation can bring to education, particularly in pedagogy. It distinguishes between interpersonal mediation (aiming at the construction of solutions in the face of conflicts between people or human groups) and intrapersonal mediation (aiming at the development of the child as an individual, cultural transmission).

The main functions of mediation identified by Annie Cardinet are:

• a communicative function;

• an educational function;

• a function of social regulation;

• a value transmission function;

• the function of preparing for the future.

Mediation gives the teacher the necessary freedom to implement and develop in students: active attitudes (concentration, internalization, communication, projection in time), cognitive skills (classification, organization, planning), social skills (emotional intelligence, human warmth, empathy) that promote learning, understanding and connection. This is the reason why we approach the notion of mediation in relation to the concept of didactic transposition, the objective that we have set ourselves is to determine how pedagogical intervention can simplify scholarly knowledge so that it becomes operational for learners in practice, thus contributing to the progress of their learning.

Bibliography:

Annie Cardinet, „Pratiquer la médiation en pédagogie”, Éditions Dunod, 1995

Cardinet Annie, „Ecole et médiations”, Editions Eres, 2000

Dr. André Moreau, „Psihoterapie. Metode si tehnici”,, editura Trei, Bucuresti, 2007, book translated from French into Romanian by Virginia Brăescu

Author: Virginia Brăescu, Romanian project coordinator