The Success of Apprenticeships

26Paradigm Shift: All Learners

Science is what the father teaches his son. Technology is what the son explains to his father.

Michel Alberganti, 2001

26.1. Introduction

The top-down manager–student relationship has always been the mode of transmission of predominant knowledge¹, but at the end of the 20th Century, this practice began to be challenged. Indeed, a major paradigm shift has shaken the modes of representation on which our societies have operated for millennia: paternal power existed under Roman antiquity, and this symbolic role of fatherly power has continued to be perpetuated to this day in all social relations. These changes are of the same order as those highlighted by Jack Goody (2007), when the birth of writing contributed to the advent of Neolithic societies that allowed the emergence of empires.

As Jacques Lacan proclaimed: “Without a father, no point of reference, no place among my peers?” If traditional points of reference are challenged because they are obsolete, a situation that generates fears, anxieties and worries, today’s world must create new points of reference, different from traditional ones. These are new and completely different relational forms of relationship on which these new points of reference will be constructed. These are democratic modes between adults. This requires people who know how to recognize each other. To do this, it is necessary for everyone to respect the other. This requires entering into modes of discussion and having ...