Competenza come categoria formativa per l'educazione "del"- "al" futuro. Problemi di mediazione didattica Competence as an educational category for education "of" and "to" the future. Problem of educational mediation.

This essay focuses on the meaning and feasibility of educational work, with reference to the “competency-based” approach, in relation to the paradigm of formative “generativity”. The latter indicates that the founding core of any educational intervention – in continuity between formal and non-formal contexts, with a long-life perspective – is to help people develop self-understanding, self-determination,and the potential for action in the face of changing existential conditions, transforming their experiences into experience, what is experienced during learning. The operational implications of the notion of competence are analysed, with the aim of highlighting consolidated interpretative foundations, but also critical junctures, which prompt educators to question and exercise professional discernment. In relation to the possibilities of managing educational interventions from a competency- based perspective, it is necessary to acknowledge the reality of a rather complex semantic area. Concepts such as skills, life skills, and soft skills raise various problems of “teachability”; the notion of “specific competence for lifelong learning” is more closely addressed in terms of theoretical and pragmatic approaches that can support professional decision-making; it essentially refers to the need to support processes of integrated transfer of knowledge and skills, from training to life situations. Three main, intertwined directions of action emerge: a) managing a continuum between simple and complex tasks; b) regulating personal experience and social practices in “protected” and vicarious settings; c) scaffolding activities in a mediated form, fostering transformative relationships between people in contexts, and directed by the educator, with the provision of feedback and educational care, supporting personal reflexivity.