The Pedagogy of Presence with Disconnected Students

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A 2018 study by Kushlev and Dunn revealed that parents’ smartphone use affects the time they spend with their children and the quality of their psychological and relational interactions. This happens because these devices provide continuous access to multiple stimuli, leading to constant competition for attention.

The authors explained that “by impairing the quality of attention, greater phone use made parents feel less socially connected; beyond its effects on attention, this suggests that distraction plays a central role in the configuration of the relational experience.”

Although this study is several years old, its findings are still valid. For example, an article published in Forbes warns that parental distraction from the use of smartphones can be related to higher levels of anxiety in children, as well as changes in their behavior, emotional state, and academic performance.

Accordingly, the problem lies not in the technology itself, but in how it interferes with attention and, therefore, with the possibility of building meaningful relationships. In an environment saturated with stimuli, managing attention becomes a fundamental condition for sustaining bonding.

Parental emotional availability is perceived through cues such as eye contact, active listening, and immediate response. When these signals are repeatedly interrupted, the child may infer that they are not a priority or that the relationship is unstable.

Children need continuous interaction to develop emotional, social, and cognitive skills, as key processes such as emotional regulation, empathy, and language are built in these contexts. When these interactions are disrupted, changes in behavior may occur, such as increased irritability, increased attention-seeking, or difficulty with self-regulation.

In addition, children learn through observation. This means that if they grow up in environments where screens continuously mediate attention, they may internalize this pattern as a normal way of relating.

This dynamic of technological distraction is not limited to the family environment. This phenomenon, which occurs everywhere, demonstrates how fragmented attention transforms the quality of interpersonal relationships. As in the family context, distraction, weakening, connection, and a diminishment of shared experience in the educational environment, where students are physically present, result in students feeling disconnected from what they are learning, from those who teach them, and from their own processes. A growing emotional, cognitive, and relational disconnection in learning spaces is becoming increasingly evident amid digitalization, artificial intelligence, and unlimited access to information. This feeling of disconnection and isolation affects not only the early stages of development but also has lasting effects. How bonding is built or weakened in childhood directly influences how students relate to learning later in life.

When attention is fragmented from an early stage, bonding becomes intermittent, and the shared experience loses depth. It is not surprising that, in educational contexts, many students are physically present but emotionally disconnected. In this sense, what we observe in education is not an isolated phenomenon but the continuation of a pattern that began much earlier.

Existential isolation, loneliness, and the need for attention

One concept that allows us to delve deeper into this problem is existential isolation. Unlike other forms of loneliness, this type of seclusion does not necessarily depend on a lack of social interaction, but on the impossibility of fully sharing one’s experience.

Fairlamb and Biçaço discussed this issue in their paper Feeling Alone in Your Academic Journey: Examining the Educational Implications of Existential Isolation, where they point out that learning cannot be understood solely by performance indicators or the accumulation of knowledge, but must include other factors that play a central role in student well-being.

The same authors explain that “existential isolation refers to the perception of an unbridgeable gap between oneself and others, that is, to the subjective feeling that a person’s inner world cannot be fully understood or shared by others, which generates an experience of detachment.”

From their perspective, “a sense of community is fundamental to well-being and academic success in higher education. Students who do not develop a sense of belonging and who experience persistent loneliness face greater risks of lower engagement, poor academic performance, burnout, and even dropping out of school.”

Today’s education requires not only learning more but also doing so faster, in multiple formats, and under conditions of constant stimulation. Priority is given to content, indicators, and results over concrete experience.

This panorama shows that the problem is not reduced to the presence of technology or the amount of information available, but to a deeper transformation in how relationships are built and how the educational experience is understood. Fragmented attention not only interrupts moments of interaction but also undermines the possibility of forming meaningful bonds, sustaining a sense of learning, and building a shared experience.

In this context, responses that focus solely on tools, methodologies, or efficiency are insufficient. More than optimizing processes, the challenge is recovering what makes learning possible: relationships, attention, and presence in encounters with the other.

The importance of the Pedagogy of Presence

Antonio Carlos Gomes da Costa published a 1995 book titled The Pedagogy of Presence, in which he proposed transforming how we understand education. Far from conceiving the learning process as purely technical and focused solely on the transmission of knowledge, he treats interaction as an important part of education.

For Gomes da Costa, “being present in the life of the student is the fundamental pillar of educational action aimed at the adolescent in situations of personal and social difficulty. Presence is the central concept, the key instrument, and the main objective of this pedagogy.”

The author seeks to change how the student is perceived: the student is not merely a vessel for acquiring knowledge; rather, he is a subject with history, context, and possibilities. From this perspective, educational intervention does not focus on correcting behaviors or filling gaps, but on building a relationship that enables the student to recognize himself, engage, and find meaning in his own process. This goes beyond being physically present in the classroom; it implies listening and a social commitment.

Presence and bonding between the teacher and the student are not a gift; they are an inner disposition that implies openness, sensitivity, and commitment to the other, distinguishing between a superficial presence and an authentic one. Superficiality implies not becoming involved with students, only fulfilling the role; an authentic presence means being part of the students’ experience and paying attention to them.

For Gomes da Costa, the pedagogy of presence explains that the first task of educators is to observe, not in an evaluative way, but as an act of genuine attention to their students’ reality, perceiving what happens to them beyond their academic performance: do they relate well to others? What worries them? Do they have trouble learning? What disconnects them from the class? This attention recognizes the student as someone with a history and context that directly influence their learning process.

Moreover, the teacher must listen beyond the answers; this means recognizing emotions, silences, participation, and how all of this communicates something. Attentional listening and understanding what the student says matter and should be part of the educational process.

Hence, Gomes da Costa notes that the educator must build a bond, since this relationship is not a secondary element or a means of achieving other objectives, but rather the space where learning occurs. Building trust, showing genuine interest, and maintaining a consistent presence help the student feel recognized.

The educator does not direct through imposition but rather accompanies, meaning being present in the student’s process without replacing or completely controlling them. It is not a matter of giving all the answers, but of creating conditions so they can arrive at them on their own. This means respecting their rhythms, acknowledging their difficulties, and sustaining the process even when there are no immediate results. Accompaniment, in this sense, is an active presence that enables meaningful learning.

Finally, for Gomes da Costa, the educator is an empowerer. This means that their gaze is not focused on the student’s shortcomings or deficits, but on their possibilities. Instead of focusing on what is missing, the educator looks at what exists and can be developed. This shift in focus is fundamental because it transforms the educational relationship: the student is no longer seen as a problem to be corrected but as someone with the capacity for growth. Empowering implies trusting the student, even when the student himself does not yet trust.

This approach not only transforms the way the teacher relates to the student but also allows for a rethinking of the problem that contemporary education faces. When the bond is weakened, the educational experience loses meaning, and when attention is fragmented, the relationship becomes superficial. Thus, Gomes da Costa’s proposal is not merely a theoretical reflection; it offers a concrete way to address a problem that cannot be explained solely from a technical or methodological perspective.

What at first seems like a simple distraction, a parent looking at their phone while present with their daughter or son, actually reveals a deeper insight into how they pay attention and build human relationships. As Kushlev and Dunn showed, it is not the device itself that affects the experience, but how parental use fragments attention and weakens the bonding with their children.

This same logic extends to the field of education. Students are physically present but do not engage because their educational experiences lack connection or meaning. In this context, the problem is not only technological or methodological, but relational. The loss of attention is, in essence, a loss of presence.

This scenario means that the pedagogy of presence proposed by Antonio Carlos Gomes da Costa has become urgently needed. Recovering the ability to observe, listen, bond, and accompany implies returning education to its most human dimension. It is not a question of eliminating technology or returning to the past, but of repositioning the essential: the relationship as a condition for learning.

Thus, the challenge is not to find new tools, but to recover the ability to be present, something that seems simple, but is deeply complex in the current context. Bonds are formed through authentic presence, enabling learning to acquire meaning and education to finally occur.

Translation by Daniel Wetta