Education in values: the responsible use of freedom
Society is currently experiencing a clear crisis of values. Moral ambiguity is the order of the day and postmodern relativism stronger than ever, perhaps because of globalization, which facilitates contact and empathy with other cultures, perhaps because of a decline in previously established values, condemned to Check systematically.
Either way, it is not so clear what is good and what is bad . Some values are replaced by others, sometimes contradictory, and older people are reluctant to change while the new generations are dismantling everything and reassembling.
One of the values that most devastates these last years is freedom . Freedom of expression, sexual freedom, but above all, freedom of choice, the right to choose. Many times, this value is put into question from the argument of "more freedom, less security", and is not very misguided.
- Related article: "Educational psychology: definition, concepts and theories"
Education in values and freedom
From the educational point of view, that citizens were able to self-regulate, freely choosing each of their steps and yet maintain a coexistence in harmony, is pure fantasy (in all senses of the word).
However, the reality is there, and half of the thinkers think that man is a wolf for man. If as a society we grant too much freedom, there will be those who use it for their own benefits , even going over the neighbor, so for that we create laws, security bodies and prisons, which do not cease to be a mechanism that regulates that freedom.
This tension is unsustainable. We can not on the one hand defend that feminism is to dress as we wish, but on the other hand to condemn certain forms of dress because they hypersexualize the figure of women, reifying it. We can not, on the one hand, educate our students through constructive learning, and on the other, assess their academic performance on a specific numerical scale from 0 to 10.
The way this new wave of freedom flows, is attending, as always, to education in values . It is true that freedom is the way to optimum functioning in society, but this freedom, this ability to choose, gives us power, power over our life and power over the lives of our fellow human beings. This can be written at any time: all great power carries a great responsibility.
Collective responsibility and ethics
Freedom brings responsibility . I can have the freedom to dress as I want, but act responsibly and choose an option that does not contribute to maintaining hegemonic values of gender, harmful to my society and, at the same time, legitimize that another person chooses the other option without judging it.
Responsibility is not a coercion, it is not a prison. The responsibility is freedom, it is the ability to choose, but to do it with judgment and with reflection . Choosing responsibly is not choosing "correctly" (nothing guarantees us to choose "correctly"), it is simply not choosing lightly, being aware that what we choose can affect others, as well as what others choose. It can affect us.
It is because of that We consider it very important to educate on the value of responsibility at an early age , and insist on it throughout schooling.
It is crucial to teach students to ask themselves what they can do to achieve their goals, to train them to recognize those situations in which they enjoy some kind of power that entails that responsibility or to educate them in empathy and other social skills. More than anything because this time of change can not be consummated if that value does not have the prominence it needs, and then it will leave us in eternal debates that, not only will not end with the established values, but will create in many people the feeling of doing things contrary to their ideals, falling into the discomfort known as cognitive dissonance, or making them unable to choose one option or another, falling into the discomfort known as learned helplessness.
