Educational values: are they in crisis or are they changing?

There is a crisis of values to which we must react in order not to harm the next generations.

Before the economic crisis exploded in our mouths and overwhelmed political and social agendas, we were fully immersed in two other crises. On the one hand, there was the ecological crisis (it will come and go) and on the other hand we had what was very aptly called the "crisis of values"..

The latter was usually interpreted from the nuance of danger of the word crisis, implying that values were in danger of disappearing, leading us to moral anarchy, and the task was to preserve them. However, let us remember that "crisis" also means "change", and thus also "opportunity", and the next generations could have moral systems and ethical scales that are more perfected than ours.

So... What is happening with educational values? Are they evolving so rapidly that we have not yet noticed their transformation, or are they in the process of dissolving into nothingness?

Educational values and generational change

The most important thing is that prevailing values are not disappearingRather, they are being relegated to the background or are beginning to coexist with new emerging values. A key agent in this process is the rise of social networks, which allow the expression and transmission of certain values normally repressed by the mass media and which favor a process of globalization that implies the import and export of these values.

Therefore, we find ourselves with an infinity of values, all of them legitimate but many contradictory among themselves, which means that the actions and feelings of the same person may not be in consonance, giving rise to cases in which a discomfort known in psychology as cognitive dissonance is produced, and making it very complicated to be politically correct in almost any official or social situation.

This being so, it is difficult not to fall into a postmodern relativism that leads us to the conclusion that everyone and no one is right, and beyond that, into a moral war in which I can admit to being wrong, but I will stubbornly fight to be right.but I will stubbornly fight to defend my values, for that is what I have chosen them for.

Fighting relativism

In extreme cases, the wrongness of certain values is often justified by appealing to human rights. However, from this relativistic perspective, such rights are still the fruit of a consensus dependent on a particular culture and a particular time, which wouldThis would make them arbitrary in the end.

That is why many sectors are pointing to a solution, and that is that we are fortunate to have a whole educational network, with buildings, professionals and politicians fully dedicated to this issue, which gives us an unparalleled opportunity to instill positive values in the young minds that will make up the majority of our population in just 15 or 20 years. We have achieved an education in content and we are on the way to achieving competency education, it may be time to move into values education.

Should values be taught at school?

Analyzing it from a pragmatic point of view, the role of the school is to guarantee to students all those competencies needed in the society they are about to join. that are not ensured by non-formal educational environments. Taking into account the political and social conflicts of the world we live in, we would say that values are indeed fundamental and that they are not working out swimmingly, so, following this logic, yes, it seems that the responsibility falls back on the schools.

The million-dollar question is: what values do we choose? If we do not want to fall into relativism, we must define what are the optimal values for our society? Respect, fellowship, fraternity...? If only it were that easy!

Obviously, we face several problems. On the one hand, values should be defined through behaviors and ideas associated with them, but we cannot be sure that those in charge of defining these values do not do so subject to certain interests, not to mention that inculcating predefined values in malleable youthful minds is nothing less than indoctrination, the dangers of which are evident in the history books. Finally, since we do not control what happens in the schools of other states, we are still not safe from relativism, we are still not safe from relativism..

However, there is a tool for citizens to respond adaptively to their moral environment without falling into interventionism. Being skeptical of the information provided by interested parties, cross-checking it, considering the motives of the parties involved, and asking themselves why they are doing this.In other words, to develop critical thinking.

The importance of developing one's own criteria

Developing critical thinking in our society is vital to educate in values without indoctrination, and education is a tool of incalculable power at our disposal. Perhaps if we begin to follow this path, we will stop seeing the crisis of values as a danger, and we may see less and less conflict in our society.and we may see fewer and fewer conflicts between groups that are only separated by such trivial elements as colors, geographic location... or flags.