Values education: the responsible use of freedom

Our priorities in terms of ethical values are changing, and education must adapt to this.

Society is currently going through a clear crisis of values. Moral ambiguity is the order of the day and postmodern relativism is stronger than ever, perhaps because of globalization, which facilitates contact and empathy with other cultures, perhaps because of a decline in previously established values, doomed to systematic revision.

Be that as it may, it is no longer so clear what is good and what is bad.. Some values are replaced by others, sometimes contradictory, and the older people are reluctant to change while the new generations are taking everything apart and putting it back together again.

One of the values that has been sweeping the world in recent years is freedom.. Freedom of expression, sexual freedom, but above all, freedom of choice, the right to choose. Many times, this value is questioned from the argument of "the more freedom, the less security", and it is not very misguided.

Education in values and freedom

From the educational point of view, that some citizens were able to regulate themselves, choosing freely each one of their steps and with everything to maintain a coexistence in harmony, is pure fantasy (in all the senses of the word).

However, the reality is there, and half of the thinkers are of the opinion that man is a wolf for man. If we as a society grant too much freedom, there will be those who will use it for their own benefit.This is why we create laws, security forces and prisons, which are still a mechanism to regulate this freedom.

This tension is unsustainable. We cannot on the one hand defend that feminism is to dress as we want, but on the other hand condemn certain forms of dress because they hypersexualize the figure of women, objectifying them. We cannot on the one hand educate our students through constructive learning, and on the other, evaluate their academic performance on a specific numerical scale from 0 to 10.

The way for this new wave of freedom to flow is by, as always by attending, as always, to education in values.. It is true that freedom is the path to optimal functioning in society, but this freedom, this ability to choose, gives us power, power over our lives and power over the lives of our fellow human beings. This can be written in any era: with great power comes great responsibility.

Collective responsibility and ethics

Freedom brings with it responsibility. I can have the freedom to dress the way I want, but act responsibly and choose an option that does not contribute to maintain hegemonic gender values, harmful to my society and at the same time, legitimize another person to choose the other option without judging it.

Responsibility is not coercion, it is not a prison. Responsibility is freedom, it is the ability to choose, but to do so with criteria and reflection.. To choose responsibly is not to choose "correctly" (nothing guarantees us to choose "correctly"), it is simply not to choose lightly, to be aware that what we choose can affect others, just as what others choose can affect us.

That is why we consider it very important to educate in the value of responsibility at an early age, and to insist on it throughout schooling.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 educating them in empathy and other social skills. More than anything else because this era of change cannot be consummated if this value does not have the prominence it needs, and then we will be left 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.