Education in values: the responsible use of freedom

Society is currently going through 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 the contact and empathy with other cultures, perhaps due to a decline in previously established values, doomed to be revised systematically.

Either way, It is no longer so clear what is good and what is bad. Some values ​​are replaced by others, sometimes contradictory, and the most veteran people resist changing while the new generations are disassembling everything and reassembling.

One of the values ​​that has swept the most 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 put into question from the argument of "more freedom, less security", and it is not very misguided.

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Education in values ​​and freedom

From the educational point of view, that some citizens were capable of self-regulation, freely choosing each one of its steps and yet maintain a harmonious coexistence, is pure fantasy (in every sense of the word). word).

However, reality is there, and half of the thinkers believe that man is a wolf to man. If as a society we grant too much freedom, there will be those who use it for their own benefits, even passing over others, for which reason we create laws, security forces and prisons, which are still a mechanism that regulates that freedom.

This tension is unsustainable. On the one hand, we cannot defend that feminism is dressing as we want, but on the other hand, we cannot condemn certain ways of dressing because they hypersexualize the figure of the woman, reifying her. We cannot, 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 for this new wave of freedom to flow, is paying attention, 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 similar. This can be written in any age: with great power comes 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 gender values, harmful to my society and, at the same time, legitimize that another person chooses the other option without judge her

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

It is because of that We consider it very important to educate in 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, train them in recognize those situations in which they enjoy some kind of power that entails that responsibility or educating in empathy and other social skills. More than anything because this time of change cannot be consummated if that value does not have the prominence it needs, and then it will leave us in eternal debates that, not only they will not destroy the established values, but will create in many people the sensation of doing things contrary to their ideals, falling into the malaise known as cognitive dissonance, or making them unable to choose one option or another, falling into the discomfort known as learned helplessness.