To Instruct Means To Give Options: To Inform So That We Can Choose

One of the most beautiful, necessary and important tasks for our society is, without a doubt, education. All of us, whether directly or indirectly, have to do with the education of future generations. However, have you ever wondered what the real goal of education is?

Today’s education system still leaves much to be desired, at least in terms of values ​​and personal acceptance. Students are taught to follow rules that promote competitiveness and automatism, which boycott creativity.

As for the meaning of teaching and what it means to instruct, it is clear that there is still a lot to learn and, above all, to question : what is the meaning of teaching? Why do we just prepare students to pass exams? Do the teachers have a background that allows them to teach pupils to learn or simply to memorize and reproduce information, without having to think about it?

Instructing to learn to live

Whether as parents or as teachers, we have a great responsibility to offer an education that favors the abilities of the little ones, always taking into account their individuality, their pace of learning, their temperament and their peculiarities and difficulties.

Instructing to achieve individual freedom consists in promoting a process of self-knowledge, to allow the mind to move away from the limits that it sets itself, due to the need we feel for security. Education helps to understand the causes of fear, to help children not to become fearful adults.

Education gains value when it offers the opportunity to learn to live : learning to choose between the possibilities and options that are presented to us, learning to question and filter the information we receive, learning to free ourselves from the desire for reward that is source of fear and conformity.

Promote freedom, creativity and independence

To find the meaning of education, it is necessary to move away from the educational model that prevents the development of critical and independent thinking. Education makes sense when reasoning and questioning pre-made ideas are promoted and encouraged.

The role of educators is to strengthen autonomy, to help young people have more self-confidence and so that they learn to manage themselves responsibly and without difficulty. As for the academic part, it is necessary to promote the ability to reason: to help them study the problems in their entirety, so that they are able to put their solutions and personal criteria into practice.

All children have different talents and potentials, which can be linked to intelligence in different areas. The idea of ​​multiple intelligences, which psychologist Howard Gardner tells us about, helps us to understand that there is no one person smarter than another, but that the types of intelligence we develop are different.

Contrary to what this idea supports, the current educational system favors and promotes specific intelligences, diminishing and forgetting all the others. This not only penalizes children, but is also negative for society, which deprives itself of the possibility of knowing incredible talents that remain hidden because no one has stopped, not even for a moment, to look for them.

As for education and its link with creativity, Ken Robinson argues that “educators waste it mercilessly” and that they flee from it because valuing and promoting it, in most cases, implies an immediate surcharge. In this way, innovation is limited in order to encourage repetition, promoting the fear of making mistakes or making mistakes.

Correct education will set us free

Proper education must move away from political conveniences, economic interests and manipulation aimed at taming people and turning them into automatons, without any motivation and meaningless in their evolution, anchored to conformity.

For education to make sense, we need to help young people find their vocation, their motivations and their interests. The goal is to accompany them, push them to face a process of discovery and self-discovery that respects and identifies their particularities, those that, when enhanced, can make them unique. Furthermore, it is not only about developing their potential, but also helping them to build a new social order, giving them the ability to create new forms of life.

Both professors and parents have the opportunity to offer an education that fosters freedom. It is in our hands, we are responsible for creating a new society that is more tolerant, respectful and committed. A society that takes into consideration not only the reasoning, but also the affective and emotional side, a holistic and integral vision of the individual.