EDUCATION FOR LIFE

My mum works as a teacher. She uses to say that when she was little, children were not allowed to do as many things as current young people do. She insists on the fact that they all had a better education, coming from school but also from their own home. In this aspect, they had to cope with life abruptly, in a single-handed manner with no much help, so they could develop themselves into accomplished human beings. The polemics about education have always been there; it is true that falling back on the old way of  education is not an accurate solution, but, in my opinion, there are several points which should be dealt with in order to improve our current educational system.

Firstly, talking in a school context, I would somehow change the way of teaching. For example, I would not guide students just to memorize the content to “throw it up” in the exam, because there is no retention of information, and the process turns to be so useless. It is scientifically evidenced that children work better if they interact with the teacher and elaborate their own information, thinking and understanding every single reason of the matter. Actually, Finland´s educational system is based in this idea, and that is why their students obtain such great results in PISA and other surveys.

Then, talking in a familiar context, children should be in a general way more controlled. The trouble-maker or disturbing pupils are usually those children who have not been imbued with some sort of essential values (such as respect to other people, prudence or empathy) at home. One of the most remarkable reasons is that current parents do not want their children to be sad or to be angry with them, so they spoilt them (buying them unnecessary whims, allowing them to do whatever they want...). Then, children who are able to enjoy these privileges do not usually value the effort of other people, and often act in a careless way with everything else which does not include them. 

To sum up, I would like to say that we must educate our children just in the way we would like to have been educated, thinking about the future of the children and about the importance of a proper way of thinking or acting in every aspect of life. As a clever man once said: “Education is the main pillar of society”