Dr. Etcheverry´s Lecture

On tuesday we had the chance to listen to a lecture given by Dr. Guillermo Jaim Etcheverry, former dean of the UBA and author of the famous book "La tragedia educativa".The topic of his lecture was "To educate in today´s society".His lecture was based of the main themes of his book and it focused on the impact and the current status of education in our country.
He claimed that society has a false system of values and ethics which are opposed to the educational values that the school as an institution teaches.Nowadays, to achieve something we don´t need to push ourselves to make it,because there is this idea that effort is negative and everything can be done and achieved without it. This idea is one of the many features that characterize this era:postmodernism. Maybe the most salient feature of this era is the powerful influence that the mass media has on society.
Nowadays there is a culture of being youth and society seems to praise this model of behaviour. As a result, everything that is attractive to the youth is seen as something positive and it is imposed by society as a lifestyle. To give an example, nowadays everything has to be done quickly, without further thought or analysis, and image is much more important that words. We can percieve this in the classrooms: nowadays, the learning process have to be fun and dynamic to catch students´s attention and to make the process more enjoyable. This way of approaching education tends to weaken the learning process, because it doesn´t build strong structures of learning in the students´s minds, and as a result, they tend to quickly forget what they have just learned.
The school is also seen as a recreative place and in a more direct way, as a "nursery".Parents generally are not so concerned about the education that their children receive but they see this institution as a place where their children are controlled and have a good time.This fact shows that people don´t really care about education, because in a world that changes so fast it doesn´t matter if you know or not.The contents that school teaches as seen as useless and obsolete.Today, educational institution as become nothing more that dealers of degrees and certifications;it is more important to have an official document that recognises and allowes you to perform a job than actually have the knowledge and expertise in your area.As a result, educational quality is poor and the vision of what is really important is modified.
Today the main problem that educators have to face is the student´s lack of interest in the learning process.The way society is structured imposes the idea that the only thing that is important is the present;people live for today and they don´t think about the future. There is also a devaluation of the past and what we can learn from it.By giving importance to the present, we are not building our future and we are not projecting our lives.
Another fact that seems to destroy the educational quality is the misuse of the tecnology in this field.The impact of the Internet tempts educators to just sit their students in front of a computer and to let them manipulate the information.It is true that the Net is an incredible and vast source of information, but using it in this way won´t give good results.To learn something we have to know how to deal with the information; to sum up,students have to acquire techniques and strategies to use information and to learn from it.
The family, as the basic structure of society, pays an important role in education; there´s a lack of respect for the authorithy and the educators in general, which weaken their influence on children and adolescents.Teaching is seen as something that is imposed and the school is considered as a dictatorial institution that oppress students.Parents don´t impose authority to their children and they are allies against the educational institution.Nowadays, the roles are interchangeble and parents are their children´s friends;as a result, they loss authority and respect and they are unwilling to educate them.
It is our responsability as educators and as parents to change these facts and to know that education is of vital importance,because it not only gives skills for a job but it also makes people grow as individuals and shows us what we are capable to do,what we can be.People´s lives is something valuable and education gives us a chance to transcend.