Educating for life: what should also be learned in schools

This week the schools and institutes end the course. At last, students will have the vacations, rest, and free time they deserve. As parents, I encourage you to favor all that and lots of playtime. I do not know if it will be the case of your children, but lately all the kids and teens that I saw early in the morning they looked incredibly tired and exhausted. That is why it is so important that they disconnect and that they regain strength.

I am convinced that many schools and institutes have taught mathematics, language and English. But, How many educational centers have gone beyond the subjects of the program? Don't get me wrong. Math, language, and English are important. However, so is the concept of educating for life. Some say that students go to schools to learn subjects. But I don't think that learning has to stop there.

I believe that schools and educational centers should be places of active learning and experiences. Unfortunately, very few take these concepts into account. I know that the course is over, but I would like to be able to give my opinion on what should also be promoted and learned in schools and the importance of educating for life in the integral development of students.

Debate, reflection and research

Quite a few schools still carry out a traditional model in their classrooms. There are teachers and professors who continue to teach the subjects as they did twenty years ago. The students copy what the teacher says in their notebooks and try to understand him. Many times, there is no room for debate, reflection and research.

I know of first-year ESO students who They do not know how to express their opinion and they do not reflect on or assimilate the content that is memorized. When you ask them different questions than the ones in the book, they don't know how to answer. They shrug and look away. I doubt that they have understood anything of what they have studied. From my point of view, that has nothing to do with authentic learning.

Conflict resolution and mediation

There are some colleges and institutes that have carried out the initiative for a group of students to be the mediators between the problems that may arise in the day-to-day among students. Unfortunately, there are still very few educational centers that do so. But those who have put these measures into practice state that the climate and atmosphere of your classes they have improved a lot.

Students will have to deal with conflicts and obstacles on many occasions outside and within schools and educational centers. But how are they going to do it if they don't know the right tools and strategies? We cannot expect that all the problems that they are going to have throughout their life will be solved by other people and that they will stand still. Therefore, knowing some mediation techniques would be very useful for your future.

Assertive communication, values ​​and empathy

It would be good for all schools and educational centers to place importance on assertive communication and empathy. There are many students who do not know how they can talk to others without their words hurting others. And there are few educational centers that develop and implement dynamics to foster empathy among students. Parents and teachers have to work hand in hand in these aspects and not believe that it is a matter of one party alone.

And I say this because there are many schools and institutes that think that they are not responsible for teaching values ​​to students and that this is a matter for families. And there are parents who hope that the educational centers will give them everything in terms of the education of their children. Obviously, it shouldn't be like that. I agree that the basic values ​​are learned at home, But, at school they would have to reinforce and learn new ones that parents may not be able to teach their children.

Emotional education: always the great forgotten of the schools

For many schools and institutes, emotional education is the great forgotten. Again they believe that learning, managing and identifying emotions has to take place at home and not in the classroom. Some educational centers have implemented the subject emotional education. A subject where children and adolescents can talk about their feelings and learn tools for their management and understanding. But what if students need to express their emotions outside of that subject? Will they have to wait?

Well, I am not very clear about it. Emotional education should be taken into account throughout the school day. For example, children who attend elementary school are still too young to know the self-control of their feelings. If they have had a problem with a classmate or feel bad for any reason, they should be able to express it as it happens and not wait for emotional education time. What do you think?

Now I ask you the following: what do you miss that children and adolescents learn in school and educational centers? Do you think it would be useful to further promote the concept of educating for life for the future of students?