There’s no doubt that every father and mother wants the best for their children. Education, among other forms of development, is one of the most important issues for a family. Through it we hope to strengthen in children the values learned at home and the knowledge necessary for a full and autonomous life.

Shared values are the basis of the relationships of affection and care that children receive from their families. The teachings of grandparents, the rules and support of parents and the interaction between siblings all contribute to solidifying the role of the family as a safe haven for its members.

Providing children with an education that values family life I believe is a real expectation of most parents.

The problem

Surprisingly, this is not the current proposal in most Brazilian schools. I’ll explain why. What I have observed is how little importance is given to the role of families, especially parents, in relation to children’s development. This occurs subtly, in the imaginary content that the school works with the children, but also in more visible ways, such as in teaching proposals based on social construction, or even linked to political ideologies.

There are schools where family values and the role of parents are not addressed. Both in routine activities and in the imagery of stories and teaching proposals, the school collective takes precedence over the family. Instead of strengthening the basis of the family, schools present “alternative versions” of life in society. For example, contact with nature, community life, thanking the provider “mother earth” are some of the projects that are worked on.

Education for intellectual development

Meanwhile, the role of the mother and father, the family group and the development of that little person are not nurtured in this child’s world. A logic of strengthening the group, the collective, prevails, to the detriment of the formation of the being. Over time, children tend to develop a conception of opposing forces, the family on the one hand and the social group on the other.

This brings us to the second issue: education for children’s intellectual development. I see schools focusing on socialization, collective construction and community life from an early age. Knowing how to get along in a group is important, no doubt. But the basis of everything so that children know how to act in a society begins with cognitive or mental development. Piaget and Kohlberg, scholars of child development, were the first to say this.

In addition, the basis for an education that allows future young people to act with freedom involves the arts that give them the autonomy to be, act and think: grammar, rhetoric and logic. Professor Mortimer Adler reinforces this triad, found in Sister Miriam Joseph’s book The Trivium.

Cognitive growth and perspective-taking

So starting with children’s intellectual formation is the first step. Kohlberg and Piaget realized that once children have passed through the three stages of cognitive development – which includes the ability to establish cause and effect relationships, hypothesize or make analogies – they then begin to develop their perspective-taking ability.

Perspective-taking or empathy (when related to emotions) consists of knowing how to put yourself in other people’s shoes, i.e. being able to perceive the perspective and needs of others. This includes understanding the cause and consequence relationships of actions, which is why cognitive development precedes it.

Growing as a person

The question that must be asked is whether school proposals that value collective construction over the formation of the individual are capable of forming children intellectually so that they can act and think autonomously in the future. In my opinion, there is no worse option for education than to deprive children of this intellectual formation as a human person. I emphasize this point because the focus on the group should be a secondary issue.

What parents are looking for is an education that develops the child as a person, based on ethical principles and that can contribute to intellectual development. One of the possibilities in the early years of childhood is that books and stories can be used to enrich children’s imaginations, but they must still be chosen carefully. It is also enriching to rely on the experience of family members, such as grandparents, with their baggage of wisdom and experiences for the little ones.

Suggestion

I suggest looking at the values and background symbols in the stories presented to the children. They can show the most important values and habits.

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