JI dared Antonio Marina performs a very complete interview, especially in its first part in which reflect on education in Spain, in the magazine Jotdown, a new format on the Internet with an elegant black and white that has its continuity in a paper magazine with quarterly and luxury periodicity for its content and presentation.
In JotDown, José Antonio Marina is presented as a intellectual committed to his time who has written about feelings, about intelligence, dignity, human rights, about ethics, education, politics, etc. Marina is the promoter of the University of Parents (Superpadres) and in the generous interview he shares his enormous knowledge on virtually any subject.
Of all the interview I especially highlight the point at which reflect on authority. And, according to Marina, education until a few years ago was based on obedience and the sense of duty leaving out freedom, critical thinking and the claim of rights. He indicates that society was then submissive with students who attended classes, learned and kept silent. Apparently what happened is that both rights and freedom were claimed that a permissive society was reached.
Because, follow Marina, obedience, obedience to the norm, ethical commitment and sense of duty have been forgotten.
We cannot live on rights only if duties are not fulfilled
To return to a state in which these values recover, it is not in favor of recovering the patriarchal, authoritarian system, with religious indoctrination and without critical thinking, Your proposal for change is based on influencing authority rather than coercion or imposition.
The authority explains it as the feeling that is based on excellence. So defend that teachers must earn respect and be recognized by all to recover the commented values of obligation, duty and obedience.
As I say, the interview includes a lot of content although to me the part that I found most interesting is this reflection on the training of students and the need to highlight the role of teachers in education by becoming strong in their authority. Of course, and this is my opinion, I think this approach could be extended and demand that the authority be extended to many other professionals. I also believe that this model does not ensure that all students follow the figure of authority and use it as a reference although it does seem necessary for me to recover values associated with authority such as effort and duty.
