III APDE Congress: families involved, families inspired
The III International Conference APDE Inspiring Families that took place in Guatemala City has hosted different presentations about family and education. A sample of how good schools not only care about the academic training of their pupils, but the integral of each of the people who step in their classrooms.
The formation of parents is now more necessary than ever because families who wish to educate their children in the virtues know that they struggle against the current. He also knows Carlos Melgar, executive director of APDE, who took advantage of the scenario of this International Congress to kick off a project that will support many initiatives: the signing of the first agreement that brings together the colleges of Differentiated education in Central America. Committed to good education, this pact was signed by organizations from El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala with the presence as a witness ALCED Mexico, to join ALCED, (Latin American Association of Centers of Differentiated Education).
My brain is not your brain
Precisely from Mexico participated in the Congress Enrique Berrueta, that delighted a public delivered with an illustrative talk about the differences between men and women from the point of view of neurology and what is the application of this knowledge in the field of education.
In an interesting speech full of examples of scientific research, Berrueta was able to show the audience how the neurological differences in the brains of men and women they determine that they behave differently from the stimuli they receive. A full knowledge of this reality helps to direct the educational model aimed at boys and girls in a different way depending on how they know, what capacities they have more developed.
One of the experiments he showed referred to the different ability to face multiple tasks. While women optimize time and develop tasks in parallel, men need to start and finish each of them to address the next.
He also referred to aspects such as the link in the brain of the woman between words and feelings, a link that is not so powerful in the male brain. That causes that the action in the man is more direct, not conditioned by other elements, not in the woman.
Sexuality, the maximum unity of marriage
Tomás Melendo, Professor of Metaphysics and Academic Director of the University Master's Degree on the Family at the University of Málaga, delved into his presentation at the roots of the sexuality lived in marriage, in how the couple participates decisively in a creative project.
But before going into matters of greater philosophical significance, he stopped at anthropological elements. He explained, for example, how in the simple gesture of a hug, the man and the woman are already complementing each other. One 'invites' the other to 'enter' into their personal space. From this point he was developing how "sex is at the service of love; otherwise, it does not work. "And precisely because it is a conscious love, Professor Melendo showed how authentic love lies in the will. The thesis with which he concluded his presentation was that "sexuality is a wonderful means to awaken, mature, consolidate, increase and make fertile the love between a man and a woman".
Educate from everyday life
María Solano Altaba, director of Thisfamilywelove and a professor at the CEU San Pablo University, in Spain, she is convinced that in the small gestures the great lessons are enclosed. We parents must be prepared - to be trained, to read a lot of didactic material, to attend talks and exhibitions organized by educational centers - to work on education of our children at any time of the day
If we reduce the area of educational work with our children to a handful of specific moments like the occasions in which we give them a speech or we have become angry with them, we not only arrive late to the educational challenge, but also we have lost thousands of opportunities that daily life gives us. Virtues such as strength, the ability to resilience-adapt to the circumstances-or aspects as important as self-esteem are enhanced in the small details of day to day.
The other risks of social networks
Kidnappings, rapes, pornography, pedophilia, harassment, robbery ... these are some of the risks that the network of networks puts before our children. They hide serious crimes, frightening situations that parents want to flee from. But if we stop to study the figures, we will discover that, fortunately, these terrible risks are a very small percentage threat. And yet, we pay you enormous attention.
But there are other risks that are silently attacking the personality of our children, risks that will configure who will be older, how they will behave, to which we must be much more alert. They are the other risks of the internet, those that have to do with the virtues and the vices and defects that our children develop. María Solano explained what some of these challenges are to the digital world.
Among the elements on which we parents should set ourselves, he talked about digital friendships, and how we should promote and facilitate having real friendships. He also mentioned the problems of self-esteem generated by the "like" effect, the obsession with recognition in social networks. And he spoke of the difficulties that young people find in accepting that their real life is not necessarily interesting in the virtual world and they can not create a fictitious life, because they will feel frustrated.
Laura Campos
