Alternativa-comfrontación entre escuela y sociedad

In the «new society» which is being formed in a permanent and accelerated manner, there exists a series of problems that affect the economical, juridical, polítical, social, religious, educational and technical aspects of the world. We do not howeVer always find «answers» or «solutions» while considering each one of these aspects. Significantly, the very topic of «schooling» is affected by a «silent» revolutionary process based upon an ideological view which on a middle-term basis -which nontheless suggests short-term incidences- results in an «abduction» of the individual personality of the human being, as well as «pressure» in favor of particular models of a specific society. , On the other band, modem societies are ' found to be indifferent to, or lacking of transcendental ethical values, with religious essences being replacer by rationalistic constructions of a Humanism which does not find itself firmIy anchored by moral roots. For this reason, precisely, the family -at least so far- constitutes the most positive factor in the face of these borderlíne situations found in the new society. The f8miIy in itself constitutes a School. Curiously enough, in Third-world countries, on a pedagogical level the family is called upon -sought- to find anew its proper place, since even the finest techniques or pedagogical systems,. or the most refined school plan, always find the urgency or necessity for that educative redoubt, the ,family, precisely as the foundation where . the first values or virtues which later will hace to be exercised with sufficience in society are placed. All this, naturally, far from the phenomena of rupture, crisis, or familial or juveni1e emancipation. Three questions seem to us to be of fundamentalimportance. W hat do we wisb the new society to be like? WhtJt will tbe new society actually be like? Why and what fo, this newsociety? These questions, in one way or another -regardless of whether we are dealing with a cosmological, anthropological or theocentric vision of Man anP society- have been answered historically. J'he great' philosophers, from Plato to Marx, from Thomas Aquinas to Montesquieu or Hegel, from Saint Augustine to Martin Luther, have been, in a true sense or at least through motivation, pedagogues. The matter rests in the fact that now concrete educational approaches have been perturbed by polítical or ideological leanings, or are caukht up in the whirlwind impulsed by the technological and business world, as processes of socialization, mechanization or of productivity . If the answers to the topic of the School were to come from society itself -parents, students and teachers- the difficUlties would be reduced, since a free and responsable «co-participation», free from partisan meddlings, would stiniulate , energies and risks. In this sense, '«eduCational commwiities», in the broadest meaning of the term, are one of the most appreciated hopes facing the new society