What is education?
The word education can take on different meanings. Among them, it implies talking about habits and values of a certain society, at a certain historical moment, which is transmitted to later generations. In addition to being a part of life in society, education also comprises learning from individual experiences.
The educational process, or education, can also be understood as the intellectual, physical or moral development of individuals with a view to adaptation and socialization. For some authors, education can be divided into: Formal Education and Non-Formal Education. The first refers to school learning, which has clear and specific objectives that are widely known. The second comprises a more diffuse form of education, with fewer hierarchical characteristics. Thus, non-formal education cannot be understood in the progression system, as it is not something systematized. Nowadays, it is difficult to compare the strengths of these two types of education, which often work in opposite directions: one to form and the other to inform.
What is to educate?
In the senses of the word education that we have discussed, educating can comprise both the process of transmission of knowledge, habits and values, as well as creating conditions for the subject experience the world. Educating is monitoring and influencing, in some way, the development of learning, physical and intellectual capacities.
Are parents educators?
Some authors understand that all family activities are educational. To exemplify this idea, we can use the behavior of parents in relation to the behavior of their children. How the parents react or not, teaches the child the consequences of his behavior, even if that is not the intention. Parents are very important in their children's education, as they are responsible for legitimizing or rejecting knowledge and values acquired by children in the civilizing process. Therefore, they play an important role in the child's relationship with the world.
What is the role of parents in education?
Regardless of the action of a conscious will, parents are always participating in their children's education; from the beginning of life, when the behavior of parents can influence the way their children will relate to the world and to people. An example of this is sex education, many parents believe that they do not influence their children's behavior, or, on the contrary, have total control over it. The point is that children's behavior says a lot about how their parents acted on a particular issue. In the example we are discussing: parents who do not talk about the subject, educate to silence. Parents who speak, educate for discussion. This is very different from saying that parents who talk about sex free their children to do what they want, as many tend to believe. Educating for dialogue presupposes that parents have a good relationship established with the object of discussion or, when this does not happen, have the courage to be honest and express limits and disabilities.
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The same happens with regard to formal education, the participation of parents depends, above all, on the relationship that these same parents have with knowledge. Parents who value scientific and cultural training tend to positively influence the relationship established between their children and the learning process. Active participation in the educational process indicates this interest. When parents approach the contents learned at school and show interest, this attitude directly reflects on their children's behavior. The role of parents in the education of their children is therefore an emotional one. It is the weight of the family relationship established with the world, with science, with knowledge and, therefore, so important and determinant in directing the education of children.
Juliana Spinelli Ferrari
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Psychology from UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista
Brief psychotherapy course by FUNDEB - Foundation for the Development of Bauru
Master's Student in School Psychology and Human Development at USP - University of São Paulo