The vineyard was to become
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
I remember, when I was a child, the teacher we put to read circled in a book of Fables and incredible stories which, if I remember correctly, it was called the treasure of youth. Among them, I remember in particular the following:
A farmer felt it was the time of his death and sent to call his three sons.
-Only let them by inheritance the vineyard where we have worked throughout life and that always has given us to eat. They must promise me they will never make it in era.
The children promised a request that seemed very strange to them without problem. How they will convert the fertile vine in an unproductive era that serves only to thresh the wheat!
Years passed, started the problems and disputes between the brothers and decided to sell the vineyard and distribute what they gained by her. However, they made him swear to the buyer that would never make it in era.
- Not that I was crazy - told - how can I throw my money buying a beautiful vineyard into era.
Soon ended money to the brothers and then were not forced to leave to find work as day laborers. One day, went to the vineyard, full of ripe fruit, and the youngest of the brothers said with nostalgia:
- And think that this vineyard was our...
Then they understood what had wanted them to tell the father does not become the vineyard was.
A similar story has a rich farmer, seeing that it came the time of his death, called his children and said to them:
-Not to never sell the plot I inherited from my father and now I leave it to you. Good to know that, although I do not know the exact location, in its bowels is hidden a fabulous treasure. If they work with dedication and effort, sure that they will find it. When they collect the harvest, remove the Earth above below, without leaving a single span without digging, do a few deep grooves in it to see if they find the treasure.
The father died and children removed with dedication throughout the land. The following year, the harvest was higher than in previous years. And the children understood the wisdom of his father, who had wanted them to indicate that the real treasure is at work.
Oil us accustomed to Venezuelans to live on incomes, rather than work and production, thus convinced us of belonging to a country immensely rich and have the right to a life loose without need to produce or to work. In the shadow of oil rose the politicians and big businessmen who took control of the wealth as if it were a loot. The income was large enough to sustain a democracy on her patronage and limosnera, that was filling all public bodies to battalions of ineffective and parasites. Charges were for services or faithfulness to the party rather than by merits and abilities and most of those who agreed to important positions turned wildly to the more gross sensuality of power, moreover, convinced that he could do so without accountable to no one, because owners of income and not only its administrators considered.
Education also contributed greatly to promoting this mentality because studies assumed and understood as a means to access existing wealth, rather than to produce it and guarantee its fair distribution. The culture of the trash, the waste and the unproductive penetrated forcefully throughout the educational system, from schools to universities.
The country does not support more divorce between education and production. The current education system, root and fruit of a rentier society and subsidized, must give way to an education and to work, germ of a society of producers that generate a culture of productivity and efficiency without forgetting, however, that the man should always be placed above the laws of the market with its organized labor. Education should be understood as a means to give labor, political and human training that generate wealth, ensure its fair distribution, and create the necessary stimuli that link effort and productivity.
This means, firstly, that the school takes seriously the work. Not as a subject or an area, but as a fundamental value and context that permeates throughout school life. To do this, schools must become places where you work seriously, with punctuality, discipline, and is considered a tragedy any loss of time. Take the work as value supposed to also opt for an active pedagogy, focusing on making significant student and not in the word of the teacher who must then repeat the student in exams. The student learns making, building, creating and recreating, manipulating, researching...
Only if the classroom is changing in a workshop where works seriously, organized and cooperatively, where learning outcomes are translated on solutions to specific problems or on products useful and beautiful, the student love work and will be working. Work, far from being a source of nuisance and boredom, if it's a job that makes sense and responds to the interests and needs of pupils, becomes a joyful activity and in the most important medium for growth and personal fulfillment.