Dear Stanley,

As I see it, children are the best of all that exists all over the world. As such, their education should be taken seriuosly by families, schools, and society at large. Families, schools and society at large should do their best in order to educate children for being citizens of the world and interested in pursuing the true, the good, and the beautiful. Note that the true, the good, and the beautiful are universal categories in terms of structure or their existence, even though what is judgded to be the true, the good, and the beautiful in terms of content varies as a function of time and space.

While educating children, families, schools, and society at large should be authoritative, not authoritarion nor permissive figures. Authoritative figures are demanding in cognitive terms and warm in terms of social relationship and affectivity. Authoritarian figures are demanding in intellectual terms, but cold in tems of social interaction and affectivity. And permissive figures are guided, say, by the slogan "laissez faire, laisser passer, laisser aller" (i.e., "Let it go"). (See, for this respect, D. Baumrind's work on parenting styles).

There is accumulated evidence that shows that authoritative figures foster the child's psychological development, be it cognitive, social, moral, emotional, and so forth, and that both authoritarian and permissive figures hinder such a development.

If it is true that children are the best of all that exists in the world, it is also true that only education can save countries and even individuals from possible collapse, be it violent or gradual. Of course, education is costly, but it is far less costly than its alternative, ignorance. So, a better world is intrinsically related to children's education. The child's education should aim at generating creators and innovators, that is, people who actively understand, reinvent and reconstruct everything they learn, not conformist people, that is, people who passively accept ready made and established truths imposed on them from outside.

In a nutshell, the world of tomorrow will depend, to a great extent, on what we teach to children (i.e., the curriculum issue) and how we teach them (i.e., the pedagogical issue). For example, in contrast to the traditional and conservative methods, in the acitive methods, teachers are more mentors and organizers of learning experiences and situations than simple transmitters of the existing information and knowledge.

I hope I has got your question and that this helps.

Orlando