Life has, in fact, become a vehicle driving on autopilot. We are immersed in a daily marathon where only victory matters to us. And, almost always, our own victory—never that of others. Parents teach their children to prepare for life’s struggles. Friends are always complaining that the daily grind is complicated. Businesspeople complain about the struggles of business, and so, everywhere we look, we hear how fast-paced everything has become.

The fact is, there is no single culprit responsible for the fast pace that has been imposed on our lives. Perhaps there are several culprits. But without knowing who the culprit is, we have little chance of defeating it. Blaming capitalism for everything does not seem appropriate or wise to me at this moment. Nor does blaming the family. The culprit here is an undefined entity.

What we know is that if we keep going this way, there will be little left of us for the next stage. Doctors point to the toll that a hectic lifestyle takes on our health. Psychologists warn of the ills of the modern age linked to mental well-being. Religious leaders preach the return of the Savior, who will need to be seen and heard. However, all of this will require time and reflection. This is where school comes in.

School is responsible for this frantic pace of life at 200 km per hour. For children and young people, school is the first physical space for social interaction outside the comfort of their homes. School is where a child first encounters conflicts arising from differences—differences in choices, values, and the passage of time. It is at school that a child discovers that their sense of self is not yet complete.

It’s at school that one or more teachers will tell the child, “That’s not good. That’s not what I asked for. Do it again. Get ready to make something of your life. You’ll be taking a college entrance exam soon, and you need to prepare for it. The working world expects people who are ready and prepared for challenges”—and so it goes.

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There is so much information about the future that it is at school that a child discovers it is impossible to live in the present. “You have a test tomorrow—study.” “You have an assignment due next month—get it done.” “Next year you’ll be studying such-and-such,” they go on. These are yet more projections of the future that show just how much school ignores the present and projects life into a future that never arrives.

Fathers and mothers, friends, and close relatives also discuss these and other issues with children, but it is the school that engages in extensive dialogue, talking about them every day and across different subjects. The school has the privilege of spending at least four hours a day talking with students. It is this frequency and intensity that, over the course of a school year, gradually builds layers in a developing individual.

The fact is that as the years go by, by the time students reach adolescence, the school system has already piled so many layers upon them that it is highly unlikely they will emerge unscathed. If these layers consist of limitations, stagnant guidance, and, above all, absolute certainties, this will cause irreversible damage to the development of children and young people. I say this because the famous “windows of opportunity” for brain development will already have been lost by that point. Childhood will already be behind them, and dreams and utopian visions will certainly have given way to the cruel reality of life.

Children and young people learn very early on that there is no time to waste. Dreaming is a waste of time. Imagining is a waste of time. Listening to music and watching TV is a waste of time. Playing is a waste of time. And, little by little, by talking about it, reading about it, and writing about it, schools and their teachers continue to displace life and replace it with brutality, money, haste, competition, rivalry, and networking.

It turns out that when all of this happens in large quantities, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way, it leads to the loss of human dignity. The child loses their visibility. The young person becomes nothing more than a nuisance to society, and creativity dies. Thus, the possibility of new discoveries and of new minds thinking outside the box also dies.

Schools must once again become factories of dreams and, in doing so, restore the dignity that has long been lost. The dignity of those who think and are allowed to think. The dignity of those who demand accountability and are granted the right to do so. The dignity of being different and of accepting and living alongside those who are different. Without knowledge, prejudice and ignorance grow. Without knowledge, the distances between people grow. Without spaces for thought and dissent, fundamentalist philosophies take hold—philosophies that oppress, hurt, and strip away what little remains of human dignity. The greater our knowledge, the greater the chances that a society will become pluralistic. We are as diverse as the universe itself.

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