The American psychologist and pedagogue John Dewey maintained that “education is not preparation for life; Education is life itself.” Education is not a period strictly determined by the years of schooling but rather it is from our own experiences that we acquire tools for growth and transformation, both individually and collectively.
However, the different educational levels (primary, secondary, university or higher) are crucial instances for the transmission of knowledge and knowledge about the world and, also, for the acquisition of tools to face the various challenges of life.
There are several professionals who are responsible for ensuring the fulfillment of this task. The first profile that comes to mind is that of the professor or teacher, and with good reason, since many teachers throughout their professional practice leave a mark on their students as they go through their academic training. However, there are other professionals who, through various interventions, make it possible for the objectives of education to materialize on a concrete level. One of them is the psychopedagogy professional In this article we will develop the role of the psychopedagogue in relation to the challenges of education today.
The role of the educational psychologist in educational contexts
A psychopedagogue can work in different areas (such as health centers, hospitals, companies, public sector, etc.), but in this article we will stick to their role within educational establishments. Therefore, we can affirm that the psychopedagogue is the professional who exhaustively knows the theoretical keys of psychopedagogy – a discipline in charge of studying human behaviors in learning situations and their disorders – and who is capable of put such knowledge at the service of interventions that seek to promote learning in order, ultimately, to ensure greater well-being of the students and the educational community.
Psychopedagogues usually occupy the role of counselors within a school or university. There are different models from which a counselor can intervene in a problematic situation. The notion of intervention refers to the strategies that the professional deploys to respond to a conflict and obtain the proposed results. These are usually three:
The implications of psychopedagogy in current education
The date of incorporation of psychopedagogical offices in educational centers in Spain and Latin America varies depending on the country, but we could agree that a large part of them began in the middle of the 20th century. Nevertheless, The role of the psychopedagogue became even more relevant in light of the challenges of the 21st century Scientific disciplines have in common that the theories they build and the practical programs they develop respond to social demands.
Emotional education: a requirement of the 21st century
In the 21st century, particularly in the last decade, there has been a growing need to learn to manage one’s own emotions, thoughts and behaviors ; all of this as a result of the increasing prevalence of critical mental health disorders in the population. In the nineties, depression was the fourth cause of illness and disability worldwide, but according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2017 it became the first. More recently, also according to the WHO, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide.
Thus, the educational system that has historically focused on enabling and enhancing cognitive development in “traditional” areas of knowledge must shift towards the inclusion of emotional education in the curricula, since it has to be able to provide a response to this type of problems
In particular, young people have difficulties finding healthy forms of emotional regulation. With the aim of calming intense and unpleasant emotional states, children, adolescents and young people have easy access to all types of electronic devices to avoid experiencing their emotions with openness and acceptance. On the other hand, the availability of drugs, substances and addictive behaviors with which to self-regulate is high, and access occurs at early ages of development. This can cause serious consequences on a physical, neurological and, therefore, psychological level.
All these forms of regulation, in the long term, are built from the changes of the 21st century and produce high levels of discomfort in the lives of the people who attend educational centers. So much so that some authors even use the concept of “emotional illiteracy” to refer to the difficulties experienced by young people.
Attention to situations of vulnerability in educational centers
Furthermore, psychopedagogy today cannot be confined exclusively to the acquisition of knowledge, but rather must consider the possibility that there may be students who are in situations of vulnerability, both at a social and family level Therefore, educational psychologists must be able to dialogue with other agents to ensure the well-being of the students and the optimal conditions for attending school or university. Interpersonal conflicts can also undermine a person’s learning—for example, situations of intimate partner violence, gender violence, cases of bullying or cyberbullyingetc.—and the psychopedagogue must be attentive to its prevention and intervention.
