Mexico City, November 4, 2022.- As part of the celebrations for the 55th anniversary of the founding of the Universidad Panamericana, the School of Pedagogy also celebrated 55 years as a founding school. To commemorate the celebration, a day of lectures, workshops and panels with experts on educational topics was held.
School of Education
In her welcome message, on behalf of the rector of campus Mexico, Dr. Santiago García Álvarez, Ms. Cecilia Canal, vice rector, said: "at Universidad Panamericana we are celebrating 55 years of our birth and, simultaneously, of the founding of its School of Pedagogy".
"Today we want to recognize those who ventured into this educational project, committing their teaching vocation to the training of professionals and all those who have made it a reality. To those who over the years have kept alive and active the spirit and ideals of those who dazzled the transcendence of forming the best school of education."
The usefulness of the useless in education
The first keynote lecture The usefulness of the useless in educationThe first lecture, given by Dr. Marveya Villalobos, addressed the need to revalue humanism, since humanism has been neglected in the world for several years.
In this way, Dr. Villalobos spoke about the emerging problems of pedagogy today:
- The education of affectivity because today in the context of postmodernity it is exacerbated.
- The century of loneliness, where the person needs to learn from solidarity.
- The attraction of evil, where contents that appear and try to seduce the person are handled (they appear to be good and therefore it is necessary to educate the person on what is good and what is not). "Today more than ever it is necessary to educate in ethical behavior".
- Technology, "today we live the digital whip, that is, submission to the immediacy of technology".
- The urgent need for accompaniment, "that is, to advise, guide, direct and educate people in order to achieve their humanization".
He concluded his presentation by emphasizing "the need to revalue the useless, that is, everything humanistic. We have a challenge as pedagogues, we must educate in a time of change and educate to learn and adapt to change constantly."
Education as a means for social development
The second keynote lecture was given by Dr. José Antonio Meade Kuribreña, academic at Universidad Panamericana and former Secretary of Finance and Social Development. The education as a means for social developmentHe addressed the issue of education of the population and how education is a fundamental right to access better living conditions .
Meade Kuribreña presented various indicators of educational backwardness, such as lack of access to health and poverty and spoke about the direct relationship of these factors and how they impact the population of our country.
In this way he pointed out: "in the country there are five million young people between 15 and 21 years of age who are not in the formal education system; there are at least 44 million adults who have not finished high school and 55 million people living in poverty, which means that without access to education and especially to higher education, the possibility of having basic services in their homes decreases".
The responsibility of the UP
Likewise, he said: "if we manage to make Mexico an educated country, a country with access to high school, a country with access to higher education; to the extent that we educate, we will achieve an inclusive Mexico, we will achieve a prosperous Mexico".
He emphasized that "if we can achieve, in the space of not only one generation, that in Mexico no longer children are born in conditions of poverty and that in one generation we have a country that no longer experiences extreme poverty, we will be successful".
"In this work, Universidad Panamericana has a great opportunity to put at the service of the community, the great experience and the great responsibility of the education that its students have received, an education of excellence and an education that brings with it a call to service that characterizes many of them. I would also like to take this opportunity to wish Panamericana a happy 55th anniversary", he concluded.
The challenges of the pedagogue
During the day there was also a panel discussion with alumni from the School of Education, which included Monserrat Martín, director of Human Resources at Walmart; Carlos Guerra, director of leadership, training and development at the Adizes Institute; and Cecilia Canal, vice rector of Panamericana, moderated by Dr. Mónica Villarreal, director of Education.
At the table, the main challenges facing the pedagogue today were discussed. In this regard, the guests agreed that there are several, including technology and the changes generated daily by the new modalities that the pandemic has brought to interaction, work and learning systems, as well as the implications of disconnecting from reality.
