Although I am sometimes assailed by the idea of ​​the desert island—a literary idea because we owe it to Daniel Defoe and his Robinson—with its partial metaphor of retirement and natural living, I am aware that it is a momentary mental escape from trouble. life, life. The reality is that from the moment we are born, we are forced to coexist with multiple individuals and groups that will add honey or bitterness to our personal existence, to the extent that we acquire social skills.

For this reason, although there are actually homes that opt ​​for “home education”, most children join these communities called educational units in order to build themselves as subjects, with all the hardships that entails. Each of us has somewhere in our memory moments from our childhood when our classmates were mocking and even cruel. I made a specialty of my observation: the hidden, humorous damage that fell on the weakest and most insecure of my students. And I fought it rigorously.

However, most of it was the development of camaraderie in teamwork, in friendship, in first crushes, even in the complicity with which the esprit de corps was sometimes clothed. On my campus, all steps of political elections were rehearsed: pre-election campaign, candidate debate, electoral law, announcement of the winner. And since the triumph, the Student Parliament has been carrying out actions to complete the institutional life.

Whether as citizens, in terms of constitutional rights and duties, or as children of God, in religious terms, the social background is fueled by a sense of belonging. In the books on civic education of my time, nationalism was explained as a bond that holds a person to the country, language, history and customs. We are one and many at the same time: others line up next to me to form a huge circle. Or the wall, as Nicolás Guillén’s lyrics say, which are so sung in Cuban trova, a song that gives birth to the idea of ​​unity for defense.

It is impressive that “the other” is everywhere and that in the obligatory joint march we must look for feelings of community and plans for coexistence. Moreover, when the characteristics of today’s life (inequality, injustice, corruption) encourage distance and allow the appearance of low passions. I repeat what network analysts claim: this wonderful medium is used to express hatred, rejection, implacable contempt, more than anything else because it allows masking, the cowardly cry of anonymity. Ecuador is immersed in a cauldron of negativity that leads us to see each other as enemies: the street is a jungle of criminals, the institutions have been taken over by the corrupt, politics is a breeding ground for the mafia that has taken over power.

How will we transform these feelings? When will we confidently go out again on those roads that have woven the history of our city into their landscape? What must happen for the family, school and college to be the links of the best and most effective educational project? In other words, if we are nothing without others, what should we do to turn our face around by looking at others? (OR)