The Education of character financial aid to prevent harmful behaviors common among young people today such as consumerism -the obsession for the new- and digital addictions. This was stated by Pedro Luis Barcia, former president of the National Academy of Education of Argentina and the Argentine Academy of Letters. He made these statements at the framework of an international congress organized by the University of Navarra at partnership with Universidad Austral (Argentina) and with funding from the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

In his opinion, digital addictions jeopardize the ability to have an intimate life and, therefore, the development of identity. They also generate, according to him, a habituation to unreflective response: "The polarity of 'Like-Dislike' leads to the death of nuance and, therefore, of thought".

Professor Barcia stressed that the Education of character "unifies the competencies that give fullness to the person" and "gives a warm attachment to our different veins: moral, emotional, coexistence...". For this reason, he demanded that it be present "in the pedagogical reality of classroom, not only in the official statements of the laws".

Incarnate the Education of the character in concrete axes.

He regretted that many educational systems declare it as a transversal axis, because in his opinion this makes it difficult to "bring it down to reality in concrete applications". According to Barcia, agreement , this "means leaving it in the hands of teachers, which is insufficient because it is at the mercy of their sense of opportunity to incorporate it into the program and their didactic sense of how to do it.

In view of this, he proposed that "the teaching of this nature shouldbe real, incarnating it in concrete axes" to avoid "remaining mere theory".

Pedro Luis Barcia pronounced these words during the closing lecture of the international congress 'Education of character in Latin America: challenges and opportunities', which took place on June 13 and 14, 2018. It brought together researchers, school teachers and education policy makersat the IAE Business School of the Austral University, in Pilar (Argentina).

The event was promoted by 'Investigating and promote the Education of character in secondary schools in Latin America', a project of research joint School of Education and Psychology and the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS). It is funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.