Carlos Beltramo does research at the project 'Education of affectivity and human sexuality' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra. He has recently published the book Apasionados por amar al mundo. Education of character and emotional for the new generations.

The volume gathers the most important aspects of the Pedagogy of the Integration of the Human Person, which consists of understanding the person as a set of dimensions: physical, psychological and spiritual, with social projection. agreement According to its author, by means of the Education for the balance of these facets of human life, it is possible for children to reach virtue and happiness, incorporating at all times the colorfulness of emotions.

What do you mean by integration?
Many people talk about integration, but not everyone understands it in the same way. Of course, there is a more or less common fundamental basis: a unity of parts. Integration is the unity that is achieved with many parts that form a new entity. And we have to speak of an entity because the idea can be applied to a tape recorder (integrated circuits), or to a social body (hence the foreigner must be integrated) and to many other areas. In the case of ethics and anthropology that guide our proposal, integration refers to the unity and balance of human dimensions.

How does integration apply to the person?
The human person is a unit with dimensions that need to be integrated in action. The first step is to distinguish these dimensions (physical, psychological and spiritual, with social projection), and to determine how they relate to each other. Then it must be shown how the balance between them strengthens character and makes virtue possible. We say that an integrated person recognizes that he/she has different dimensions and in action can achieve harmony so that unity shines above the parts without denying the parts. We call virtue that strength that a person acquires by having his dimensions better integrated.

How do you put integration on internship ?
We like to graph the dimensions of the person with a pyramid that is in continuous movement. Every time you perform a good act, like making the bed for example, the pyramid of dimensions gets a little bit tidier, it becomes more orderly. And if it is more ordered, the next time you go to make the bed, it will be easier to do it. But if you stop making the bed, the pyramid gets out of order and there is not so much integration. The next good act costs a little more, there is less inner energy available to do it, the person moves away from virtue.

How does classroom approach integration?
Through conation. It is true, it is a strange word, but it is more used than we might think. Basically, it is a outline that explains that actions, before being carried out, in the interior of any person, go through three moments: one of knowledge, another of affection and decision making, and a final one which is to take that action to internship . So we propose, first of all, to understand: it is difficult to live things that are not understood in some way. But not everything ends there. The second part is to generate positive emotions (something like "enamoring the student") towards what is understood to be good: students have to feel that value as their own and make decisions, that is why this level brings into play the heart and the will. And the third moment, fundamental, is to take to the internship what is understood and desired/decided: without action the formative cycle is not completed. That is why it is necessary to give the students opportunities on class to realize it, so that they can enjoy the pleasure of doing good.

What happens when a Education does not pay attention to the whole conation circuit?
Several things. First of all, affective illiterates are generated: this happens when the cognitive aspect is overemphasized and no attention is paid to everything that happens in the world of the heart and the affections. This makes it more difficult to achieve the virtues because they are seen as something theoretical: it may be that I know what I want, but since I do not really care about it, since it costs me, I do not make an effort to live it. There is an inner whirlwind of positive and negative feelings, but since it has not been worked on, one does not know what to do. Incoherent situations are generated. For example, some people are perfect professionals during the week, but at the weekend they transform themselves and act without restraint or limits of their own. There is no real integration. Emotions go one way and the head goes the other. And this destroys the unity of life and cuts off the path to happiness.

And beware that the solution is not to eliminate the first part of the circuit of the conation, as it happens with some programs of Education emotional that unfortunately are very superficial: they do not clarify the head, they get too much into the heart and nothing more.

On the other hand, if what we try to teach is not taken to internship it does not take root. When there is no concreteness, if there are no opportunities in the classroom to be good for the pleasure of doing good, the whole process remains theoretical, it does not take root and does not build a solid character in the student.

How can it be coordinated in the high school-family relationship?
The fundamental thing is that the high school defines what it wants as project in relation to the Education of virtues and the Education emotional, and gives opportunities for both processes. To the extent that a high school has a clearer idea, it is easier to interact with the family. To incorporate, for example, the Pedagogy of the Integration of the Human Person is to incorporate a global theory, and when there is that idea, it is easier to offer things to the parents, ask them to get involved and have a response from them.

Why are virtues so important, especially in children?
Because they are the driving force behind the ordering of one's life. We give the following example to elementary school students: let's imagine that I were a robot and I had batteries; every time I do a good deed, those batteries fill up with energy. A virtuous person is an energetic person because he focuses his vital energy (including, obviously, his emotional energy) on a goal, an end. Most of the great creators in history have been very focused people. Let's say then that virtue is the way in which children are taught to order their own life, to focus their energy to achieve happiness, to project themselves at work, to enjoy life more intensely, to be solidary.

Now there is a generation that they call "soft". Is there a solution?
This phenomenon of weakness that is seen in many children and adolescents occurs in part because the emotional energy is dispersed. It is necessary to take care of that energy, not to kill it, but not to allow it to continue to disperse, because the ones who lose are the children. That is why the emotional Education is important, but it cannot be done in any way. Today it seems to be a fashion this of the emotional Education , but when it is raised against any other parameter it creates an imbalance that is giving rise to this "soft" generation. The solution is to look for the development of the character that gives coherence and sense to the emotions. It does not consist in repressing them but in knowing them, distinguishing them... sometimes it will be necessary to follow them, in other occasions the ideal will be to postpone them or even to displace the negative ones by other more constructive ones. In any case it is clear that today what is needed in classroom is a Education of the character that includes the emotional Education as one of its most important pillars.