The Seduction of educational nostalgia

Abstract

The social perception of our educational reality, especially with regard to younger generations (their knowledge and skills, social ways and behaviour, discipline, tendency to effort, etc.) is frequently placed in a pessimistic position that points towards social decline and the dire future. However, looking back and scrutinizing history from a scientific perspective, as well as an analysis of the available data beyond this discouraging story, can show us a more prosaic reality. A reality that is configured into a traceable constant as far as written records reach. Youth is, in essence, as it has always been. The distorted image of our present that is projected responds to a series of cognitive biases well studied in scientific literature, among which nostalgic retrospective stands out. This understandable and radically human perception draws a mythological image of the past, especially the most recent one, plausible but incorrect. As an ultimate result, a response of moral panic is unleashed that closes the circle and feeds back into the system. In order to perform effectively and efficiently in socio-educational realities, it is necessary to seek higher levels of objectivity, taking a certain distance and assuming that our present is not, perhaps, as rosy as we would like, but not as black as it is regularly portrayed.