What is social responsibility in schools?
Education is considered to be one of the eight priority areas for driving and promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). As one of society’s priority goals, social responsibility should be included in education and, over the course of their lives, individuals should acquire a series of values, knowledge and skills that help them find solutions to the social, economic and environmental problems that they face.
What is emotional development education?
Centres from the Best Schools in Spain (BSS) network are committed to this goal and encourage the human development of their students, inviting them to take responsibility for improving quality of life in their community. All of these schools continually work alongside companies from diverse sectors and make the most of the opportunities they offer for the academic and personal benefit of their students.
For CSR, families and schools must teach responsible conduct and values to the younger generations, focused on creating a more sustainable society. For this purpose, we must provide students with the tools they need to find solutions to the problems facing our world. The students in our classrooms today will become the politicians, managers, entrepreneurs and professionals of tomorrow, who will be responsible for ensuring the common good.
In this context, BSS schools focus on creating the “socially responsible” generations that society needs. As educational institutions play such an important role in creating and maintaining a strong civil society, these schools often carry out their own CSR programmes with specific objectives to promote ethical values and improve their teachers’ quality of life, committing to the social reality and problems present in their local area. This is how educational social responsibility (ESR) came into being. It is the will of an educational institution’s members to promote common concern, taking advantage of the natural repercussion on society.
Certain values such as friendship, service, solidarity or even personal development become bigger as more people get involved.
BSS schools apply ESR in daily life in the classroom, focused on relationships with the entire educational community. The professionals that make up each school adopt a common lifestyle in terms of the centre’s culture or personality. This favours understanding and mutual support between families and the school, creates a climate of cohesion and cooperation between teaching staff and promotes solidarity and respect among students.
This makes students feel like they belong to the educational community by addressing their needs, getting their families involved and creating a unique school culture that incentivises social skills and a climate of service and help, as well as environmental protection.
Learn while contributing!
ESR implies reciprocity. Teachers, students, families and all other members of BSS schools carry out socially responsible actions while also playing a role in others’ social responsibility efforts.
BSS schools place an intentional and global focus on ESR as they go to great efforts to implement new educational models and constantly reinvent themselves to adapt to unpredictable situations. Many use innovative methodologies focused on the common good such as service learning and problem-based learning, or simply getting involved in projects that lead to mutual benefit.
Society never stands still and is constantly transforming and evolving. Therefore, if we want to improve educational practices with regard to social responsibility, we must continue to develop studies and research in synergy with different sectors, including other schools, companies, government bodies and universities, to name but a few.
Countless educational theories have traditionally followed a constructivist approach. However, following several decades of challenges and experiences, these are now moving towards “responsible construction”, which is open to others, nature and transcendence. The success of this reinvention in schools can be seen in the quality of daily teaching at the centre and the well-being of all those that are part of it.
BSS has accepted the challenge of creating a sustainable and responsible society by making its schools places where people grow and coexist, not resist and survive.
Are you ready to give it a try?
