It is an exercise in opening oneself to possibility on the part of the person beginning a journey that allows them to evolve and grow, while also engaging in a metacognitive process of believing that they can become what they aspire to be.

From the educator’s perspective, the mission lies in contributing to that possibility of becoming. It is an act of hope, where seeds are planted today in the expectation that a forest will grow — one that will provide shade and life at a time and in a place we will probably never inhabit ourselves. It is about giving without expecting much in return.

The vocation and effort of the educator must be directed towards helping the student “become”. Drawing an analogy with the science fiction novel DUNE by Frank Herbert, the Fremen people lived in a hellish desert where something as essential as water was scarce in an almost cruel way. Yet they were capable of imagining and planning a transformation that would take generations, so that future inhabitants of the planet would one day have free access to water.

In the future of that planet, neither they nor their own children would live to see the outcome. Educating is synonymous with imagining, for each of our students, a plausible and better future.

It is a dance that requires a delicate balance: acting from a framework that is not neutral, one guided by learning objectives and intentionality, while at the same time respecting and allowing the individual the freedom to decide.

It is often said that to teach one must know, but to educate one must be. Therein lies the difficulty of this profession: teaching is not as difficult as educating. To educate, one must transmit values.

It is about allowing them to become.
And as educators, our role is to contribute to that becoming.
DUNE — seeds for the future.

Let us acknowledge that there has always been a distance, a generational leap, between students and educators.

We constantly ask ourselves: “What is the gap?” or “Why does this gap emerge?”, when in reality it has always existed by nature. Today, however, we face a different kind of gap from that of previous generations — one we might describe as the 3.0 generation gap.

Within this logic of generational differentiation, there exists a contextual foundation made up of elements that bring both colour and pain, making each generational gap unique.

Generation 3.0 has fully experienced rapid global digitalisation, which has led to a form of digital dependency. This dependency is essential to understanding the current gap in depth. While it is true that this generation may be considered less dogmatic and more flexible when compared with previous generations, emotional deprivation, individualism, and misinformation create critical challenges when attempting to promote intergenerational understanding and effective educational adaptation.