Man as a social being (the social aspect). People live together with other people. They depend on each other; they need each other and can be of service to each other. Living together in a community is only possible if there are clear rules.
Social aspect
That is why a community has a multitude of written and unwritten rules that guide coexistence and interaction between people. If a person wants to be able to live in such a community, he/she must know these rules and be prepared to act on the basis of these rules.
It is the job of educators to raise children so that they are willing and able to live in a community. Educators should probably start doing this from the moment the child is born. They take a child into their family, protect it, feed it, etc., in short; they surround it with their care and love, so that it feels safe, accepted, included in the community of people.
If children within this community experience helpfulness, compassion, interest, loyalty, sociability and the like, they can develop something like a sense of community. Moreover, they learn how to behave within the various social contexts (family, school, neighborhood, etc.) in which they are included, i.e. what rules apply to social interaction.
Man as a cultural being (the cultural aspect)
The coexistence of people does not, or not exclusively, take place in nature, but in a cultural world. This world is shaped by people. It consists of all kinds of human discovered and/or created:
- things (houses, means of transport, hospitals, etc.);
- use (brushing teeth, shaking hands, etc.)
- rules (traffic, law);
- insights (sciences)
- ideals (world views);
These cultural expressions and designs are characteristic of the way people view the world. We do not passively experience the world, but actively deal with the world. Where necessary and/or desirable, we adapt these to their needs, wishes and ideals. In doing so, we edit and change our reality, while we also develop new things. We see this, for example, in the world of information technology, where new applications are constantly being found. Man therefore shapes his own world by editing, changing and supplementing nature into his cultural world. From all this we can conclude that man is a cultural being.
However, this does not mean that children are busy creating culture from birth. To do this, they will first have to get to know the culture, that is, they must first be introduced to the world of human cultural expressions.
It is the job of educators to help children with this. Initially, it is the parents/guardians who help children explore reality. However, our culture is so comprehensive and introduction to the culture takes so much time that we have established special institutes (schools). These schools largely take over the cultural transmission from parents/guardians. There, children are introduced to the culture so that they can function independently in it. But culture transfer is not the only task; Creativity and problem-solving thinking in children/young people must also be stimulated and trained. Only then will humans be able to solve new problems in a creative way.
Man as a personal being (the personal aspect)
This last aspect is difficult to describe unequivocally; there are different views on what we could call the personal core of being human. We will not discuss all these views here, but will try to indicate in which direction the answer should be sought.
When we talk about man as a personal being, we mean that every person is a person insofar as he/she acts responsibly towards reality based on his/her own values. To clarify this, we will briefly discuss two central personal characteristics below.
A person acts based on his own values
That is, from values that are accepted as valuable by himself.
This is not the case, for example, with an unscrupulous villain; he is not aware of good or evil. However, a person has a sense of what is valuable, good, worth pursuing.
A person acts on his own responsibility
He cannot rely on others or hide behind others; he therefore takes responsibility for his actions and their consequences for himself and his environment.
When one reads this description of man as a person, one gets the feeling that quite an ideal image of man is being given. In any case, it is clear that not every person achieves the degree of independence, personal responsibility and moral awareness that was previously intended. It is therefore the task of educators to raise children/young people to the greatest possible degree of independence, responsibility and moral awareness.
To achieve this, the good example of educators is of great importance . If they themselves consistently live and act according to certain values and standards (e.g. honesty, equality of people, etc.), they are also credible when they reprimand children and/or appeal to their moral sense. But moreover, children/young people will increasingly have to be given the space and encouraged to act independently and to be responsible themselves.