Today’s schools teach a lot — information, facts, algorithms, rules. But they often miss the most important thing — the development of the soul. Educational programs leave no space for self-discovery, for building internal strength, for finding personal meaning. This void is filled with other priorities: success, competition, achievements, ranking. We are increasingly becoming part of a culture where power, wealth, and comfort are valued. And less and less, we are part of a community where kindness, empathy, and participation matter.
Children grow up in environments where their consciousness is shaped by the pressure of technology, advertising, and social expectations. They learn to “win,” but not how to be with others. They are given knowledge without feeling, information without wisdom, facts without morality. They lack emotional literacy — and therefore, they don’t know how to empathize, don’t feel responsibility for others, and don’t respond to pain around them. We often hear, “Spirituality and upbringing should be handled by parents, schools are for knowledge.” But at home, many children face instability. Parents are busy, exhausted, going through divorces, and dealing with stress. So, who, if not the school?

American educator Nel Noddings (2005) spoke of care as the ethical foundation of education. Care is not merely a feeling — it is an active state of relationship in which we say: you matter to me. She emphasized that for a child to learn how to care, they must first be cared for. A teacher who cannot see the person behind the grades will not be able to nurture the person within the child.
Care is impossible without inner work — without empathy, attentiveness, and the capacity to truly listen. It requires not so much new techniques as a shift in posture: from transmission to dialogue, from control to presence. Ultimately, it calls on schools not simply to teach “proper behavior,” but to create a living environment in which it is possible to be oneself — and to be seen.
A school without care teaches indifference. It implants the belief that achievement matters more than compassion, and outcomes more than relationships. But it is precisely these beliefs that shape what Viktor Frankl once called the existential vacuum — an inner emptiness in which a person knows everything except one thing: why.
The Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (2000), in his reflections on postmodernity and “liquid modern life,” wrote about the increasing fragmentation of human bonds. In a world where stable communities dissolve and social roles become transient and uncertain, people struggle to find grounding—those points of connection that once came from family, tradition, or shared belonging.
Bauman (2000) emphasized that in such a fluid society, cultivating a sense of responsibility is both a moral ideal and a form of resistance against disconnection. Caring for others becomes a way to restore human ties in a world that often erodes them. That is why community-based projects—supporting the elderly, engaging in environmental work, mentoring younger students—should be seen as central to education. They are a way to bring the child back into the realm of authentic human relationships.
He also argued that freedom without responsibility becomes a burden. True freedom is not about the absence of limits; it is about choosing in relation to the other. When a child sees that they can make a meaningful contribution, that their actions matter to someone else, they move from being passive recipients of knowledge to becoming participants in the world. And that shift is not only educational—it is existential.

We all dream of love and harmony. So let’s create spaces where this is possible. Where every child can touch their inner depth. Where they will understand: they are part of the Universe. And that means their voice matters. Their heart is needed. Their presence is a gift.

Further reading:

Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity.

Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education.