Introduction: Cultivating intelligence in adolescence.

Abstract

Ortega y Gasset said that the excellent man is one who makes great demands on himself, and we should also note that school is where most people when starting out in life learn to make demands on themselves as it is where we start to discover that we are not princes of the world nor riotous people on whom the Graces always smile. However, schools are not unaffected by the social environment in which they operate, and nowadays it is clear that we live in an atmosphere of egalitarianism, in which excellence tends to be frowned upon and of sentimentalism, to the extent that arranging a lecture warning of the bad consequences of drugs becomes a risk, lest a student who is the child of a drugs lord who is currently in prison has their feelings hurt. In addition, society is no longer interested in truth and veracity, so that post truth and lies run free and what is truly dominant is not knowledge but money, or, at least, welfare guaranteed by the state, even if this leads to generalised mediocrity or a reduction in civil liberties.