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It is increasingly popular to ask educational institutions to do something about values. It is also becoming possible to take substantive moral positions in schools. We have become increasingly concerned about the morals of our children. Much of the discussion of values is incoherent. Many educators contribute to the public babble about ethics because of how they talk about moral questions; they have acquired a dysfunctional and obfuscating vocabulary ("values speak") for describing ethical phenomena and ethical issues. Assertions about values are distinct from assertions about character. The question of how to form democratic character is a crucial question that society has almost stopped asking. We do occasionally put the question as one about democratic values. While "values speak" seems initially liberating, nevertheless, it easily contributes to an authoritarian outlook. Four pieces of advice to educators are offered: 1) do not let "values speak" make you deaf to the nuances of the complex moral vocabularies; 2) learn to think of a liberal arts education as part of professional training; 3) an essential moral practice is dialogue; 4) support those trends in educational reform that increase opportunities for conscientious moral dialogue among members of school communities.

El mito como recurso didáctico fue el eje organizador para la enseñanza de la Educación Cívica en el Instituto Republica del Perú fundado en 1985 en Parera, La Pampa. El objetivo expreso de dicha institución en relación directa con la cátedra de Didáctica de la UNLPam, se centra en formar sujetos autónomos aptos para la cooperación social. El trabajo implicó una evaluación de seguimiento que fue objeto de numerosas publicaciones y una evaluación curricular plasmada en una tesis de Maestría que constato el compromiso político y la inserción activa de sus egresados en la comunidad. Alentados por el éxito obtenido, y con la finalidad de favorecer el uso de la narrativa como estrategia didáctica, nos propusimos ahondar en el análisis de la temática central del mito y su simbología. Los ejemplos seleccionados intentan facilitar el acceso al mundo de la narración mítica recuperando su enorme potencial educativo. ; Myth as a didactic resource was the fundamental organizing idea for the teaching of Civic Education in Republica del Peru Institute, founded in 1985 in Parera, La Pampa. The main goal of such institution, in direct connection with the university course of Didactics, UNLPam, was focused on educating autonomous individuals capable of social cooperation. The task involved a tracking evaluation which became the subject of several publications and of a curricular evaluation captured by a Master dissertation that verified the political commitment and active insertion of the Institute's graduates in the community. Encouraged by the success obtained and with the aim of favoring the use of narrative as a didactic strategy, we committed ourselves to an in-depth analysis of the myth's central theme and its symbols. The selected examples attempt to facilitate the access to the world of mythical narrative, recovering its huge educational potential.