Personalized Education according to Garcia Hoz

Abstract

This article examines the philosophy underlying the concept of personalized education as conceived by Victor Garcia Hoz. For García Hoz, the process of personalizing education is deeper than the process of customizing it. Nor can it be claimed that personalized education is equivalent to a personification process, since in no case is a person the result of a process. Ultimately, the goal of personalized education is to help make students’ personal freedom effective, thereby increasing their ability to lead their own lives so that their life can become a personal project. The educative ideal sought by personalized education is for each person to open up to reality, establishing valuable connections with it, and thus make his or her uniqueness manifest in the fullest possible way. For that purpose, it is imperative that the person be taken into account in the educative process, and that the educative relationship be first and foremost a personal encounter between teacher and learner that transcends purely functional or instrumental ties.