"E pluribus unum" (Unity in plurality) is the motto on the coat of arms of the United States, the title of a landmark 2007 academic article, and the ideal of any society that makes pluralism a supreme constitutional value, which is to promote the freedom of citizens without fostering their division into factions.The article was signed by the social democratic sociologist Robert Putnam, who was an advisor to Clinton, Tony Blair and Obama, and begins as follows: "One of the most important challenges facing modern societies, and at the same time one of our most significant opportunities, is the increase in ethnic and social heterogeneity in practically all advanced countries".There is –Putnam assures us– a limit to plurality beyond which it becomes difficult to maintain the ideal of a community made up of heterogeneous members. If it is crossed, plurality degrades into the atomization of isolated individuals who have no intermediaries between their self and the community space.The growth of social heterogeneity is favored both by migratory dynamics and by underlying currents in modern societies that tend to see value in difference. In fact, today we understand equality as the equal right to be different (hence dominant emotivism). In schools it is said that each student learns differently (when our similarities are greater than our differences) and at universities there is an insistence on the incommensurability of different cultures. We are privatizing morality, but since we are unable to provide ourselves with a coherent moral order, we have burdened ourselves with such excessive responsibilities that we end up evading them. However, if we erode shared moral standards, we deprive ourselves of the possibility of peacefully resolving the inevitable disputes of communal life.It would be culturally suicidal to ignore the challenges of heterogeneity. The phenomenon of native flight” is well known, for example, which tells us that when the concentration of immigrant students in educational centers reaches certain thresholds, native families take their children to centers with a more homogeneous student body. Something similar happens in neighborhoods, leisure spaces, and public services.

If we want to ride a dead horse, we are doomed to failure no matter how hard we try to change the saddle, create groups of experts to advise us on how to improve its efficiency, organize courses for riders on family constellations or mindfulness, etc. The only sensible thing to do is change horses, especially if ours was killed by our low expectations. But more likely, our discussions will focus on how to provide the dead horse with more innovative shoes.

Has a child who has never risked tearing his pants on a tree branch had a childhood?

Anna Engel is the coordinator of the interuniversity master's degree in educational psychology at Catalan universities. Educational psychology is the branch of study that focuses on the teaching and learning processes. Engel teaches future early childhood and primary school teachers and teaches classes in the master's degree in educational psychology to individuals who, in the future, will be dedicated to advising teachers. This week, she was one of the speakers on the "Let's Learn Together 2030" tour, a program promoted by BBVA whose objective is to promote lifelong learning and disseminate knowledge in an innovative way, which was held at the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona. In the academic field, the program has implemented its educational methodologies, which Engel also uses, in more than 5,500 schools across Spain.