All this relies heavily on the maturity of the student and the
ability of educators to design environments that stimulate
responsibility and self-discipline. The broad-stroke educational
project sketched up to here will have to address the precise
concerns connected to how and when education actually starts,
what the role of the family should be-if the family remains a
valid entity-and how variety and multiplicity will be addressed.
In today's words and expectations, even in today's prejudices,
education is of national interest in one main respect: to equip
students with skills so they can contribute to the national
coffers in the future. But the arena of economic viability is the
global economy, not an economy defined by national boundaries.
The trans-national marketplace is the real arena of competition.
Re-engineering, far from being finished, made it quite clear
that for the sake of efficiency, productive activities are
relocated without any consideration for patriotism or national
pride, never mind human solidarity and ethics.
In today's world, and to some extent in the model described so
far, the unfolding of the individual through cultivation of the
mind and spirit is somehow lost in the process of inculcating
facts. It is its own reward to enjoy subtleties, or to generate
them, to partake in art, or be part of it, to challenge the
mind, or indulge in the rich world of emotions. Prepared for
work that is usually different from what educators, economists,
and politicians anticipate, people face the reality of work that
becomes more and more fragmented and mediated. On the assembly
line, or in the "analysis of symbols" (to use Robert Reich's
term), work is, in the final analysis, a job, not a vocation.
Physicians, professors, businessmen, carpenters, and burger
flippers perform a job that can be automated to some degree.
Depriving work of its highest but often neglected
motivation-the unfolding of individual abilities, becoming an
identity in the act- negates this motivation. Replaced by
external rationale-the substance of commercial democracy-the
decline of inner motivation leads to lack of interest, reduced
commitment, and declining creativity. Education that processes
humans for jobs promises access to abundance, but not to
self-fulfillment. The decline of family, and new patterns of
sexuality and reproduction, tell us that expectations, sublime on
their own merit, of improved family involvement will be the
exception, not the rule. Accordingly, the challenge is to
understand the nature of change and to suggest alternatives,
instead of hoping that, miraculously or by divine intervention of
the almighty dollar (or yen, franc, mark, pound, or combinations
thereof), families will again become what literacy intended they
should be. If the challenge is not faced, education will only
become a better machine for processing each new generation.
Many scholars of education have set forth various plans for
saving education. They do not ignore the new pragmatic
requirements. They are unaware of them. Therefore, their
recommendations can be classified as more of the same. The sense
of globality will not result from taking rhymes from Mother
Goose (with its implicit reference and culturally determined
rhythm) and adding to them the Mother Goose of other countries.
The Victorian and post-Victorian vision transferred upon
children, the expectation of "everything will be fine if you
just do as you're told," reflects past ideals handed down
through the moralizing fiction of the Industrial Age.
The most ubiquitous presence in modern society is the television
set. It replaced the book long ago. Notwithstanding, TV is a
passive medium, of low informative impact, but of high
informative ability. Digital television, which extends the
presence of computers, will make a difference, whether it is
implemented in high resolution or not. Television in digitally
scalable formats is an active medium, and interactivity is its
characteristic. Education centers will integrate digital
television, and open ways to involve individuals regardless of
age, background and interests. We can all learn that there are
several ways of seeing things, that the physics of time and music
report on different aspects of temporal characteristics of our
experience in the world. The movement of a robot, though
different from the elegant dance of a ballerina, can benefit
from a sense and experience of choreography, considered by many
incompatible with engineering. The new media of interaction that
are embodied in educational centers should be less obsessed with
conveying information, and more with allowing human
understanding of instances of change.
But these are only examples. What I have in mind is the creation
of an environment for exploration in which knowledge of
aesthetic aspects is learned parallel to scientific knowledge.
The formats are not those of classes in the theory or history of
art, or of similar art oriented subjects. As exploration takes
place, aesthetic considerations are pursued as a means of
optimizing the effort. It is quite clear that as classes
dynamically take shape, they will integrate people of different
ages and different backgrounds. Taking place in the public
domain of networked resources, this education will benefit from
a sense of creative competition. At each moment in time,
projects will be accessible, and feedback can be provided. This
ensures not only high performance from a scientific or
technological viewpoint, but also aesthetic relevance.
The literacy-based educational establishment will probably
dismiss the proposals set forth as pie-in-the-sky, as
futuristic at best. Its representatives will claim that the
problem at hand needs solutions, not a futuristic model based on
some illusory self- organizing nuclei supported by the economy.
They will argue that the suggested model of education is less
credible than perfecting a practice that at least has some
history and achievements to report. The public, no matter how
critical of education, will ask: Is it permissible, indeed
responsible, to assume that a new philosophy of education will
generate new student attitudes, especially in view of the reality
of metal detectors installed in schools to prevent students from
carrying weapons? Is it credible to describe experiences in
discovery involving high aesthetic quality, while mediocrity
makes the school system appear hopelessly damned? Self-motivation
is described as though teenage pregnancy and classes where
students bring their babies are the concern of underpaid
teachers but not of visionaries. More questions in the same vein
are in the air. To propose an analogy, selling water in the
desert is not as simple as it sounds.
We can, indeed, dream of educational tools hooked up to the
terminals at the Kennedy Space Center, or to the supercomputers
of the European Center for Research of the Future. We can dream
of using digital television for exploring the unknown, and of
on-line education in a world where everyone envisions high
accomplishments through the use of resources that until now were
open to very few. But unless society gives up the expectation of
a homogeneous, obligatory education that forces individuals who
want-or do not want-to prepare themselves for a life of practical
experiences into the same mold, education will not produce the
desired results. Good intentions, based on social, ethnic, or
racial criteria, on love of children, and humanistic ideals, will
not help either. While all over the world real spending per
student in public education and private institutions increased
well above the levels of inflation, fewer students do homework,
and very few study beyond the daily assignment. This is true not
only in the USA but also in countries with high admission
standards for college, such as France, Germany, and Japan.
Translated into the language of our considerations, all this
means that education cannot be changed independent of change in
society. Education is not an autonomous system. Its connections
to the rest of the pragmatic context are through students,
teachers, parents, political institutions, economic realities,
racial attitudes, culture, and patterns of behavior in our
commercial democracy. In today's education, parochial
considerations take precedence over global concerns. Bureaucratic
rules of accumulated imbecility literally annihilate the changes
for a better future of millions of students. What appears as the
cultivation of the mind and spirit is actually no more than the
attempt to polish a store window while the store itself lost its
usefulness long ago. It makes no sense to require millions of
students to drive daily to schools that can no longer be
maintained, or to pass tests when standards are continuously
lowered in order to somehow justify them.