Between Education and Catastrophe
I do tend to think of education in a very broad, open contextualization. I don’t think it is wise to isolate the concept of education into schools and schooling.
I do tend to think of education in a very broad, open contextualization. I don’t think it is wise to isolate the concept of education into schools and schooling.
It wasn’t enough to observe and have a front row seat at issues I felt were important. The students had to care about what they were studying. It had to be relevant to their lives.
All of the participating teachers agreed that their understanding of citizenship changed from one that emphasized following rules and helping others to one that fostered student engagement in making decisions together about shared problems in the classroom community and beyond.
I am convinced education plays an important role in sustaining the climate movement by empowering new young leaders.
The definition of freedom and liberty is always contested (at any given moment, people within a society disagree); always changing (over time, societies’ understandings will shift); and always conflicted (we struggle because there are no simple policies to maximize liberty).
We need education. Not standards. (“We don’t need no thought control.” Ever.) And yes, by those standards, it is a priority — perhaps even an emergency now. We need education for all our children.
What is the aim of a university, and is it being achieved? My goal is constructive critique: to open a broader perspective on some patterns in which we reside.
A proper reorganisation should be based on this understanding of work as just one of several realms of life; a life brimming with moments of connection, rest, labour, contemplation, education, and idleness.
Why is it that “authenticity” must be stressed and supported? What is it in our culture that makes honesty special – in need of vital resuscitation? Does no one else see it as strange?
Education must prepare the young students to make the most of the opportunities which the coming crisis will offer, or at the very least, to be resilient to those changes and be able to adapt to the emerging new world.
Faced with existential crises in the environment, human migration, creeping authoritarianism, and the specter of artificial intelligence, a world without a broadly disseminated capacity for thinking is severely exposed.
Henry David Thoreau said: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” And for that we need books, newspapers and other print media that esteem the truth and with it, create new generations of readers, writers and listeners.