Education: Not what we think it is
Learning has to extend beyond the traditional concept of classroom and teacher and adopt creative approaches
Add BT as a preferred source
GREAT learning has history from which it draws its inspiration and stability. Indeed, civilisation itself is dependent on education and history from both of which it develops and adapts. The rules of living together in a village with primitive communications were about cooperation, minimum aggression and maximum order. Those rules apply today. When they break down, first order falls apart, then civilisation disintegrates. Degeneration sets in, aggression and protectionism start to dominate. Soon the society is unrecognisable against the original cooperative model.
Education as equipping
The role of education in all this has been to equip people to increase development, because growth, the consequence of development, has been the engine of progress, of wealth and therefore - some conclude - happiness. We all know intellectually that this is not the consequence of development but there are many attractive benefits of it on the way - longer life, less suffering, reduced starvation, greater comfort, more free time and so on. It is right that education equips us to develop and will continue to do so if we get it right. At present, we are only just beginning to see how to do that. Future methods will be very different from those of the past. Some people have yet to acknowledge this or, indeed, to realise the need for change.
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
