Time to End the 20-th Century Education - Part I

Why (under/post-)graduate education and research is obsolete

There are two facets, two approaches in dealing with learning, research, and the advancement of culture generally. The first approach we have seen in a previous post, is to insist on the idea that we need even more skilled leaders, fundraisers, and managers who can direct large research programs and groups of teachers, professors, and scientists. This envisages a huge, well-organized managerial system that pressures people to produce results quickly and in conformity with preset specifications. This paradigm does not envision the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The second possibility, in contrast, might be a somewhat less ordered, nonlinear, and unpredictable process, which, however, should rediscover the ancient human impetus to understand Nature, the drive to free, independent, and creative thinking, the spirit of the natural philosopher who pursues the freedom to develop his/her research program, the inspired musicians or contemplative artists, and which liberates everyone’s intellectual independence and potential independently of its possible applications. The social, cultural, and economic future of humanity will depend on the choices we make today.

Is original thinking allowed?

True, in this market-driven world of ours, the latter alternative may sound too romantic. But didn’t modern society bet too much on the former? After all, where did the great minds that transformed the world materially come from? From schools and universities where they learned only the real-world practice preparing them for their future jobs, or from institutions that also foster theoretical approaches of pure thought, like philosophy and humanistic practices like music and the arts? How could it be that a genius like the German writer, poet, and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe never went to school at all? Or, just to mention another interesting homeschooling case, the father of André-Marie Ampère kept his son far from formal schooling, allowing him to educate himself instead, and Ampère went on to become one of the greatest physicists of the 17th century. It is a fact that most inventors, geniuses, and not rarely corporate leaders too, either did not attend schools that focus exclusively on a technical apprenticeship aimed solely at attaining a professional certificate or even did not go to school at all. It may be argued that they were geniuses just because they could make it nevertheless, even without attending a standard school system. But are we sure that truth does not go the other way around? The choice to let them be free to learn by themselves was the key, and they might never have become known if they had been forced into schools with strict paths and curricula.

What is needed in schools and the field of pre-college and university education at this historical stage of scientific, technological, and human development is the freedom to ask one's own questions, and having the time to do that, without the danger of not being able to make a living. Nowadays, we begin by injecting already-established knowledge into the child’s brain but do not exercise him/her by asking questions that should lead them to that knowledge. We may call this ‘top-down teaching’. Instead, it should be the other way around: ‘bottom-up learning’ that starts from the individual’s questions and that leads, along a lifelong learning process, to new insights and knowledge. Our concept of education is still too focused on the choices to be made today to get a degree that will guarantee a job tomorrow. The inner drive towards one’s realizations, aspirations, spontaneous questioning, and creativity are still too much subordinated to the impossible guess of what a decade-away job might look like, and children and students are forced to learn to be able to make a living in a future competitive, global market. We haven't yet learned the lesson that predictions of this type rarely turn out to be correct anyway. Moreover, jobs are usually about the production of material goods. Therefore, from childhood onward we are told by our society and learning system to focus on the external world, on the empirical data, and on the strictly material knowledge and experience. But no time is allowed to listen to ourselves, to investigate our inner depth, to search for the inspiration and passion that comes from within.

The exclusive concentration on a few intellectual directions to the exclusion of others, retracting the support to individuals working on their approaches, has led us to a cultural environment incapable of going beyond the status quo. This state of affairs, which is more or less consciously and vaguely felt by students and potential bright minds, has led many to resign themselves entirely to their careers, and nowadays are no longer working in the field their heart was longing for. At the other end of the line, still too many of those I knew and that got to the top of the scientific or academic hierarchy have become not scientists who manage research, but managers, politicians, and bureaucrats, the only difference being that they have a degree in science. Most managers are not in their position because of their professional merits, or for their particular achievements, but mainly because of the egocentric driving power which is based on an unusual vital force. For them, despite their officially stated intentions, the project of the industry, of the sales department, the corporation, or the research center they are working for, functions for their career promotion, to climb up a power hierarchy. It is not a priority for them to create products or knowledge that fosters the progress of society as something that should serve the interests of a collective well-being. This is so not because they are evil, but simply because the system in its essence intrinsically rewards egoism, and discourages any social conscience.

This principle is less visible but still strongly present in education, especially in higher education. I don’t want to generalize too much, but most directors, chancellors, department heads, and group leaders of academic institutions that I came into contact were not original thinkers or creative geniuses who were promoted to a higher rank for their intellectual achievements but were usually old-fashioned conservative close-minded people, who were able to propel themselves to a higher position since they possessed an unlimited desire and ambition for self-promotion and a huge ego that is supported by an enormous amount of psychological energy. The more modest and less egocentric but much more creative mind is mostly ignored, and this latter character is precisely the type of personality that is devalued by the present system. I’m not talking of worldwide conspiracy theories. Quite the contrary: there is no physical person or group of persons that are controlling this state of affairs. It is an abstract system of written laws and bureaucratic regulations that has in its grip every one of us (for the most part, however, unconsciously). It is a dictatorship without a dictator. And precisely for that reason, it is difficult to become aware of it, since there is no physical person to blame, and yet the machine continues to churn.

25 Modern Science, Math, and Technology leaders who were homeschooled Source: Link.

New selection criteria must be found, where the person, the scholar, or the scientist is chosen, not for their sterile scholastic preparation or selfishness, but for their ideas, ideals, aspirations, and passions. And even the actuality of the line of research they propose shouldn’t be considered essential. Funding must not be granted to someone only because the line of research is actually considered the most trendy, but at least a part of it should be devoted to alternative, risky, and unconventional paths.

School classes and university courses should become more flexible, that is, they should be conceived first of all not just as a place where to acquire knowledge and solve problems. Amassing knowledge shouldn't be its main purpose or preoccupation. Nowadays, with the advent of the information age and the Internet, everyone who can read and write together with a minimum of IT skills is perfectly able to download every kind of information needed without the help of a teacher or professor. These are no longer key figures for information retrieval, whereas their function should be that of showing students how they can become able to find that knowledge on their own. Educational institutions should be a place where people learn to learn, and learn to ask questions and learn what has to be learned by themselves, with the help of someone who is not an instructor, a trainer, or a drill sergeant, but a counselor, a guide, a coach, a tutor, a mentor, an attendant who facilitates our personal search for knowledge and self-unfoldment. Let us call this figure a 'learning mentor'. Children and students should no longer be treated as empty containers to be filled with intellectual notions. PhDs, postdocs, and researchers should not be considered mere employees who have to obey orders passively and blindly.

Too much emphasis has been set on intellectual rigor, mathematical perfection, on mechanical skills which are too exclusively focused on reproducing quickly specific tasks and fast problem-solving with zero tolerance for failure. However, a creative process rests on the freedom to fail in a system that abhors uniformity. A good problem-solver is someone who has learned to ask good questions first. How idiotic would sports be if it were to apply the same selection rules for marathoners and sprinters? It would be as idiotic as our present educational system based on standardized tests and quizzes. And, as Sir Ken Robinson used to say: “We have developed a culture where mistakes are stigmatized”. In fact, every scientist who has some direct experience of participating in a research project, be it in a purely theoretical context, or by performing experiments in a laboratory, knows very well that most attempts to discover a new scientific truth have to first go through several failures. If you never fail, you are probably doing something wrong. That can only be because you are not doing something new, original, or innovative. An education that institutionalizes fear of failure is by definition a conservative and authoritarian system. It gave us lots of efficient executors indeed, but it also killed the spirit of the creative and curious thinker. In this kind of environment, the visionary, the 'seer', the intuitive thinker, the creative artist, the genuine talent, and the genius are naturally de-selected from the outset. Human beings are too diverse and complex to be enclosed in a single school or an academic educational approach that measures them with quantitative criteria that are rigidly uniform for all. There are a lot of diverse talents, approaches, and styles to be found in humankind. Still, most of the current schools and universities impose too restricted and restrictive paths. These institutions should open themselves to all the human characters: the analytical, the intuitive, the artistic, the unconventional, the ‘rebel’ minds, etc.

We frequently hear people talking about the autonomy and freedom of science. But, in this regard, most research centers of today are the problem, not the solution. They look exclusively at the speed and precision of intellectual reproduction and potential for manufacture, hopefully with lots of papers published, and possibly added with good communication skills of the individual to keep high the image and prestige of the group or department. But motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) is officially seen as secondary. A free-progress environment is necessary because there are several young students, or potential students, who feel the inner drive to explore the deeper meaning of things, who have an open and curious mind toward alternative approaches, who have great inspirations and aspirations that could serve the collective development of a nation, or even humanity as a whole. But, when they enroll in a college, they discover that there is no such thing as an opportunity to express themselves. Individual development is hampered. They are forced to repress their inner potentialities and are compelled to follow lines that are not their own. If they want to make a career, they have no other way out than sacrificing all to a study and professional path which has nothing to do with what their inner soul is longing for and with what their real destiny should be.

Many of these individuals are led to believe that there is something wrong with them, fall prey to depression and stress, and finally abandon entirely the studies they had pursued for several years. Nowadays, those who perceive an urge to go beyond a mere analytical and superficial understanding of the physical world, those who want to focus on specific subjects because there is an inner drive to do so, must set aside these yearnings. They would like to progress and change and evolve but are forced to inhibit and even suppress their evolution.

Nowadays everyone is talking about ‘excellence’. But what is excellence? Setting up highly selective institutions that bring together the ‘best brains’, and order them to do what is required from the top, like chickens in a henhouse? Every manager would deny this, and all unanimously would tell us that they look for creative and original thinkers. Facts on the ground are quite different. The typical modern managerial mindset appeals to more creative thinking and originality in schools but does not allow it in its entrepreneurial environment. Working under pressure and multitasking is the motto and main pedagogical ideal of several top managers and academics, who continue to ignore the basic facts emerging from psychology and brain research which tell us that this is the most counterproductive approach. This is a pedagogy that tells the what, when, and how of the job. Every attempt to put forward one’s own ideas, projects, or alternative approaches is seen as an irritating attempt to overthrow authority. Those in charge are always a bit disappointed that, despite having under their grip several people who eventually publish lots of scientific papers, still not many groundbreaking ideas emerge. There is a pressure that generates fear, anger, sadness, and frustration, and ultimately hampers the emergence of a further consciousness in most individuals studying and working in industries or schools, universities, and research centers. And, if things continue to go wrong, the pressure is enhanced. But it should become clear instead that the solution is not to persist in doing more wrong things. An entirely new approach is needed. Real excellence can come only from within.

So, what’s the solution? Read part II!