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The Forum > Article Comments > Education to change the world > Comments

Education to change the world : Comments

By Stuart Hill, published 9/3/2012

Learning for realising one's personal, social and ecological potential.

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This sort of holistic nonsense has been around for decades. It's based on an ideology that has no relationship to the modern world or to the human condition. One can only hope no-one in an Education Department is reading this article, otherwise teachers will be burdened with yet another silly fad.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Friday, 9 March 2012 8:56:05 AM
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I hope other comments will be more considered than those highly biased and superficial ones from 'Senior Victorian', who clearly is uncomfortable with 'holistic' thinking and action - the ideas presented certainly ring true for me - as a Professor of Education with 40+ years of teaching and research experience - I suggest 'Senior Victorian' and any other doubters actually visit a 'democratic school' and witness the difference
Posted by micradina, Friday, 9 March 2012 9:28:05 AM
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Senior Victorian,

This sort of "holistic nonsense", as you call it, has been around for millenia - it's the way that humans evolved and developed their potential.

You're right, however, that it hasn't any relationship with the compartmentalised modern West. Modern education systems feed the status quo, offering up processed fodder to the machine.

Have no fear that anyone in education will take any notice. "Education" is the primary furnace that fuels an unsustainable system - one that encourages gross excess in life....which apparently is all that really matters to us.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 9 March 2012 9:28:45 AM
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Let them count tanks or flowers, as long as they learn to count I suppose.

''what in the current educational system is enabling any of this to happen?'

That's the crux of the problem. It's a system. Systems don't fit well with independence. It will always be the case.

I suppose we could play pretend and just rename teachers to educational facilitators and enablers. That should do the trick.

Poirot has the right idea with the home schooling but not everyone has the opportunity or aptitude. Best in that case to make more conforming consumers to keep the engine running. Actually the system of conforming consumers keeps you able to make your choices Poirot. If everyone did it and the system broke down it might not be as easy for you. Just saying;-)

In the end though I reckon given your attitude and your kids intelligence, even if they were thrown to the system they would end up free spirited enough to be individuals.

Oranges and Lemons from the bells of... Where DID I learn that and where did it come from...
Posted by Houellebecq, Friday, 9 March 2012 9:46:01 AM
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Why am I not surprised you're a Professor of Education, micradania? I too have 40+ years experience in school education. I've worked in, consulted to and visited schools of all types, including so-called 'democratic' schools. I've worked in an education faculty at a university and been responsible for supervising the school practice of student teachers. I've seen the damage done to teachers and students by this sort of theorising and by the failure of teacher training institutions to teach the basics of teaching and classroom management.
Posted by Senior Victorian, Friday, 9 March 2012 9:56:01 AM
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Houellie,

You're a good example of an above average intelligence. Your particular way of looking at the world sets you apart. You come across as uncommonly wise, as if you see things that pass the rest of us by. I know you honed your craft in school - not by conforming - but by looking at everything through the distilling prism of cynicism.

I was a good student. I learned all the basic disciplines and considered myself fairly intelligent. And yet, when I look back at my seventeen year-old self I see someone who was only ever primed for popular culture. It wasn't until I went looking for my own knowledge that I ever imagined all the stuff I had been missing....you know what I mean.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 9 March 2012 9:57:59 AM
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Senior Victorian,

What have "...the basics of teaching and classroom management" got to do with instilling a love of learning and a thirst for knowledge?

George Bernard Shaw put it so well:

"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 9 March 2012 11:00:20 AM
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I found this to be an interesting article. I have a deep respect for that articulated, particularly noting my children's current education experiences.

I have a deep respect for Galen, AD 129-199, a great and wise man.

'Galen was highly interested in the importance of combining philosophical thought with medical practice, an idea he expressed in his brief work "That the Best Physician is also a Philosopher." He refused to be placed into one particular school of thought, instead taking aspects from each group and combining them with his original thoughts to form his own unique approach to medicine. He was a proponent of medicine as a highly interdisciplinary field that was best practiced by utilising theory, observation, and experimentation in conjunction to yield the most complete results. This attitude was largely a result of his pluralist education, which exposed him to the four major schools of thought (Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans), and encouraged him to pick and choose aspects from each to adhere to. His early education also included instruction both from teachers who belonged to the Rationalist sect and from teachers who belonged to the Empiricist sect, allowing him to learn about the merits of both schools.

Galen is also cited as having stated, 'Employment is natures Physician', I am sure he would turn in his grave if he could see our current main-stream education system and all its failings, the robots just keep coming!.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Friday, 9 March 2012 12:28:08 PM
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"Great article". Among the frustrations I have is that what is learnt in many learning institutions where broader minds and arguments are discussed through reference, workshops and readings does not transfer into the workplace in real life.

"Representation" is but one aspect, say in Health and things related to the Legal system for example. Take anything Foucault, Bourdieu or Goffman and Scumancher has said.

If Australia means "knowledge nation" we have much work to do....

Thank You for the article.... I hope it is defended for the reasons that it raises. I think this article is essentially important.

http://www.miacat.com/
Posted by miacat, Friday, 9 March 2012 2:02:03 PM
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I'm with you senior victorian. This sort of article confirms a lot of criticism we hear about teaching facaulties in Australia.

How about we leave the alternate spirituality and new age stuff up to parents and just stick with education based on the Western humanist tradition and the needs of the modern economy.

It would be nice to think academics didn't see our children's education as their personal plaything but I guess it's a bit late now.
Posted by dane, Friday, 9 March 2012 4:03:10 PM
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There's nothing wrong with our national education system that a few billion dollars wouldn't cure -- preferably redirected from the private school system, if possible. But this kind of psychobabble always emerges from those who are unable or unwilling to provide actual cash, via the tame academics they keep on their payroll. Just stop asking for money and chant the magic words, and your students will miraculously become enlightened and well-behaved.

What's that? It didn't work? That's OK, there are lots of new magic words in the pipeline. And by the time they run out, we'll be promoted, transferred or retired out of the way.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 9 March 2012 7:23:50 PM
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Jon.J,

Tell us how all that "cash" is going to make them "enlightened" and "well-behaved"?
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 9 March 2012 7:27:39 PM
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Poirot, if you have children in a State school then you already know the answer to that question. If you don't, then ask someone who does. But make sure you don't have anything urgent to do for the following hour or so...
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 9 March 2012 7:42:11 PM
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Why is the real question not being asked when it comes to educating the young ?
Ok, I'll ask it again.
When are we going to start educating our teachers so they can educate our kids ?
Posted by individual, Sunday, 11 March 2012 11:53:07 AM
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Highly commendable objectives and aspirations, both for the educational process and the desired outcomes - and we are indeed fortunate to actually be in position not only to contemplate but also to realise its implementation, if we so desire. Who knows, such a system could produce individuals capable of changing the world for the better, who could disseminate and sell this system to all of the world's troubled quarters, and who could lead the peaceful revolution which would achieve the desired result - sustainable, empathetic civilisation (at long last).

But then again, we could end up with poets, artists, philosophers and day-dreamers, while the world goes to hell in a handbasket? Better still retain some military schools then, to hammer out those who will protect our idyllic status until the world can achieve similar enlightenment?

I'm not trying to knock the proposed educational revolution, but only to air a note of caution that whatever system is employed will have to ensure the production of able, motivated professionals, engineers, tradespeople and ditch-diggers to keep the ship afloat, as well as enabling those who may indeed have the potential to make the better world we all seek and pray for.

As 'individual' has pointed out, the place we really need to start is in producing the teachers, mentors and facilitators who can realise the dream. In the meantime we still have to keep the boilers stoked and the engines running - although we'd much rather be tending to the permaculture garden. Choice is a wonderful thing, but how to sell it to the world without an olive branch in one hand and a nuke in the other?
Posted by Saltpetre, Sunday, 11 March 2012 3:07:25 PM
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Any society that compartmentalises 'education" into something that 'only' takes place withing the confines of four walls in something it calls a 'school' is a society that will perpetually squander its potential.
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 11 March 2012 3:21:28 PM
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