“Our children are trapped (in the sense that there is no way out) in a social environment where family upbringing becomes upbringing against society. There is a fundamental anachronism between us and our children that exceeds our good intentions for the education we give them.”

Dear Doru,

The issue you raise “Open school and its enemies”, published in contributors.ro on 12/02/2024, is that between the two types of education. You name them positive and negative, I will call them (i) education based on the epistemic authority of the teacher, so that the knowledge that can be imparted to the student is mediated by his awareness that he is the one who possesses the knowledge, which meets the student’s awareness that he is the one who receives knowledge, a movement with a single meaning, mediated, in turn, by the ethics of love for (the idea of) man in his highest composition and (ii) education based on the authority of power, that is, the asymmetry of positions between teacher and student, in this case both heroes have the tools of power are at their disposal: the teacher is qualified, the student, the law student. Basically, this is a question of pedagogy, which begins with how you position yourself mental in a teacher-student system because that is the correct arrangement in dictates proper reporting TOfrom which follows the behavior of the two actors towards each other.

In your article, dear Doru, you beautifully and truthfully call for positive education and open school, showing its undeniable advantages over negative education. But you do not mention that the first type of education requires the presence of a certain type of teacher, a bearer of certain values, among which the question of morality, which relates to the concept of freedom, is particularly relevant. But what else, apart from philosophical education, can turn a person into a subject of his actions, from which moral action follows, which is assumed in complete freedom and in accordance with social life? Therefore, it would be necessary for the school to have the idea of ​​education (a part of which should be philosophical) and the transfer of knowledge, not just the transfer of knowledge. In this way, the child would become an “object” that the school would educate in culture, transforming him into a subject who is aware of himself and others, in a world where man and human existence are the highest values ​​that cannot be achieved in lack of moral values. This is remain the world we live in? Isn’t culture replaced by technology, and today’s youth, further and further away from culture, is becoming more and more technologically savvy? It would be great if they were technically savvy, but not at the expense of cultural incompetence. Today there are no names of great thinkers, writers, artists, etc. spread in public space, but names Brandy-s of devices, app names, names of incompetent ministers and underlings, celebrity bitches.

At the center of the positive model you are talking about, the student is seen as a being who deserves respect (but you forget that he does not get it even in the family, parents confuse love with respect, which also sometimes appears, in forms that are not always have – do it neither with love nor with respect), to whom we wish the best, to help him develop, become better and more complex, responsible, acquire critical thinking, in other words, a mind capable of rational understanding and discernment, instilled to the moral structure. And you put a special emphasis on what has become so scolded today – on memorization. Today, memorization as a learning tool is seen as a time-consuming and destructive process that poses the risk of burnout, if not brain cancer, so resentful are some students and many parents that teachers force them to memorize. You say it very well that ” Positive education it is neither idealistic nor superficial. (…) At the center of this vision is a trembling, fragile, always in danger of being overthrown, but endlessly inspiring axiom about the absolute value of human life, about the possibility of an island in a jungle of tangled pieces of chaos, the possibility of a human community that is at least in principle moral , complex, educated, open”. And with this, dear Doru, you make me accuse you of idealism. It is so true that you say that the center around which the project of healthy education should be built is the idea of ​​the absolute value of human life, but this is so far from the value that is actually given to life today!

And what is it, since the fundamental problem of the stupid school seems to me rather to be how to integrate technology into education. He just puts emphasis where it shouldn’t, namely how integratementally with technologyand no way use technologies in the educational process. Of course, this is nowhere stated on an objective level, but the abundance of technological innovations available for the Internet age in which we live, which is barely gaining momentum to “new and new heights of civilization” at a breakneck speed, it intends, no using technology by human intelligence, but the integration of the human mind (which does not have to be intelligent) with technology (which is already intelligent). So which man are we talking about? Technology puts thinking in parentheses, because it thinks instead of a person who no longer needs to be taught to think, but only to use. And then, what is the use of a teacher, whose main purpose once before was precisely to teach the student to use the mind? What kind of morality and ethics can we talk about in these conditions? As we well know, the definition, dear Doru, are changing also at the speed of light, and children are taught different definitions of concepts that we adults treat differently. Their content is different, but the generic term has remained unchanged, and hence the confusion that arises between us and our children. When we talk about something, we think we are talking about the same thing, but it is “as if we are speaking in foreign languages.” So, Dora, I think your request can only be properly understood by those who are older than you – not even everyone, unfortunately. Because your request focuses on the human vision in the highest sense, with an emphasis on good potential, morality, ethics, etc., while the idea of ​​man prevalent today focuses on a completely different image, an image of existence that it must simplify to a satisfaction that promises a completely another kind of happiness: the periodic ecstasy of a person who lacks critical judgment and, of course, insight and free will.

I make a parenthesis: for years I have been appalled at how quickly the problems of those who seek psychotherapy change. On the one hand, it is getting younger and younger, with more and more problems, on the other hand, adults have a problem related to spending time on devices-s, often parents have the appeal of younger children, psychologically speaking, than their children. To put it mildly: I see a rapid infantilization of an adult, ready to put his life on the altar of the enjoyment of technology.

As you well know, dear Doru, the environment is striking. We were formed in a different environment, based on different values, an environment that was not necessarily better, but which did not compete with the happiness that modern technology and virtuality not only promise, but also offer. And this is a significant difference. Our children are trapped (in the sense that there is no way out) in a social environment where family upbringing becomes their education against society. There is a fundamental anachronism between us and our children that exceeds our good intentions in the education we give them. Our internal scaffolding is built differently and we are thrown into this scaffolding, which we have no way of changing and which was much healthier in terms of the idea of ​​a person. And our children, being trapped in this new society, do not have the opportunity to perceive, let alone to understand, that what they live today is the dismemberment of man due to technological progress, not at all by his education, due to the potential that each the child owns it. And it’s kind of maddening because we don’t have the tools to overcome the rigidity that society puts on our kids from the first moment they leave the house and log on. Seven years away from home turned into three, at best. From the age of three, we deliver the child to the system and you do not fight with the system, no matter what it is. On the other hand, our child should to be a child of our generation, and therefore we find ourselves unable to choose. Because we have no choice between what and what. We cannot isolate him from his generation on the ground that he belongs to the age of a sick ideology, any more than we can send him out into the world with an open heart unless the education we give him is in keeping with the times. And then? What can we do? How to raise them? I do not know. I didn’t answer. You cannot choose a solution where your freedom is limited by giving you only one way. Even in the West there is no other way, progressivism has taken over everything. We are all trapped. America is no longer the solution, nor is Canada, etc., and if this plague has been able to spread to such an extent, it is also due to the conquests of science and technology: the Internet. This is what communism lacked to become a global ideology, a means of instant mass communication. So, dear Doru, I think that the conversation about negative and positive education will remain only a theoretical discussion, or not even much. In the absence of a marketplace of ideas, here it’s limited to the dialogue you’ve started, which we’ve seen hasn’t even generated a reaction, much less a discussion.

Do you remember how at the end of November and again at the beginning of February you said that you were invited to talk about my latest book at the presentations[1], which also raises these questions, what will the storm be born? Well, you’re wrong, she hasn’t given birth yet. I didn’t expect it, it didn’t happen either. _Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro