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== For our education == | |||
In 1970, only a fraction of Western youth attended university; today, it's more than half. Still, we dare to postulate here that graduates today are no wiser due to their academic routine. Let's consider the following definition of intelligence: the ability to achieve one's goals in various environments. Now, let's conduct a social experiment and ask two dozen college graduates: | |||
Why did you study and what do you want to achieve? | |||
If we then exclude answers like "Because my parents wanted it" or "Because I didn't know what I want to become", we remind ourselves of an insight we previously shared: | |||
Schools and universities have become an end in themselves. Education is not the goal of these institutions, nor is creation. Instead, their goal is breeding internal offspring. | |||
We allow ourselves to state this thesis polemically and claim: | |||
In the past, it was bread and games. Today, it's bread and school. After years of memorizing facts to pass multiple choice tests and then forgetting them again because they have no relevance to the students, they have forgotten how to question, check, and thus think. | |||
In doubt, if it ever arises, they just do what everyone else does. The system is happy because then there is peace on our streets, and the growing daily number of retirees can complain about the bad weather instead of having to dodge rebellious youths. In the only relevant examination, the daily test of life, everyone fails. Parents follow the unquestioned belief that an academic education leads to greater wealth. Even if the child had a craftsman's talent, it would not become a craftsman. | |||
Both in school and in university, we have a well-known problem, which we also encounter in politics. The problem is the incentive system. Salaries are always paid regardless of performance. Performance is not even measured. It is only logical that this person tends to avoid all risks and effort and serves his time with as little energy expenditure as possible. This person does stand in front of a class in the morning; let's call him a teacher, although a more apt term would be an 'emptier'. The teacher's brain is programmed for permanent sleep. The sleep is only interrupted when the first pension payment arrives; then he no longer stands in front of the class but instead spends his mornings in his garden, snipping at his hedge. If we let this kind of person talk to our children and young people for many hours every day, then it is not surprising to us what comes of it. One only has to look at clowns like David Precht as a symptom of intellectual degeneration caused by the state's dumbing-down system. | |||
Those not deterred by this polemic are now welcome to hear our ideas for education. | |||
The first and most important change is to abolish compulsory schooling. Only then can parents freely decide how and what their children learn. The fewer children go to school, the more they learn. | |||
For all those who still want to send their children to school, the school system will be reformed. Accordingly, we want to develop a new curriculum with new subjects for the types of school in the future. Of course with a new type of teacher. Now for primary school: its future purpose is single: children learn to read, write and calculate there. End of story. They learn nothing that could be subsumed under ideology. All schools – from primary school to university – will in future take up essential elements of Maria Montessori's educational concept. The main principle is "Help me to do it myself". We call the new curriculum an educational plan. It is not about teaching something, but about helping the newcomers to our society to educate themselves. Children and young people are to become what they are. Everyone who now has Pink Floyd in mind, should turn up their inner auditory system to full volume. Our educational plan focusses on a much broader, deeper and more future-oriented general education. | |||
It was, it is and it will not be relevant in the future to be able to enumerate all kinds of songbirds, to know exactly when the Peloponnesian War started, nor is it relevant to be able to recite a Rilke poem by heart. It is far more important to stimulate. The objective is to inspire students to learn programming, to think globally, to read Thucydides to get an impression of the Peloponnesian War and to listen to how beautiful songbirds twitter. | |||
Furthermore, the educational plan provides for a focus on strengths and thus the promotion of creativity from the very first day. Thus, from the first day of school, children have the opportunity and support to implement their ideas and projects instead of mindlessly coloring letters for weeks and forgetting how to think. | |||
Some are craftsmen and some are philosophers. Some obey and some command. The error in the current system is treating everyone the same. But, of course, this is more complex than sticking everyone in a class and confronting them with a humanoid autoprompter for 8 hours a day. | |||
Our new educational plan is not static, but based on feedback according to cybernetics. This allows not only the strengths of the children to be determined, but also the symbiosis between teachers, pupils and classes to be organized. | |||
We will manage this! | |||
== For our youth == | |||
Many of the impulses that have shaped our society since time immemorial have come from the youth. Young people have a fresh, daring outlook on the world and still don't know many arguments why something doesn't work. This makes them a valuable source of ideas. However, young people in our society have no way of getting involved. Only at the age of 18 are they allowed to express their opinion at democratic elections. In school, political education takes a relatively small part compared to other content and does not encourage expressing political ideas loudly. What's more, we believe that our society underestimates the youth and does not take them seriously. This creates a systemic cycle. Our society doesn't appreciate the youth adequately. As a result, the youth act hesitant. In return, they can't mature to the extent that would be possible. | |||
Our idea for this issue is simple. | |||
Let's just have more conversations with young people and give them attention. Talk to them and appreciate them as adults. Depending on how the dialogue proceeds, you can question their positions. Take their answers as full answers. This means you have to look closely at these answers. It's easy to dismiss these answers because they are new. But that's the core of the idea. The experiences we have, we often call treasures. Now, the core of the idea is to take the ideas of the young people and consider them as a treasure, however odd they may seem at first glance. We believe that this will not only create a systemic cycle that makes young people stronger and more mature, but that we can also take a lot of inspiration from these conversations. | |||
Our youth need new impulses and we need the pulses of the youth. | |||
We will manage this! | |||
== For your pets and plants == | |||
One of these common opinions is that animals and plants have no consciousness and are therefore different from humans. Common parlance likes to call humans the crown of creation. | |||
Another aspect of the problem is that literature questioning this common opinion is almost universally of very poor quality. It seems as if only authors who ignore any fear and respect of intellectual challenges, which is good, also tend to lack the ability to mentally grow beyond merely hugging trees. | |||
Our colleague Sigmund Freud, whom we've already met masked in an interlude of history, has recognized the three great humiliations of our species. Perhaps it was the strong feelings that arose when Copernicus realized that we are neither the center of the universe, nor did Darwin snitch that we actually descend from animals, and thirdly, we are not the master of our own mental house, as psychoanalysis teaches us, a considerable part of our conscious will comes from the black box labeled the unconscious. | |||
But even these humiliations are just models. In the latest research, however, the insight is increasingly gaining weight that animals, plants, and even matter are much more than we have hitherto assumed. | |||
And even this is still to be relativized, because just because famous American researchers say something, it does not carry more weight than a thousand-year-old Zen Koan that points to the unity of everything. | |||
Our idea, again, is an experiment for you: | |||
What if your cat could talk? If your plant could talk to you? | |||
We believe that we will be reevaluating the value of life and also the value of matter in the near future. More and more cases will come into our daily lives where we reevaluate life and matter. It's not about hugging trees to better appreciate the tree as such, but it will soon be about understanding ourselves better to set off against this background for new adventures. | |||
Just as Copernicus was only a few decades ahead of Columbus, so a new holism will open doors that will make the three humiliations Freud identified look like small mosquito bites. | |||
We will manage that! | |||