EDUCATION: SHARING THE INTEREST(S) OF OUR STUDENTS

Let our students assert themselves

All my life I have been involved in education but I have also spent ample time in the real world to make my own assessment of the actual connections between one and the other.

I have seen much improvement over the decades. Let’s first make that observation. The old academic ivory towers are items of the past. Schools, colleges and universities have become much more – generally - responsive to the needs of society and our information and communication capabilities have revolutionized many learning processes. However, we continue to largely project our own interpretation of the world on our children, which we do in the disguise of knowledge transfer. We fail to systematically engage them into the real world. We do not sufficiently get our students to develop their own views of it as a basis for their ventures in the future and or help them to lay a proper foundation for their own career.

Many senseless, irrelevant programs are offered in our colleges and universities. We tend to overemphasize knowledge and invest much less in the actual development of the students’ capabilities. It may seem a paradoxical statement, but many fashionable curricula which allegedly connect knowledge with its (real life) application, offer yesterday’s solutions at best and do not actually challenge the capabilities of students to identify relevant issues themselves and mobilize the required expertise. In fact, the expertise which the students end up with is very thin or shallow; they know very little about almost everything.

Secondly we have steered the notion of competence driven education into much too narrow alleys. Whilst the concept offers useful parameters to design a curriculum at the appropriate level and to help create its focus, the actual investment in our students should be much broader. It is vital we get away from too much standardization and allow more room in our program to cater for the students’ individual qualities .



I believe most of all that the current generation of students has a great challenge to face. Not simply to make sense of the myriad of options, this bombardment of opportunities, almost in every aspect of their lives: education, culture, consumer markets, entertainment etc. Not simply this, but also to take command of their own path, their own education and development, based primarily on their own needs and interests.

More substantially this is what the current younger generation should take on board:

- to be responsible for themselves and for the development their own capacities/capabilities

- to assert themselves in the face of everything that is presented to them, in education, culture, politics, markets etc

- to create their own themes and signature irrespective of the commands of the curriculum, and shape their own identity accordingly

- to be highly cooperative among each other (most of what students can learn, they can learn from their fellow students)

- to pro-actively make their own inquiries – and develop their own approaches – (in)to the outside world

- and finally, to make sure that what schools teach them is indeed what they should learn



The current board of the Dutch National Student Association ISO

More than ever schools and universities are the extended arm both of their students’ parents and of society at large. We should provide for an education system which takes the interests, talents and perspectives of the students as the starting point. Curricula should guide this process but not rigidly determine, let alone confine it. Obviously, for most true professions such as the medical, legal and engineering professions entry qualifications should prevail, but students should be allowed to choose their own path to getting there, at least more than is the case at present.



I am a strong proponent of an approach to education that treats the process of knowledge transfer as a supporting process. The key process is not teaching, but is the actual learning of the students themselves, in all their variety and different learning styles and learning capabilities. Educators, not simply teachers, should be there to guide and coach the students, independent from those responsible for the education program.

Secondly education is to cater for the future and not to enforce the past on our younger generation. Every educational environment should be particularly inviting on that score: in the way it draws its students to the real world and not simply to the books and theories at school.

My third and last point is that we have treated students mistakenly as "clients", almost as objects. The reality is that they are the main producer themselves of "our output". We should view ourselves as their partners, most certainly not as their adversaries or as adults who always know better. We don't.

Why isn’t this evident already. Why do we so strongly adhere to telling rather than showing? We should push our students to experience the world themselves and liberate them from school buildings with too many teachers around them who have no clue of the real world, let alone of the competences required to properly survive and thrive in it.

HERCULES, SUPERMAN AND JESUS CHRIST

Our human craving for the supernatural

When watching the animated Disney version of the Greek story of Hercules (Greek: Heracles), which contains many digressions from the original myth, one would almost believe that the creators of Superman did nothing but copy Hercules in a modern age version. A baby from outer space (or the mountain Olympus), taken up by foster parents, growing into a human of extreme power and ability, saving the world in which he lives.

They are both just stories to begin with. We might even be similarly inclined to believe the story of Superman as the Greeks did in respect of their Gods and superheroes. For them they were nothing less than the key characters of their national religion. Superman in our time has not come that far. However much he is our modern day myth of a son of the stars and his powers are derived from our own yellow sun, the Christian superhero, Jesus Christ, Son of God, is still a stronger myth, stronger than any myth attempted or created ever since the first century AD.



In all three stories there is a child who is raised by foster parents of our own Earthly world. Even Maria could to some extent be considered s foster mother, for her child was conceived for a destiny far beyond the grasp of mortal parents. All three enjoyed a childhood of humble proportions. Nothing in their earthly surroundings, whether the simple nomadic existence of Maria and Joseph or the rural life of Martha and Jonathan Kent. It seems to me that indeed the creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, knew their classics when almost eighty years ago they concocted the myth of Kal-El, son of Krypton, who became the greatest superhero ever imagined on the planet Earth.

Of course, Superman was never conceived as a claim to our fundamental beliefs. Still, he is an important icon of our Americanized world. American concepts and myths pervade our western world ever since Woodrow Wilson first dictated his (ill fated) Pax Americana in the closing days of a world dominated by European imperial concepts and myths. The story of Superman is part and parcel of this – essentially twentieth century – reality. It will be difficult to conceive the total oblivion of this story, even though – no doubt – Superman will ‘die’ many more episodes to come (it happened twice so far, by my recollection).



And we do want to believe to some extent. At least we want to believe in this ultimate fantasy of the supernatural, the superhuman, whether sired by divinity or by living beings on distant stars. Hercules, Jesus Christ, Superman and many other similar myths or stories have served humanity for most of its existence to satisfy this universal need. Both our experiences and our hopes are infested with the notion that our world, including our personal existence, is influenced if not governed by agents outside our normal powers of observation. Some believe in an actual, existing God, others cannot escape a sense of fate or pre-determination, and I believe in guardian angels.

Most of all, ever since I first came eye to eye with him at the age of eleven, I believe in Superman. Obviously there is nothing in me that believes he ever really existed, but the comics that have come out of Schuster’s and Siegel’s first inspiration all serve as a reminder of our human limitations, our weakness and even our potential for malice. And aren’t these the universal themes of all myths and legends, isn’t this in fact the key message of almost all religions? You don’t have to believe in anything and still accept these ‘truths’ as a beacon in your life.

But otherwise, Hercules, Superman and Jesus Christ simply offer us the kind of fairy tales that of necessity accompany our earthly path, wonderful fiction which is the essence of our humanity.

JACKSON IS THE MOZART OF OUR TIME

In the recent days many comparisons have been made between the deceased Michael Jackson and other icons of our time, most notably Elvis Presley.

One other comparison has been drawn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Michael Jackson too was a child prodigy who was pushed onto the stage by an ambitious father. Like Mozart Michael Jackson was crowned a King of his art and public performance. They both inspired an entire culture, for many decades, whether in classical music or pop.



So indeed, Michael Jackson will stand on a high pedestal, almost in the way he had already depicted this in the pictures of his album “History”.

To some extent Michael Jackson isn’t history yet, nor for that matter can we call Mozart ‘history’. Most likely Michael’s voice will be heard for ages to come in the same way as the sounds and tunes of Mozart’s sonatas and concertos.

And what about the culture itself? Our popular music already has passed Michael Jackson’s heydays. Yet his legacy continues to resound in many new albums of a wide range of artists, his dance routines re-emerge time and again in video clips, and Michael’s own music will of course continue to be played for quite some years to come.



Still our popular culture may be up for some sizeable innovation, the way Michael Jackson single handedly ignited the innovation of the late seventies, right after Elvis Presley’s death. It will be interesting to see what it takes to be star with revolutionary potential in our time. We can not sit and wait. We just have to recognize it when it arrives.

A GLOBAL TREATY TO SAVE OUR PLANET

God does not mingle with the odds

God does not temper with destiny, this is my conviction. Whether or not he plays dice.

Or should we say: life is one big game of dice. The only thing a God can do is show us the consequences of our own actions. But it is the human society that determines those consequences. Nothing actually is “an act of God”.

And because there is no God who actually sets enforceable rules, we have created the institution of law to rule us. Law is a fundamentally human logic. A necessary or inevitable effort towards logic, if we want to maintain the equilibrium of hour human societies. And perhaps by virtue of that its mother is the logic of God, or Nature.

I had a conversation, recently, with a colleague. I don’t remember how we got there, but he said: “Natural law was a great philosophy before Darwin. We never again looked at natural law after Darwin, did we?” I mumbled in agreement and immediately started to reflect on it.

Although I do not believe in legally relevant natural law, I do believe that there is much that law can learn from nature.

For instance: that we may fight crime better by bringing home the consequences rather than by mere punishment or retribution.

Or: that we must have some tolerance, however difficult emotionally, for accidents to happen, unless we want a rigidly policed and tightly secured society. Such society can only be sustained on the basis of human enslavement not human freedom.

That we must emphasize our individual duty to find the niche in which we can survive and sustain ourselves. One could indeed say, this is our natural duty as it is our natural opportunity. To go and find our own, individual niche and work towards our own sustainability in the first place.

The essence of human evolution is the ability and drive to quickly adapt to new niches, new circumstances, and yes, entirely new environments from very warm to very cold. We have reached the stage – as a species – at which we are a serious force with an impact of unknown consequences on the environment itself. To a large extent we have created, and engineered our entire human existence, and our potential peril.




We have been on the road of submitting nature to the human wishes and now we have reached the point of reversal. Shouldn’t our responsibility in respect of nature of itself not be the key principle of natural law to be imposed on all humans living now and in the future?

And if this is not self-evident, then perhaps we should ourselves articulate our responsibilities regarding nature in a global treaty of all humanity, strictly reinforceable, by force if necessary.

Let’s newly address the question of ‘natural law’: not simply as a source of guiding (or inspiring) principles for the human society, but as the prime expression of humanity’s responsibility in respect of its true mother Nature. And whoever wants to believe in God will most likely wholeheartedly agree. Even the Pope in Rome should be in total agreement. Nearly fifty years ago an American President spirited the Western world to the Moon. Perhaps in our time we need an American President who inspires us to reach a global agreement regarding our own planet Earth.

HOW HISTORY WAS INTRODUCED IN MY YOUTH

And how it inspires me to help pass it on to future generations

I still have the record of my first lessons of history at school when I was nine years old. It is something we would today call a notebook. Most of it was written exactly according to the instructions of our teacher. But some things were not. One could say that they contained my first personal interpretation of history, by way of my illustrations.


Charlemagme at his court in the early 800's (TKA 1961)

These drawings are a reflection too of that time. The man with the firm stride closely resembles a popular comic figure, Captain Haddock of Tintin, whom I was frantically copying in all my drawings and scribbles. Of course, history obtains its meaning very much because we can project ourselves into it. Experience it.


Captain Haddock (Herge)

I have to say that the largest share of my history lessons did not come from school, but from my father, and from many other people, family and friends, teachers, with whom I shared the years of my youth.

At school our teacher picked this notion up by starting her lessons right there, with the experience of family: young people, old people, stories from the past, long ago, a chain – a chain of people and a chain of ‘time, endlessly going back in the past.

The first page of my notebook, the first lessons, dealt with this concept of time, and the timeline you can divide in parts, in dates. All of it was quite clear for me from the onset.


The first page of my history notebook, fourth grade (age 9)

I believe that in order to understand this space of time in the past’ and people long gone, the idea of a finite life, and thus the notion of death, must be clear by that time too, in any child of nine years old. I certainly understood it because I had no difficulty to grasp the implication of old aunts and uncles, even a grandfather, already having ‘died’.

The notebook is not simply a annotation of dates. It contains many references to the way of life of the people, their circumstances, their technologies and livelihood, next to the significant facts of history and the kings, queens, presidents and Popes involved in them.



The professions, the crafts and the arts also were given their proper attention, even in ‘experience’ terms. One example is the letter ‘P’ that I designed for the cover of an imaginary Medieval book, dedicated to a person named Philip.

Why not? It is a good way to experience the dedication of a 10th Century Monk who is working on his masterpiece. That monk would have loved the availability of Photoshop or 3D design, or even mass produced tubes of paint. But in his time they didn’t have any of it.


Viking ship

But I believe it was the key lesson of my father that stirred my passion for history indefinitely. He was always very quick to relate events of our time to examples in the past. And once that happens, you get interested to hear the whole story, and not just the fragments. It comes naturally if you have the basic curiosity of a child.

It has to be fed, this curiosity. It is the curiosity that does not develop just on its own steam. I believe that our current youngest generation is one which shows a good deal of curiosity, and I believe it is critical that we help them answer it in the right way.

For me, the lessons of history have most of all been part of an expedition of my own. I was given ample opportunity to actively absorb it, in our travels, in movies, in books, in family history. It continues to be such expedition to this day. Every day when I travel to certain periods or aspects of history, I largely see facts which I already ‘know’, but I see them in different lights and contexts. And this includes the events of which I had been witness myself, such as the revolution of the sixties.

The active exercise of history is a highly useful effort especially on behalf of our present and future. Not by way of prediction, but by way of projection and interpretation. Every day we absorb these lessons.

My perceptions of Charlemagne and the Vikings, and many other figures of the past have since evolved, of course. Most of all I have many more questions about Charlemagne than ‘knowledge’. And it is unlikely that today I would paint a Viking ship so colorful. But otherwise, the picture is very constant too. The order of history as I grasp it today is founded on these very basic lessons, back almost fifty years ago.

NO MAN ON MARS IN THE COMING DECADE

Our planet is grounded to solve the issues at home first of all

One of the missing topics in President Obama’s inaugural address was Space and America’s future endeavors beyond the confines of our planet. I have no doubt that he considered the subject for the speech, but consciously decided not to include it. For he must have realized that back in the sixties, a period from which he draws many of his inspirations, America’s ambition to put a man on the Moon spawned many different technological – and inspirational - initiatives which multiplied the single benefit of mastering the art of Space travel. Kennedy’s early decision to make this ambition a hallmark of his Presidency, taken at substantial risk, helped build a strong focus across the entire western world on superior achievements in a broad area of technology which otherwise would not have been realized. And in part it shaped our cultural focus. Next to the emergence of pop culture and popular rebellion, “2001 - A Space Odyssey” epitomizes the character of this memorable decade, which sadly had to do without Kennedy to actually see it unroll.

Most certainly we live in a time when great ambitions are needed. In general terms Obama has captured this need in magnificent terms in many different dimensions. One can therefore assume that his decision not to include a renewed or strengthened mission outer space is an immediate function of his understanding of America’s – and the world’s – first priorities. My interpretation of his approach is reinforced when I go through the newly published agenda of Obama’s administration (http://www.whitehouse.gov/). There is no reference of any prominence of a specific plan regarding further US Space programs.

Nonetheless there is one paragraph which refers to the Administration’s stated interest regarding Space:

Ensure Freedom of Space: The Obama-Biden Administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. They will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.


The priority

This paragraph can be found under the heading of Defense. Space is (or remains) primarily positioned in the domain of the Military, which is where it was established in the fifties and sixties as well. No wonder the paragraph largely reads as a defensive stance: the restoration and safeguarding of freedom in Space.

No reference to this is made in the sphere of economy or technology, where apparently the Space program (apart from the ongoing availability of satellites) offers no special incentive or opportunity, according to those who crafted Obama’s policy principles.

During his Presidential campaign. Obama’s team did have a close look at NASA’s current plans for the future. Some reported that he was specifically interested in these plans. It is an other indication that the absence of ‘Mars’ in his inaugural speech was far from a haphazard omission. Economic gloom, climate change, health care and education all rank higher than any farfetched dream without immediate benefit to America’s taxpayers.

At one time in Nov 2008, one of Obama’s top aides clarified his position:

“Obama believes we should continue developing the next generation of space vehicles, and complete the international space station. While Obama would delay plans to return to moon and push on to Mars, Obama would continue unmanned missions, and use NASA to monitor the forces and effects of climate change, support scientific research, and maintain surveillance to strengthen national security. Obama also believes we need to keep weapons out of space.” (Source: http://www.spacepolitics.com/).

Again the motives seem largely defensive - or protective- rather than offensive or entrepreneurial. Clearly this is not the hallmark enterprise of the forthcoming decade, as new energy and climate control most certainly will be.


The world we live in

Still, if Kennedy’s outreach to the Moon back in 1961 was largely inspired by pressing competition (i.c. from the Soviet Union, who had surpassed the US by getting the first man ever into an orbit around Earth), today’s competition can not be entirely overlooked. The Russians have in the mean time become collaborators, not competitors. No indication exists that Space is anywhere near Moscow’s current issues. But the Chinese have stepped up their development of Space programs and may well become a serious player in this field. Although the chances of China surpassing the US in scale or advancement of their Space efforts are very slim indeed,

Any Space plan that is presented as a mere end in itself (like, most likely, a man on Mars) will be met by Obama’s administration with great reservation. Competition, real progress, measurable economic benefit etc. must be the key considerations if a continued substantial Space effort is to survive in the forthcoming period. We should be surprised if at one point such effort will rise in stature after all, for instance if some ingenious system of solar panels is to be sent into orbit to “harness the energy of the Sun” (one prominent feature of Obama’s inaugural speech).

But perhaps, at best, we will have a good few new men on the Moon by 2020.

Arts and qualities of the left hand

President Obama in his youth

I never realized the enormous chance of left-handed people to become President of the United States, especially in the past fifty years:

Truman, Ford, Reagan, Bush sr., Clinton – and now Obama.
(source: http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/presidents.html)

But of course, you better be born an American, and I am not. I am a left-handed Dutchman.

I share the sense of specialty with all other left-handed people in our world, and I believe much of what people say about it, sometimes a little mythical perhaps, must have been true for all our history.

On the internet I googled the following text:

(There is) ”… this theory, right-handers solve problems using analysis, or the process of breaking the problem into its pieces and examining each piece in turn, hoping to thereby understand the problem;

In this theory, left-handers solve problems using synthesis, or the process of connecting the dots to understand the big picture, hoping to thereby understand the problem.”

Source: http://www.helium.com/items/763455-why-a-left-handed-obama-will-beat-a-right-handed-clinton.“Why a left-handed Obama will beat a right-handed Clinton”. It was about Hillary Clinton, not her husband, the former left-handed President. But the power of synthesis and filling gaps in our understanding of our world, all of this has become more evident as and when we came to see and hear more of the new American President. McCain 's competition in this respect made no difference, for he is left-handed too. (*)



I share a little history of left-handedness among my forebears and (distant) cousins. We all combine this, without exception, with the gift of creativity. Like our left-handed great-grandmother, many of us are avid amateur artists, dreamers and writers.

In the end it is about bridging and crossing the existing rifts between the people of our world. Much synthesis and dots connecting is required.

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(*) And interesting question nonetheless is whether left-handed politicans will be more inclined to the left, on average, or to the right.