THE LITTLE PICASSO

When I was in 4th grade, I met this guy who was really cool. He was very popular in the school among the students and teachers, for he had a very especial drawing skill and also for he held the Guinness record for school detentions, basically because he used to spend most of his time exercising his skill, even in class… in fact, especially during the classes time.

It was not that the teachers did not recognize his talent. On the contrary, he was used to being praised for his deeds by them all of the time. It was rather the school system that did not how to handle with this potential maestro because it didn´t consider him as such in the first place.

That was the early 80´s, though I don´t think the situation would be any different if this young Picasso attended 4^th grade today. Basically because despite the major paradigm shift in our understanding of intelligence, owed in part to Harvard professor Howard Gardner´s work and others, the traditional notion of intelligence (understood merely in terms of Logical-Mathematical, Verbal-linguistic or even Spatial reasoning) is still widely upheld.

Some days ago, I happened to meet my school friend again. After greeting him, I asked him what he was doing for a living and he told me he was working as a bartender. I asked him about his interests as a kid (meaning his extraordinary gift) and he said something like: “Arrrgh! Childish stuff!”. In that moment I realized that the problem did not have to do much with the means (this or that concept of intelligence) but rather with the ends: the lack of an appropriate answer to the fundamental question of “what we educate for?" That question where the less fortunate answer is “to teach people how to survive…” because that would be very sad.

EDUCATION TODAY

Some days ago, NeRaK wrote an interesting comment about one of my previous posts. She ended up her comment wondering if a revolution in Mexico is going to take place as some proclaim today. I answered that a revolution, in terms of "violent popular movement", was not just a remote possibility but undesired at any rate. We do need a change, a significant change, but as somebody recently stated: Mexico today is a sort of a situation where you have a guy who drove the bus into the ditch. We obviously have to get the bus out of the ditch and that is not easy to do… although we should probably fire the driver.

As I have said before, I think that right now one of the most important things we should be working on is education.

In Mexico, according to official data, 8% out of the population are illiterate and 40% has only elementary level of education. What we are saying here is that nearly half of the Mexican population have 6 years of instruction or less, or nothing at all.

However, the main problem is not education coverage. It is a lack of clarity with regards to education as a whole. I think we have left unaddressed the ultimate questions of education, as if it were not necessary to reflect on them in every epoch, namely: What is education all about? What do we educate for? And above all, what is the best possible education today?

Behind each general education system there’s always both an ideal of citizenship in accordance with the nation´s program and a philosophical conception that gives the whole system coherency, meaning and certainty.

In México, during 300 years of The Colonial Period, the Roman Catholic Church kept their dominance over education. In 1867, President Juarez established the “Reform Laws” and with these, state control over education and a new theoretical orientation: Positivism. After the Revolution of 1910 and with the creation of the new institutions, there were long ideological debates on education (its function, objectives and, above all its future) among those who hold liberal, socialist and conservative positions. This discussion was held at a very important moment in our history: today, we need this kind of debate; and we need to initiate it in a form of a national dialogue.

In terms of subject contents, we have to consider the reconstitution of sciences (Gulbelkian Commission). As for the didactic resources, it would be important to take into account concepts from other experiences such as "Accelerated learning", "Lifelong learning", "Evaluation vs. Assessment", etc. But the most important thing is to define the horizon: what kind of citizen do we need?

A suspicious person might argue that before that we would need to define what kind of country we want. And I would say: my friend, you might have a point!!

NEW PROGRAM AT HARVARD

Three years ago, Harvard University began a comprehensive curricular review of its undergraduate academic program. Two months ago, it was made public a preliminary report that summarizes the core of its new academic plan (still under discussion).

One of its more important attributes is its defense of liberal education against the neoconservative thinking. It is really interesting to see an important education center establishing its basis and lines of academic interest based on “ideals” and not on “deals”. Specially Harvard which, as everybody knows, is recognized world wide as one of the most important universities.

Another important issue is that Philosophy is vindicated as one of the cornerstones of the students´ academic formation. It´s been said several different times that one of the sine qua non conditions for democracy is the formation of an intelligent citizen and not one who just nods along first and nods off right after due to so much nodding.

Finally I would say that what I find particularly relevant is the questions that lay behind the Harvard report, namely: Why do we educate? What do we educate for? And then, How do we educate?

The Harvard report is clear about this but I personally find no easy answers for that…

IMPORTANT LINKS

PRELIMINARY REPORT
CURRICULAR REVIEW
LIBERAL EDUCATION (LEO STRAUSS)
PHILOSOPHY OF LIBERAL EDUCATION