Given that the Greeks are considered to be the progenitors of the western civilization — an unhappy result if today’s situation in the world is part of that civilization — let us start examining the word that the Greeks used for learning.
Quite a few thousand years ago the Greeks used the word “paedeia” [paed-ee-a, accent on “ee”] for education. The root of the word is “paed-ion” [paed-ee-on, accent on “ee”], which means “a child.” A quite rational choice as learning starts with the child [Hence in English: “paed-agogue” “paed-iatrics”, “encyclo-paedeia” (spelled correctly), etc]. However, things are not that … innocent. Unfortunately, later from the “paedeia”-root the Greek language gained another, rather sinister word: the verb “paedevo” [accent on “e”] which means, to punish, to torment; a universal practice in “educating” children.
The Latins were more politically aggressive in choosing a word for learning. They chose “educatio” which originates from the verb “educo” which means to “lead” or “draw out.” The Anglos, the French, et.c borrowed “educatio” and turned it into “education.” That the “leading” of a human being by another one, is intrinsically a rather aggressive act, is not an exaggeration. To lead in essence means that somebody tells us to do what he thinks is right.
[Parenthesis: Of course the leaders in history embellish their decisions with more lively acts than mere orders. For example Alexander the “Great,” out of spite, lead to death half his soldiers along the trail from Asia towards the Mediterranean, Hitler the “real” leader, as he adopted the title of “Fuehrer” (leader) for himself, defined for humanity the virtues of leadership, Obama, the leader of a rabidly Christian nation, decided that using drones to kill innocent people is essential for the security of people in Peoria, etc.]
I guess in other parts of the world and in other ages and languages, the word for “education” will be similar to those of the Greeks and the Latins; punishment and leadership. To the argument that today in the “civilized” world there is no punishment or oppression-plus-indoctrination from a leader, the answer could be that the 21st-century sophistication of punishment and oppression-plus-indoctrination does not make education less “brutal.” As a matter of fact the situation is worse, because to these two was added the curse of producing specialized human “tools” for the benefit of the corporation. Furthermore, the inevitable violence in education has been outsourced to the … local police.
Also, the argument by anarchists that to get out of an unfamiliar forest you accept a local person to lead you out of the forest, is not what right-wingers mean by the word “leader.” What they mean is that the person is endowed by “nature” to be a leader. A brief examination of the historical record or a quick survey of the present leaders of the world will result in concluding that “nature” is rather malicious, by choosing to endow these persons.
The core of the educational problem can be stated simply as: What is taught and how it is taught.
What
The motive of the search for knowledge is the innate curiosity of all human beings. Take the mainstream magazines of the existing crooked social system we live in, for example “Time” magazine or the German magazine “Der Spiegel.” The spectrum of the information covered in “Time” or in “Der Spiegel” extends to almost all human activities and concerns. That these magazines are used to lead the people towards a crooked world, is another matter. “Time” and “Der Spiegel” exist by feeding this curiosity. Of course, there is the additional instinctive tendency in men, as in all animals, to gain as much information from the world around them as possible, to protect their “right” for survival. So, we can say that a normal human being strives to know everything.
[Parenthesis: Of course, there are degrees as to how deep one reaches in the process of learning for a certain subject. And given that we all are endowed by nature with an attraction to a certain kind of knowledge (talent) we feel the urge to go deeper in that field of knowledge. We specialize in it. This is not the place to examine the pluses and minuses of the “specialist” (the “expert”). However, the world has suffered a lot from some legendary “experts.”]
Also, what is the aim of learning, besides the survival factor mentioned above?
Noam Chomsky’s various references, in his work, to Wilhelm von Humboldt [1767 – 1835] has been a precious help for me to understand the problems discussed here.
Humboldt wrote, “The true end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole.” [Wilhelm vonHumboldt, “The Limits of State Action,” Cambridge University Press, 1969,p. 16].
The means to reach this end, according to Humboldt is Bildung; the German word for education and culture. However, to acquire Bildung we need free time and relative comfort. In the existing social system, worldwide, that is the privilege of only a comparatively small part of any given population. I think that this can be achieved in a pareconish (Participatory Economic) society in which Bildung is the foundation of its vision and what is important, it offers a multitude of opportunities to acquire that.
How
Humbold by the word Bildung basically means self-eduction. In addition, he thinks that history is part of that self-education. Also, Noam Chomsky’s way of applying, in essence, a self-educational method for his students during his long work at MIT, I think agrees with the core tendency of humans to be in control of their own mental abilities and the way they wish to satisfy the above mentioned curiosity.
Here is a brief example of how this “expanded” self-eduction can be gained, based on the experience of my field; civil engineering:
There is an interesting but terrible phenomenon named “liquefaction.” If the soil is saturated with water, for example at a port, or the rim of a lake or a bay, etc., and it is hit by an earthquake, then for a fraction of a second the solid grains of the soil cease to touch one another and the soil becomes a liquid, which means that the structures resting on that soil rest simply on … water. What happens next is obvious.
Now suppose that a teacher intends to help a group of students understand the problem of liquefaction. He already has the knowledge available in engineering up to that moment. He stands before his students in the classroom and starts “reciting” this knowledge. His students listen to him in silence and keep notes, while seeing the back of their fellow-students in front of them.
What could be an alternative way of “helping the students understand the problem of liquefaction”?
First, the teacher and the students arrange themselves so that that they face one another, preferably in the open, if the weather allows this. Then, the teacher after stating simply the problem, as mentioned above in three sentences, urges his students to start analyzing the problem from scratch. The first things that come to mind are what kind of soils are prone to liquefaction and can we predict if a given soil is prone to liquefaction and thus avoid building on such a soil.
The students start discussing the problem among themselves. For example, they find that the size of the solid grains of the soil will have something to do with the tendency of a soil to liquefy, or that the initial condition of the soil, whether it is dense or loose, will similarly will play a role, and so on.
What is important here is that the students start from scratch by themselves. They “invent the wheel” themselves. Inventing the wheel again and again is the most important tool of understanding the core of a problem.
The role of the teacher is to, finally, relate the existing knowledge on the subject to the students and compare it to the proposals by the students. [Some times the teacher, if he is a modest and honest person, will be surprised to realize that the analysis by the students leads to new paths for solving the problem.]
This could be the process of “learning” concerning an [extremely difficult] problem in engineering. Things are more easy for subjects in the humanities, that is in social matters. People have a rich knowledge of social matters and can thus easily discuss these matters in a more deep way. That most of the time they do not or that they are afraid to do so is a political problem.
The Greek case
The methods of education existing worldwide, as described in the above “general case”, apply also to the “Greek case.” However, it is interesting to examine the Greek case historically and especially the present situation.
Greece as a contemporary country started to exist about 1830. The first Europeans to force their culture and educational ideas on the Greeks were the Bavarians, who also provided a king, Otto (a teenager!) for the lowly Greeks. The first University in Greece was established in 1837 in Athens. The architect was a Dane and the money came from a rich Greek merchant who made his money in Czarist Russia. The motive of the donor was based on the assumption that Constantinople [Istanbul] would become the Capital of Greece.
[Parenthesis: As usual, philanthropy is a rather “unhealthy” (if not vile) gesture by a rich person based on his not so pious background of becoming rich. In the Athens University case, the donor was not very much interested in education. It seems the inevitably violent and bloody gain of Constantinople by the Greeks was more important for him. Initially, the dominant course of study of the University of Athens, which was named after King Otto, was”Theology,” as it was initially for Harvard.]
What the donor and the Greek elites, at the time, did not expect is that the the area in front of the University [200 feet long by 200 feet wide] for more than 150 years will become the place for political protest not only by the students but also by all the Greeks. Actually, a recording of these protests through the years, could be a precious history of the political and social life of an entire people, subjugated to the whims of the “noble” elites of the world. [By the way, this rather small area in front of the University of Athens was named the “propylaea” (front gate) a term borrowed from the corresponding area on the Acropolis!]
Then, from about the end of the 19th century to about 1920 the French contributed to the acculturation of the Greeks, especially of the Greek elites. Everybody who was somebody spoke French.
Next, since the early twenties, Hitler and the “Good Germans” offered to the world the ultimate of a civilized society. Thus, up to 1940 the Greek intelligentsia, professors, politicians, military, etc filled the German universities to acquire the wisdom of that race. For example, when I entered the Athens Polytechnic to study civil engineering in 1950, almost all the professors were German-educated. Especially one of them behaved as a regular Nazi. Do not forget that that was 1950.
During this German period in Greek education, the English were influencing about half of the Greek population who, as royalists, were pro-English. Yet the English did not manage to influence culturally the Greeks. My explaination, based on my everyday experience, is that the Greeks, even the pro-English ones, detested the English. The reason: the vile work of the infamous English “Intelligence Service”, the “mentor” of the CIA.
Finally, in 1945 the U.S. entered the picture in a devastating way. An army of “Janissaries” [Greeks loyal to the U.S. and not their own country] was introduced among the Greeks. These “Janissaries” were the “products” of U.S. universities. Today, almost all the members of the Greek elite, politicians, professors, business executives, some engineers, etc. are not only U.S.-educated but inexplicably fervent supporters, whether wittingly or unwittingly, of the “American way of life” and everything that the U.S. inflicts upon the rest of the world. Approval by the U.S. Empire is the ultimate goal of this army of “Janissaries”. Of course, this “Made in the U.S.” educational and cultural product saturated also the “sophisticated” part of the Greek society to the point that the names of some newspapers are in English, for example “Real News”.
The Greece of today
– There is a new Rector at the University of Athens named Theodor Fortsakis, or better “Forchakis”, a very “energetic” person chosen by the “Greeks” to bring “order” to the university, as there was a lot of tumult because of the laying off of administrative personnel, employees charged with the cleaning of the University, et al. Fortsakis is a graduate of what is known in Greece as The “American College”, actually a Greek high school, and is French-educated. He was also decorated at the order of the Prime Minister of France with the “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques” [Knight of the Order of the Academic Palms]. Puting aside that the ordinary Greeks consider all these “decorations” as an exercise in silliness, they know very well that any European Prime minister is a proxy of the Emperor. Also, Fortsakis has been a top pupil at the American College of Athens since a tender age.
– A few days ago, two students at the Law School of the University of Athens were beaten brutally by the Riot Police. One of them almost lost his left eye, for a fraction of an inch. The Riot Police were invited by Fortsakis, the Rector. It is certain that Fortsakis was chosen as an “expert” in outsourcing violence in the university.
– November 24, a group of students entered the office of Fortsakis, the Rector who was out of the country at the time, and in the presence of the Vice Rector emptied two plastic bags full of garbage on the desk of the Rector to protest the situation of garbage all over the University, as the cleaning personnel was been layed off.
– 6:25, November 25, 2014, a Tuesday, in Athens Greece. In the evening-news we see and here this: Yiannis Tzifopoulos, deputy rector at the University of Salonika in an interview said: “I am afraid that all of us who are in a position of authority should have to “fascistisize” ourselves [become fascists], otherwise the [ordinary] Greek will not change.” He added: “If you misbehave you should get smacked so that you conduct yourself properly, as it is done in Germany, in Australia, in Canada and in all serious countries of the world”. Australia of East Timore, Canada of the brutal Mounties, and Germany of Merkel serious countries?!
After getting his degree in the University of Salonika, Tzifopoulos got a degree at The Ohio State University (MA 1985), studied at the New York University (1985 – 86) and at The Ohio State University (PhD 1991).
No need for me to comment. The above paragraphs, written a few days ago, suffice.
– The evening of November 25, 2014, following the above Tzifopoulos remarks in the news was the drama at Ferguson spreading all over the U.S. It is time for ordinary Americans to, at last, read the “Kerner report” [officially known as the”Report of The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders”] of March 1, 1968.
“… The only genuine, long-range solution … lies in an attack … upon the conditions that breed despair and violence. All of us know what those conditions are: ignorance, discrimination, slums, poverty, disease, not enough jobs… there is simply no other way to achive a decent and orderly society in America.” [Lyndon Baines Johnson, Address to the Nation, June 27, 1967]. That was 47 years ago.
[Note: By saying that he expects to “achieve”, Johnson assumed that the U.S. was not “a decent and orderly society.” I wonder if his cohorts realized the assumption.]
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From Wikipedia: The report berated federal and state governments for failed housing, education and social-service policies. The report also aimed some of its sharpest criticism at the mainstream media. “The press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and white perspective.”
There are also some helpful resources over at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03282008/profile.html (yes, despite Moyers’ troubling record as Johnson’s press secretary – maybe he’s trying to atone for poor behavior)