EXPO 2000: A Global Dialogue on “Building Learning
Societies –
Knowledge, Information and Human Development”
Hanover, Germany (September
6-8, 2000)
THE TROUBLE WITH KNOWLEDGE
The relevance of
knowledge – the process of its selection – the issue of power
Munir Fasheh, Director, The Arab Education Forum
Center for Middle Eastern
Studies, Harvard University
[A wish
Cocoon
Along a dusty
road in India there sat a beggar who sold cocoons. A young boy watched him day after day, and the beggar finally
beckoned to him.
"Do you
know what beauty lies within this chrysalis? I will give you one so you might
see for yourself. But you must be careful not to handle the cocoon until the
butterfly comes out."
The boy was
enchanted with the gift and hurried home to await the butterfly. He laid the
cocoon on the floor and became aware of a curious thing. The butterfly was
beating its fragile wings against the hard wall of the chrysalis until it
appeared it would surely perish, before it could break the unyielding prison. Wanting only to help, the boy swiftly pried
the cocoon open.
Out flopped a
wet, brown, ugly thing which quickly died. When the beggar discovered what had
happened, he explained to the boy "In order for the butterfly wings to
grow strong enough to support him, it is necessary that he beat them against
the walls of his cocoon. Only by this struggle can his wings become beautiful
and durable. When you denied him that struggle, you took away from him his only
chance of survival."
May the walls
of your cocoon,
Be just thick
enough,
To allow you
to struggle,
Just long
enough,
to emerge,
The beautiful
person,
Many
societies met a fate similar to the cocoon through development and assistance
programs, which lacked the wisdom embedded in life and in the “soil of
cultures.” Since the development age
was launched by Truman some 50 years ago (through declaring all societies
outside the Western world “underdeveloped” and, thus, in need of “assistance”
to “develop” them), education, development programs and knowledge have been the
main tools used in breaking the back (chrysalis) of societies (though not with
the same innocence that the boy had).
The story of the boy and the cocoon also tells what we (as parents and
teachers) often do: we break the “chrysalis” of our children and students by
trying to help them, thus denying them to learn and build the internal natural
strength they need in order to be the beautiful persons they are.
I do
believe that one aspect which characterizes education, development and the
production and dissemination of knowledge, in today’s world, is the lack of
intellectual honesty. This belief is an
outcome of reflecting on my experience during my school and university years
and my almost 40 years of work. The
dishonesty is connected to the values, which govern the thinking and practice
in the fields of education, knowledge and development (mirroring the values in
dominant societies and serving mainly the lifestyle of consumerism): control,
winning, profit, individualism and competition. Having a syllabus and textbooks, and evaluating and judging
people (students, teachers, administrators, and academics) through linear forms
of authority and through linear symbolic values (such as arbitrary letters or
grades or preferential labels), almost guarantee cheating, lack of honesty, and
lack of relevance. (The recent reports
that cheating and testing are on the rise in the Maryland and Chicago areas are
just one example that came up to the surface.
And of course teachers, principles and superintendents were blamed and
had to pay the price.) I taught many
years and put exams both at the level of classrooms and at the national level,
and I labored and spent a lot of time and effort in order to be fair. But, then, I discovered that the problem is
not in the intentions or the way we conduct things but, rather, in the values
that run societies in general and which are propagated by education,
development and knowledge -- among other venues. Thus, the main trouble with knowledge and education, is not so
much their irrelevance or process of selection or the issue of power (though
these are definitely part of the trouble) as it is with the lack of
intellectual honesty in these areas.
Giving a number or a letter to measure a human being is dishonest and
inhuman; it is a degrading to the human mind and to human beings. Grading, in this sense, is degrading. It is one of the biggest abuses of mathematics
in its history! Moreover, as long as
the above-mentioned values remain as the governing values, education will
continue to be fundamentally an obstacle to learning. Under these conditions, talking about improving or reforming
education is naïve at best and hypocritical at worst. At most, it would touch a very small percentage of the student
population in any particular region. Of
course, we can go on putting our heads in the sand and refusing to see or
care. But one main concern I will
continue to have is what happens to the 80 some pecent of students whom the
“compulsory suit” does not fit. Why
imposing the same-size suit on all bodies sounds ridiculous but imposing the
same curriculum on all minds does not?!
The human mind is definitely more diverse that the human body.
Labeling
a child as a “failure” is a criminal act against that child. For a child, who has learned so much from
life before entering school, to be labeled a failure, just because s/he doesn’t
see any sense in the mostly senseless knowledge we offer in most schools, is
unfair – to say the least; it is really outrageous. But few of us around the world seem to be outraged, simply
because we usually lose our senses in the process of getting educated. We are like those in Hans Christian
Anderson’s story that lost their ability to see and had to be reminded by the
little child that the emperor is without clothes.
Most
people in the educational world (students, teachers, administrators, scholars,
suprintendents, …) are dishonest (often without realizing it) either because we
are too lazy to reflect on and see the absurdities in what we are doing (and
just give to students what we were given in schools and universities, or during
training courses and enrichment seminars!), or because we are simply afraid and
need to protect ourselves from punishment or from being judged and labeled as
inept or failures. This dishonesty
prevails at all levels. I had a friend
who was working in a prestigious university in the U.S. and who often went as
an educational consultant and expert to countries to “improve and develop”
their educational systems. Once, when
he was on his way to Egypt as a consultant to help in reforming the educational
system there, I asked him, “Have you ever been to Egypt?” He said no.
I said, “Don’t you find it strange that you don’t know Egypt but you
know what is good for it?!” Obviously,
the richness, the wisdom and the depth of that 7000-year civilization is
totally ignored by him, or more accurately, cannot be comprehended by him. Or, he may simply believe in what Kipling
believed in in relation to India: to be ruled by Britain was India’s right; to
rule India was Britain’s duty! In a
very real sense, that friend of mine does not only abstract the theories he
carries along with him everywhere but also abstracts the people by assuming
that they all have the same deficits and, thus, the same solution – and that he
has the solution.
Let’s
take the term “sustainable development,” for example, which is widely used
today and it is used in the concept paper for this conference. If we mean by development what we see in
“developed” nations, then sustainable development is a nightmare. If we all start consuming, for example, at
the rate at which “developed” nations currently do, then (as a friend of mine
from Mexico says) we need at least five planets to provide the needed resources
and to provide dumping sites for our waste!
If “developing” nations consume natural resources (such as water) at the
same rate “developed” nations do, such resources would be depleted in few
years! Such “development” would be
destructive to the soil of the earth and to the soil of cultures, both of which
nurture and sustain human beings and
human societies. The price would be
very high at the level of the environment and at the level of beautiful
relationships among people. Thus, those
who believe in sustainable development (in its current conception and practice)
are either naïve or dishonest or right out indifferent to what happens to
nature, to beautiful relationship among people, and to the joyful harmony
within human beings and between them and their surroundings. Nature and relationships among human beings
are probably the two most precious treasures in life; the most valuable things
human beings have. The survival of
human and natural diversity (and even of human communities) are at stake here.
We do
not detect dishonesty in the fields of education, knowledge and development
because usually we are protected (in scools) from having much contact with
life, through stressing verbal, symbolic and technical “knowledge,” through
avoiding people’s experiences and surroundings, through the means we follow in
evaluating people, and through ignoring history (history of people, of ideas,
…). The main connection most school
textbooks have with life is through the sections that carry the title
“applications” – another instance of dishonesty. During the 1970s, for example, and as the head supervisor of math
instruction in all the schools of the West Bank (in Palestine), one question I
kept asking children was “is 1=1?” 1=1
is true in schoolbooks and on tests but in real life it has uses, abuses and
misuses, but no real instances. We
abstract apples in textbooks and make them equal but in real life there is no
apple which is exactly equal to another apple.
The same is true when we say that Newton discovered gravity. Almost every child by the age of one
discovers it. (When my grandson, for
example, was 15 months old, I was watching him once pick up pieces of cereal
and put them in his mouth. Everytime he
lost a piece, he would look for it down, never up!) By teaching that Newton discovered gravity, we do not only lie
but also fail to clarify Newton’s real contribution. Similarly with teaching that Columbus discovered America …. Everyone of us can give tens of examples on
dishonesty in the way we were taught and the way we teach.
Dominant
forms of education, development and knowledge (as I mentioned earlier) abstract
the “social majorities” in the world and dump them all under one name:
developing nations. This could have
been a laughable matter if we did not, and still do not, pay a high price for
this dishonesty; it is in a real sense a crime against the social majorities in
the world.
Human
development is another term that sounds positive and well- meaning but
inhuman. How does one develop human
beings without ruining them? It is like
help developing the cocoon in the Indian story. Or like talking about “flower development.” Usually, when the term “human development”
is used, it usually means that people become better consumers or more useful to
the consumer society or to the control system.
The only human way to understand the term is the one that has been
stressed by many wise people throughout history: to work on oneself, not in the
technical sense through which one keeps adding new lines to his/ her resume,
but in the sense of knowing oneself better and becoming wise and good human
being (which is a different concept from “good citizen” which usually means
loyal to a state, including the readiness to fight other human beings, often
for greedy reasons.)
The
value of schools and universities is related mainly to its relation to the
spheres of influence rather than to any intrinsic value in them. I will choose one example to
illustrate. When Israel closed
Palestinian scools and iniversities for almost four years (1987-91), it faced a
real problem. What would it do with the
students when they are not promoted from one grade to another? It had to do something, otherwise it would
have faced four times the number of students waiting to enter the first grade
with all the repercussions (economic, political, social …) associated with
that. The solution was to promote all
students in all grades to the next grade – without actually going to
school! This happened every year for
four years. What made things more
absurd was the fact that the results on the national genaral exam at the end of
the school cycle were (during the period of closures) the highest ever in the
history of that exam! I wrote an
article in al-Quds newspaper, at the time, saying that a wave of geniusness was
sweeping the Palestinian population: their results are getting higher without
going to schools and without studying a word!
Still worse: Palestinian parents and teachers did not object, because
they did not want their children and students to repeat any grade. It was a rare instance where Israelis and
Palestinians were in total agreement.
Everyone seemed to be happy with that solution. The fact is that they all know at the
deepest in their hearts that education is a farce and that economic and other
considerations can easily take over, without any objection from any soul,
including concerned educators! Each
party justified it easily in a way that suited it best.
Equating
education with learning is part of the dishonesty; so is calling the casting of
votes every few years democracy; and so is calling cola a drink, or potato
chips food. In this sense, the call to
improve education is like the call to improve cola or the call to improve
elections. The problem is not with the
brand or the quality (of the cola, for example) but with the cola itself. The solution is simple and obvious: to
reclaim water as the main source for drinking, to reclaim our lives and
cultural spaces as the main source for learning, and to reclaim our
responsibility in running our affairs as the main source for governing.
This
dishonesty permeates the thinking, language and practice in almost all aspects
of development. In February 1999, I was
in Yemen participating in a workshop on working with youth. There were about 40 young people from 5 Arab
countries, in addition to some adults.
A school principal (who herself is involved with groups on the Right of the
Child) told the following story about a 15-year old Yemeni girl. In one of the meetings that took place
before our arrival (which was one of many meetings held to introduce and
advocate the rights of children), that girl -- after a long and elaborate introduction
by several “experts” about the rights of children -- asked two questions. One question was, “My government signed the
Treaty in my name without discussing it with me. Isn’t it my right to have had it discussed with me before it
signed it?! Isn’t that one of my
fundamental rights? I am 15 years old
and I can read and voice my opinion … ….”.
[Her question would not have carried much weight if the government of Yemen
was the only government that ignored this fundamental right: consulting people
and youth before signing anything in their name. Almost all governments did.]
The girl’s second question was, “You talk about education as a right. I go to school every day, and I get bored
and insulted in it every day. Nothing
in the curriculum refelects my life.
Nothing is relevant. … … If this is what you refer to as the right to
education, please protect me from this right.
If you need a job, please don’t let me pay the price.” (Similarly, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights was declared in the name of all peoples without consulting
any). That girl, with her clear mind
and honest expression, exposed the hypocrisy of the “experts,” of the treaty,
and the way it is legitimized around the world through hegemonic organizations,
sweet packaging, and sometimes through force (just think of the term
“compulsory education.” It is like
talking about compulsory eating. If it
is a truly natural need, why does it have to be compulsory? We seem to have forgotten that learning is
as natural as life itself, almost synonymous to living. But that natural process does not exist in
education. Something unnatural and
horrible exists instead. That’s why it
has to be compulsory!) That girl
dismantled the logic and exposed the hypocrisy both of experts and of world
organizations, with an innocent persistence, exactly like the child in Hans
Christian Andersen’s tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes: “But the emperor has
nothing on at all!” That girl was not
yet constrained by the forces that blinded and silenced the adult “experts” and
caused them to “see” what is not there, and not to see what is there.
A last
example about the dishonesty is embedded in the term globalization. I have been married for 33 years and as a
result a lot has changed in me and a lot has changed in my wife. But a lot in both of us has resisted change
although we have been trying to change certain aspects in each other for those
33 years. We are still struggling to
understand each other. If by the time I
die, I succeed in understanding my wife fully, I will have accomplished a
lot. People are autonomous human
beings, full organic creatures, with their ways, habits, etc, that resist
arbitrary change. We cannot just impose
change without breaking the very essence of people and societies – without
breaking their “chrysalis.” For a person (or organization) to go to a
place as rich in culture as Egypt or India, assuming he understands it and
imposing a solution from outside is arrogant and unethical. History has not known a more destructive
form of arrogance – done in the name of help, assistance, development, and
progress, i.e. coupled with hypocrisy.
In this sense, an expert is a person who has lost his senses and is
driven by an illusion, by self interest, and by plastic words (that may look
shiny but have no life, and usually are distortive and destructive).
Talking about globalization in
the sense we can understand the world is a big example of dishonesty. A wise man with the name of Socrates
challenged us all, more than two thousand years ago, to “know thy self.” Globalization which is being talked about
can only mean something in the logic of control. It may be true that a person can communicate with millions of
people around the world, but most probably lose the ability to communicate with
those living in one’s home. That
person, probably, has difficulty in communicating with real people; s/he
probably has difficulty in striking a meaningful conversation with another
person. Two thousand years ago, a
famous Palestinian with the name of Jesus Christ, said, “what benefit man if
s/he gains the whole world but loses herself/ himself?!” Talking about Jesus, He probably was the
first to talk about “globalization” in a totally different sense: the oneness
of human beings; that they are all children of God. No developed vs undeveloped, and no chosen vs unchosen.
To Define or be Defined, that is the Issue.
Second Main Trouble
with Knowledge and Education:
Lack of Connection
with the Lives of the Social Majorities in the World
I cannot subscribe to a system that ignores the lives and ways of living
of the social majorities in the world; a system that ignores their ways of
living, knowing and making sense of the world.
I cannot subscribe to a system that is geared to 20% of the students and
calls the other 80% failures, dropouts, misfits, unemployed (or unemployable) …
and blames them for that. It behooves
me how most people today accept a system that produces so many useless people
incapable of satisfying any of their needs; all what most have learned is how
to demand jobs (which in most places do not exist)!
I asked hundreds of teachers why they were teaching what they were
teaching and no one really seemed to know -- in the sense that they did not
have an answer that came from a deep conviction and awareness. One answer, which was often mentioned, was
“because it was needed in the university”!
When I said “but only 20 or so percent of the students go to universities,
what do you do for the other 80%? Don’t
you care about them?!” most would respond “but they didn’t work hard enough,
they don’t deserve to go to a university.
They are the ones to be blamed, they failed to earn a decent living
…”!! The way to heaven has many gates,
but there seems to be only one gate to success in life in modern societies: the
school! Those who were more honest
among the teachers whom I asked that question, said “we teach what we are told
to teach, we get paid for it, and we never thought of what happens to the
majority of students.”
In other
words, the second trouble with education, development and knowledge is not only
with what they offer but also with what they conceal, marginalize, make
invisible, or render worthless – the lives and ways of living of the social
majorities in the world. The example
which I always give to illustrate this is the “discovery” of my illiterate
mother’s math around the year 1976.
[For details, see my article “Community Education: To Reclaim and
Trasform What Has Been Made Invisible” in the Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 60, No.1, February, 1990.] What was particularly significant about that
discovery (in relation to the discussion here), is that it is almost impossible
to teach her type of math and her type of knowledge, using the means, methods,
concepts, and structures of what we refer to as education, no matter how much
we improve it! Her type of math and
knowledge can only be learned and acquired through life itself; through living
and doing in real settings. It would be
impossible for me, thus, to do what she was able to do, even if I spend another
20 years of study in the “best” schools and universities! Another significant aspect of her type of
knowledge is the fact that she was able to make a living out of it in almost
any setting, while mine was “meaningful” and earned money only in particular,
mainly artificial and hegemonic, settings.
(It is worth mentioning here something related to that story. One of the readers for my dissertation asked
that I should have a more extensive literature review. I said that that means my mind will be
totally controlled by the dominant terms and meanings, and thus most probably I
would not have discovered the knowledge of my mother. Things would have been defined for me – even I would have been
defined – before I could even start. I
want to try to sense life before my mind gets cluttered by terms and theories;
to see things as they are, rather than through the eyes of another person. I don’t remember I ever read a book, which
depended on accepted dominant literature, that I felt had something original or
authentic or creative. One’s mind would
be squeezed in some preconceived track before one even starts. What I am trying to do is look at my life
without any preconceptions and definitions.
I want to be as true to my experience as possible. I need the space and freedom – especially
the freedom from dominant definitions -- to define myself, my life and my
experience.)
What
helped me get out of the dominant mode of thinking was not a superior intellect
or a divine revelation, but my life as a Palestinian and my culture (as
embodied for example in my mother’s ways of doing, knowing and living). Both “saved” me and put me back on the path
of life and learning and away from the plastic world I internalized through my
schooling and universitizing.
Obviously, that did not happen overnight, but through a continuous
struggle for almost three decades (and which is still going on within me). Since the discovery of my mother’s math, I
have been working very hard to heal myself in the inside, to regain my internal
natural “immune” system, to reconstruct my “inner world” and to restitch the
social cultural spiritual fabric with real people and with the world around
me. It took me 25 years of working on
myself, in healing myself, to be able to stand in front of people and have the
courage to say that education, development and knowledge are “without
clothes.;” that they are a big lie for the mjorities in the world
In short,
those of us who belong to the “social majorities” in the world need to define
ourselves through reflecting on our lives, and expressing that in as many forms
as we have in our “soils of cultures,” and through discussing what we do and
what we are. In the final analysis, a main
issue is to define ourselves or be defined by others.
Building Learning Societies
From what
has been said so far, two main approaches to knowledge and learning can be
identified: (1) learning by doing; i.e. by the person being embedded in life,
in one’s cultural soil. In this
approach, learning is almost synonymous to living, and (2) the formal approach,
which usually starts with ready pre-prepared content (usually fragmented into
several subjucts, and usually put together in the absence of the two most
important “actors” in learning: teachers and students). This approach also embodies tests and
grades.
The two
approaches differ mainly in terms of values (whether one is aware of them or
not). The first approach values life
(as people/ learners experience it, and not as experts define it); it values
diversity, lack of fragmentation, relatedness of the various aspects in life,
human dignity, honesty, freedom, truth, and linking words and thoughts with
actions. It respects the “soil of
cultures that have been forming, and still are, throughout thousands of
years. It avoids hypocrisy and
arrogance. The second approach embodies
mainly the values of competition, individualism, winning, and control (control
of meanings, people, measures and outcomes).
These values usually lead to fragmentation, cheating, self-defensiveness
and, thus, to the tearing of the inner world of people and of the social
spiritual fabric of communities.
I don’t
think we can go on changing the majority of students from human beings into
useless unemployable people; people who are unable to make a living or to
satisfy any of their needs. The fact is
most students get out of schools handicapped, unable to make a living on their
own. Many capitals around the world
(but mostly in what is termed as the Third World) are increasingly witnessing
demonstrations by holders of Masters and PhD degrees, demanding jobs from
governments. Just imagine: a PhD holder
is incapable of making a living by himself and is asking his new “daddy” to
find him a job. They have learned about
their right to demonstrate, demand, and express, but lost their ability to live
and to make a living.
When I
say these things, I don’t mean that everything in the soil of culture is
good. The best example I can give for a
person who was grounded in his own culture and at the same time not being blind
to some of its horrors (like the cast system) is Ghandi. His adherence to his Indian culture did not
stop him from doing something about that system. Living in one’s own “cultural soil” does not mean being blind to
some of the horrors that it has. But to
run out of it would be like trying to get out of one’s own skin! It is important that we don’t jump into
horrors we can do nothing about such as the ones produced by education and
development.
The
solution, however, is not to go on complaining but to regenerate the soil of
their cultures. One hopeful fact along
this path is that 80% of what we need is available to us and that 80% of what
we currently consume (the junk of modernity and consumerism) we don’t need. This is where the hope lies. This is true whether we are talking about
knowledge, food, or entertainment.
I know that by saying all what I
said above, and by not conforming to the dominant paradigm in thinking about
education and rights, I am risking the possibility of appearing marginal, out
of my mind, unfit, or merely stupid.
But somebody has to play the role of the “fool” and the innocent if we
are really serious about saving ourselves and our children from something as
hypocritical and as junky (not to say also as dangerous) as universal education
and universal declarations. It is about
time to shake the dirt off our minds and souls and look at life face to face
again: to touch it, smell it, listen to it, live it, and feel its joy and
pain. (By the way, this shaking off of
the dirt is the literal meaning of the word intifada
in Arabic. The Palestinian intifada is a manifestation of
reclaiming our lives and regaining spaces.)
I feel I need to clarify one
point here. I am not against improving
schools and education. I have been
involved in doing that for almost three decades, and I still am. A good school is better than a bad school,
and every teacher who works on himself/ herself in order to better themselves
and improve their ways of relating to students and to knowledge, and thus
create better learning environments, definitely form an important part of the
process of building a better world. All
what I am saying is that it is not enough.
It is important that we do not fool ourselves by believing that
improving education is a magical recipe for creating a “world where many worlds
fit.” Education cannot do it. At least some of us need to talk about more
fundamental issues and develop and practice different sets of values, different
ways of relating to one another and treating each other, different assumptions,
and different visions; i.e., to strive to live their various worlds and regain
their various cultural spaces.
My Attempts to
Create Learning Environments
My first attempts to create learning
environments were related to the voluntary work movement and to my work
teaching of math in the West Bank (in Palestine) in the 1970s. (At the time I did not call what I was doing
“learning environments,” I just did what I felt I could do and needed to be
done). The driving idea in the
voluntary work was how to use the tremendous energy and hope that was then in
people (who were mainly students and teachers) in doing useful and meaningful
work in the community. Joy was part of
the work: we would walk in the fields, sing, dance, joke, play, discuss and
build within ourselves a better understanding of the world we inhabit through
readings and conversations among ourselves and with people of all sorts and
walks in life. Local groups sprang
naturally all over the West Bank.
My work with math in schools
involved several aspects that I would consider today part of learning
environments: small groups in various places and settings, each doing their own
thing; a core group that facilitated communication among the various groups and
also to articulate some of the common concerns, common vision, and organize
common activities; math and science clubs in various schools; open meetings to
discuss the new syllabus and any related questions; …. I used to go aroung visiting schools and
asking students to give as many meanings and examples of mathematical concepts
and “facts.” In the clubs, I used to
say to students interested in forming a club in their school, “There is no ready
material or content. Science and knowledge
do not start with ready answers and theories, nor with book questions, but with
questions that people have. The clubs
revolve around questions that you have, so bring what you have and start with
that.” That first experience for me in
creating learning environments opened up ways and possibililities in my
imagination which I employed in my work later.
One of these was teaching math to illiterate adult workers at the
university; another was establishing a new course in math for entering first
year students at Birzeit University.
[FLM]
Then was my experience as Dean of
Students at Birzeit University. The
atmosphere at Birzeit University during the 1970s was the closest I have
experienced in terms of learning environments in any university I studied or
worked in. The place was always buzzing
with all kinds of activities which included various forms of expression, most
of which was the creation of the students themselves. In addition, the spirit and atmosphere in the University was very
open, democratic and healthy. At the
time, no one called it democratic; there was no need for this “plastic”
word. In contrast, Birzeit now has a
Masters program in democracy and human rights!
Then came the intifada with its most inspiring aspects
as a learning environment. Probably the
most significant among these aspects is the hope and sense of responsibility
and collectivity which people felt at the personal and collective levels. That hope and sense of responsibility were
translated into action by each person asking herself/ himself “what can I do”
and going ahead and doing it. People
learned how to survive with what they had and what the environment
provided. It was then that many of us
discovered that more than 80% of what was in the market was not really needed,
and that 80% of what we need was already there! The intifada inspired
the establishment of Tamer Institute which I founded in 1989. A main concern of Tamer Institute was how to
regain learning after education confiscated it for so long! The Reading Campaign was one manifestation
of the learning environments that were developed through that Institute. (See
…). Also in 1995, I wrote a
small book (in Arabic) as a result of that experience, with the title: “The
main challenge is ending the occupation of our minds; and the main means is
creating learning environments.”
One historical example which I
find very inspiring as a learning society is the experience of Cordoba a
thousend years ago. I just want to
mention here one aspect of that environment: there were 70 public libraries
(not 70 public schools) in Cordoba in the ninth century. The difference I believe is obvious. In the case of the public libraries in
Cordoba, people met in small study circles, of their choice, discussed topics
of their choice, sought books and people that made sense to them; no
curriculum, no ready answers, no tests, no grades – in short, no control over
the process of learning. Even Thomas
Aquinas who went there to find how the Vatican could stop any discussion
between religion and science, went back to Rome coverted. Cotrary to what we preach in schools and
universities, people learn even better without examinations and grades and
degrees. It was a place where
Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists lived, worked and discussed things
together. The energy and invigoration
which that city created in that part of the world, and later in all of Europe,
is worth re-visiting today when we talk about learning societies. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel – we are
told. This goes also for other aspects
of life, such as creating learning environments. We don’t have to start from scratch; we can build on what has
been done in various places throughout history; there are several very insiring
and insightful examples from history. I
know that one obstacle to this suggestion and line of thought is Western
prejudice, especially to the Arab Islamic world. All what I am saying is it is worth looking at the human and
cultural treasures which human beings from previous times left us with.
One aspect which is needed in
the world today (and which I hope this conference will enhance) is real
dialogue between people from the various “worlds” which already exist. Currently, such dialogue does not seem to
exist. I am talking here about dialogue,
not only as an exchange of ideas and experiences, but dialogue through which we
build our “inner worlds,” stitch the human fabric among cultures and societies,
and regain spaces for living within different sets of values -- just like wild
flowers do in the various landscapes in the Spring season.
In a sense, what I am talking
about here is not free thought and expression (as current discourse and
dominant ideology have it, and as experts on civil society, democracy and human
rights preach it) but, rather, about freeing our thoughts and expressions from
the junk ideas and “plastic” words that fill current thoughts and expressions
and obstruct learning. Free thought and
free expression, in the forms they are practiced, are like telling people that
they have the full freedom to choose what they want to eat from a table that
has nothing but junk food! The example
which I usually give to illustrate the difference between free thought and
freeing thought, between free expression and freeing expression, is that of
what happened when Israel closed all schools and universities in the West Bank
and Gaza, for four years during the intifada. Israel didn’t mind Palestinians shouting and
demanding the openning of schools. It
even allowed conferences to be held in Jerusalem to criticize the order of
closure and demand the openning of schools and universities. That was a manifestation of free thought and
expression that does not bother any oppressor; in fact, if anything, it
beautifies the oppressor’s image by demonstrating that such expressions are
allowed. In contrast, when some people
freed their thinking from demanding to acting, from blamingto creating, from
reacting to acting, and started teaching children at homes and in the
neighborhoods, Israel issued one of the most notorious military orders in its
history: any one caught teaching children at his/ her home or in the
neighborhood is would face the possibility of demolishing his/ her home and up
to ten years of imprisonement! That was
in August 1988. Freeing one’s mind from
the confines of where and how learning can take place (i.e. ‘breaking the
conditioning’ process, in the words which my 22 year old son reminded me of) is
a totally different and much more fundamental act, and a beautiful manifestation
of freeing thought and expression, in contrast to free thought and expression.
Currently, I am involved in the Arab Education Forum, which embodies a “vision” which revolves around the conviction that every human being lives in and from a human environment (culture). The dominant a-historical and context-autonomous words and language have often robbed education and knowledge from the layers of experience through which people express what is human and real. AEF is one way of regaining these layers and the various (personal and collective) ways of expressing them. In short, AEF tries to give value and visibility to initiatives that embody learning and that go beyond education, initiatives that can contribute to the building of learning environments and learning societies, in the Arab world.
* * * *
Finally,
I would like to affirm -- as a form of summary -- certain points, and point out
to the need of dismantling others:
(1)
We need to dismantle the claim that learning can only take
place in schools.
(2)
We need to dismantle the practice of separating students from
life For at least 12 years) and still claim that learning is taking place.
(3)
We need to dismantle the assumption/ myth that teachers can
teach what they don’t do.
(4)
We need to dismantle the myth that education can be improved
through professionals and experts.
(5)
We need to dismantle the hegemony of words like education,
development, progress, excellence, and rights and reclaim, instead, words like
wisdom, faith, generosity, hope, learning, living, happiness, and duties.
(6)
We need to affirm that the vast mojority of people go to
school not to learn but to get a diploma.
We need to create diverse environments of learning.
(7)
We need to affirm our capacity for doing and learning, not for
getting degrees.
(8)
We need to affirm and regain the concept and practice of
“learning from the world,” not “about the world.”
(9)
We need to affirm that people are the real solution, not the
obstacle and not ignorant.
The basic topic in learning is
life and people living in its midst – not outside it and not above it. And the basic social unit in learning is
small groups engaged in real life, in some aspects of their lives, and of their
choice. The basic act at the individual
level is to reflect on one’s life, express it and communicate and discuss it
with others.
We need to spend more time in
conversations face-to-face with one another, in doing things together, in
dreaming beautiful dreams, and in building shared visions. In short, we need to reclaim our lives and
regain our cultural spaces.