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music

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Well, we could ask ourselves what the purpose of an educational system is

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and of course there are sharp differences on this matter.

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Now, there's the traditional, an interpretation that comes from teh enlightenment

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that holds that the highest goal in life is to inquire

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and create, to search the riches of the past,

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and try to internalize the parts of them that are significant to you

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and carry that quest for understanding further in your own way.

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The purporse of education from taht point of view is just to help people to get their own help, to learn

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on their own.

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It's you, the learner, who is going to achieve in the course of education.

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It's really up to you what you'll master, where you'll go,

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how you'll use it, how you'll go on to produce something new and exciting for yourself, maybe for others.

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That's one concept of education.

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Now the other concept is essentially indoctrination.

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People have the idea that from childhood

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young people have to be placed into a framework in which they'll follow orders,

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accept existing frameworks, and not challenge.

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And this is often quite explicit.

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For example, after the activism of hte 1960s, there was great concern

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across much of the educated spectrum

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that young people were just getting too free and independent,

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that the country was becoming too democratic and so on.

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There was an important study on what's called the crisis of democracy, too much democracy,

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claiming that there are certain insitutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young--

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that's their phrase-- and they're not doing their job properly.

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That schools, universities, churches---we have to change them

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so that they carry out the job of indocrintation and control more effectively.

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That's actually coming from the liberal internationalists

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end of hte spectrum of educated opinion.

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In fact, since that time there have been many measures taken

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to try to turn the educational system towards more control, more indoctrination,

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more vocational training.

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Imposing a debt which traps students, young people, into a life of conformity.

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That's the exact opposite of what I referred to that traditionally comes out of the enlightenment.

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There's a constrant struggle between those.

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In the colleges and the schools, do you train for passing tests?

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Or do you train for creative inquiriy?

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Pursiung interests that are aroused by materil that's presented, you want to pursue either on your own

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or in cooperation with others.

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And this goes all the way through up to graduate school and researh.

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Just two different ways of looking at the world.

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When you get to a research institution like the one we're now in,

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at the graduate level, it essentially follows the enlightment tradition.

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In fact, science couldn't progress unless it was based on inculcation of the urge to challenege, to question

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doctrine, question authority, search for alternatives, use your imagination freely of your own impulses.

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Cooperative work with others is constant as you can see just by walking down the halls.

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That's my view of what an educational system should be like down to kindergarten.

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But there certainly are powerful structures in society

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which would prefer people to be indoctrinated, to conform, to not ask too many questions, to be obedient,

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to fulfill the roles that are assigned to you and not shake systems of power and authority

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Those are choices we have to make, wherever we stand in the educational system.

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As students, as teachers, as people on the outside trying to help shape it in the direction that we think it ought to go.

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Well there certainly has been a very substantial growth in new technology--

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technology of information, communication, access interchange.

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It's surely a major change in the nature of hte culture and society.

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We should bear in mind that the technological changes that are taking place now,

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while they're significant probably come nowhere near having as much impact

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as technological advances of a century ago.

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Let's take communicaiton.

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The shift from a typewriter to a computer or a telephone to email is significant.

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But it doesn't begin to compare with a shift from a sailing vessel to a telegraph.

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Tge time that that cut down in communication between England and the United States

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was extraordinary as compared with the changes taking place now.

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The same is true of other kinds of technology.

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The introduction of widespread plumbing in the cities had a huge effect on health,

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much more than the discovery of antibiotics.

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So the changes are real and significant,

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but we should recognize that others have taken place that were much more dramatic.

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As far as the technology itself and education is concerned,

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technology is basically neutral.

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It's kind of like a hammer.

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The hammer doesn't care whether you use it to build a house

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or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody's skull.

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A hammer can do either.

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Same with modern technology, say, the internet, and so on.

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The internet is extremely valuable if you iknow what you're looking for.

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I use it all the time for research, I'm sure everyone does.

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If you know what you're looking for, you have a kind of framework of understanding

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which directs you through particular things

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then this can be a very valuable tool.

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Of course, you always have to be willing to ask

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"Is my framework the right one?"

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Maybe I have to modify it."

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Maybe if there's something I look at that questions it, I should rethink how I'm looking at things."

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But you can't pursue any kind of inquiry without a relatively clear framework

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that's directing your search and helping you choose what's significant and what isn't.

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What can be put aside, what can be pursued,

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what ought to be challenged, what ought to be developed.

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You can't expect somebody to become a biologist

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by giving them access to the Harvard University biology library

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and say, "Just look through it."

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That'll give them nothing.

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The internet is the same except magnified enormously.

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If you don't undertsand or know what you're looking for,

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if you don't have some kind of conception of what matters--

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always with the proviso that you're willing to question--

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if you don't have that, exploring the internet

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is just picking out random factoids that don't mean anything.

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Behind any significant use of contemporary technology--

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the internet, communicaitons systems, graphics, whatever it may be--

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unless behind it is a well constructed, directive, conceptual apparatus,

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it is very unlikely to be helpful.

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It may turn out to be harmful.

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For example, random exploration through the internet

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turns out to be a cult generator.

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You pick up a factoid here, a factoid there

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and someboyd else refers to it,

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and all of sudden you have some sort of crazed picture

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which has some factual basis but nothing to do with the world.

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You have to know how to evaluate, interpret, and understand.

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Say biology again.

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The person who wins the Nobel prize in biology

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is not the person who read the most journal articles and took the most notes on them.

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It's the person who knew what to look for.

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And cultivating that capacity to seek what's significant--

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always willing to question whether you're on the right track--

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that's what education is going to be about.

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Whether it's using computers and the internet or pencil and paper and books.

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Well, education is discussed in terms of whether it's a worthwhile investment

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Does it create human capital?

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It can be used for economic growth and so on.

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And it's a very distorting way to even pose the question, I think.

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Do we want to have a society of free, creative, independent individuals,

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able to appreciate and to gain from the cutlural achievements of the past, and to add to them?

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Do we want that?

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Or do we want people who can increase GDP?

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It's not necessarily the same thing.

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An education of the kind that ---- John Dewey and others talked about,

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That's a value in itself.

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Whatever impact it has in the society, it's a value

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because it helps create better human beings.

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After all, that's what an educational system should be for.

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On the other hand, if you want to look at it

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in terms of costs and benetifs,

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take the new technology that we were just talking about, where did that come from?

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Well, actually a lot of it was developed right where we're sitting,

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Down below where we now are was a major laboratory back in the 1950s,

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where i was employed in fact,.

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Which had lots of scientists, engineers, people of all kinds of interests--

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philosophers, others.

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Who were working on developing the basic character and even the basic tools

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of the technology that has now come.

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Computers and the internet for example,

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were pretty much in the public sector for decades,

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funded in places like this, where people were exploring new possibilities

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that were mostly unthought of, unheard of at the time.

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Some of them worked, some didn't.

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The ones that worked were finally converted into tools that people could use.

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Now that's the way scientific prgress takes place.

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It's the way that cultural prgress takes place generally.

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Classical artists, for example,

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came out of a tradition of craftsmanship that was developed

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over long periods with master artisans, with others.

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Sometimes you can rise on their shoulders and create new, marvelous things.

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But it doesn't come from nowhere.

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If there isn't a lively cultural and educational system

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which is geared towards encouraging creative exploration,

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independence of thought, williingness to challenge accepted beliefs.

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If youdon't have that you won't get teh technology that will lead to economic gains.

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Though that I don't think is the prime purpose of cultural enrichment in education.

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There is in the recent period particularly an increasing shaping of educaiton

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from the early ages towards passing examinations.

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Taking tests can be of some use, both for the person who is taking the test