WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 music 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, we could ask ourselves what the purpose of an educational system is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and of course there are sharp differences on this matter. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, there's the traditional, an interpretation that comes from teh enlightenment 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that holds that the highest goal in life is to inquire 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and create, to search the riches of the past, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and try to internalize the parts of them that are significant to you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and carry that quest for understanding further in your own way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The purporse of education from taht point of view is just to help people to get their own help, to learn 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on their own. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's you, the learner, who is going to achieve in the course of education. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's really up to you what you'll master, where you'll go, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how you'll use it, how you'll go on to produce something new and exciting for yourself, maybe for others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's one concept of education. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now the other concept is essentially indoctrination. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 People have the idea that from childhood 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 young people have to be placed into a framework in which they'll follow orders, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 accept existing frameworks, and not challenge. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this is often quite explicit. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, after the activism of hte 1960s, there was great concern 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 across much of the educated spectrum 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that young people were just getting too free and independent, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that the country was becoming too democratic and so on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was an important study on what's called the crisis of democracy, too much democracy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 claiming that there are certain insitutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's their phrase-- and they're not doing their job properly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That schools, universities, churches---we have to change them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so that they carry out the job of indocrintation and control more effectively. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's actually coming from the liberal internationalists 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 end of hte spectrum of educated opinion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, since that time there have been many measures taken 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to try to turn the educational system towards more control, more indoctrination, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 more vocational training. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Imposing a debt which traps students, young people, into a life of conformity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's the exact opposite of what I referred to that traditionally comes out of the enlightenment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's a constrant struggle between those. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the colleges and the schools, do you train for passing tests? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Or do you train for creative inquiriy? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Pursiung interests that are aroused by materil that's presented, you want to pursue either on your own 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or in cooperation with others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this goes all the way through up to graduate school and researh. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Just two different ways of looking at the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you get to a research institution like the one we're now in, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the graduate level, it essentially follows the enlightment tradition. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, science couldn't progress unless it was based on inculcation of the urge to challenege, to question 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doctrine, question authority, search for alternatives, use your imagination freely of your own impulses. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Cooperative work with others is constant as you can see just by walking down the halls. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's my view of what an educational system should be like down to kindergarten. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But there certainly are powerful structures in society 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which would prefer people to be indoctrinated, to conform, to not ask too many questions, to be obedient, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to fulfill the roles that are assigned to you and not shake systems of power and authority 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Those are choices we have to make, wherever we stand in the educational system. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As students, as teachers, as people on the outside trying to help shape it in the direction that we think it ought to go. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well there certainly has been a very substantial growth in new technology-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 technology of information, communication, access interchange. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's surely a major change in the nature of hte culture and society. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We should bear in mind that the technological changes that are taking place now, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 while they're significant probably come nowhere near having as much impact 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as technological advances of a century ago. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let's take communicaiton. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The shift from a typewriter to a computer or a telephone to email is significant. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it doesn't begin to compare with a shift from a sailing vessel to a telegraph. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Tge time that that cut down in communication between England and the United States 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was extraordinary as compared with the changes taking place now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The same is true of other kinds of technology. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The introduction of widespread plumbing in the cities had a huge effect on health, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 much more than the discovery of antibiotics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So the changes are real and significant, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but we should recognize that others have taken place that were much more dramatic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As far as the technology itself and education is concerned, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 technology is basically neutral. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's kind of like a hammer. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The hammer doesn't care whether you use it to build a house 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody's skull. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A hammer can do either. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Same with modern technology, say, the internet, and so on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The internet is extremely valuable if you iknow what you're looking for. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I use it all the time for research, I'm sure everyone does. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you know what you're looking for, you have a kind of framework of understanding 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which directs you through particular things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 then this can be a very valuable tool. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Of course, you always have to be willing to ask 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Is my framework the right one?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Maybe I have to modify it." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Maybe if there's something I look at that questions it, I should rethink how I'm looking at things." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But you can't pursue any kind of inquiry without a relatively clear framework 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's directing your search and helping you choose what's significant and what isn't. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What can be put aside, what can be pursued, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what ought to be challenged, what ought to be developed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You can't expect somebody to become a biologist 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by giving them access to the Harvard University biology library 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and say, "Just look through it." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That'll give them nothing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The internet is the same except magnified enormously. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you don't undertsand or know what you're looking for, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you don't have some kind of conception of what matters-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 always with the proviso that you're willing to question-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you don't have that, exploring the internet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is just picking out random factoids that don't mean anything. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Behind any significant use of contemporary technology-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the internet, communicaitons systems, graphics, whatever it may be-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 unless behind it is a well constructed, directive, conceptual apparatus, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it is very unlikely to be helpful. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It may turn out to be harmful. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, random exploration through the internet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 turns out to be a cult generator. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You pick up a factoid here, a factoid there 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and someboyd else refers to it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and all of sudden you have some sort of crazed picture 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which has some factual basis but nothing to do with the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You have to know how to evaluate, interpret, and understand. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Say biology again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The person who wins the Nobel prize in biology 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is not the person who read the most journal articles and took the most notes on them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's the person who knew what to look for. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And cultivating that capacity to seek what's significant-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 always willing to question whether you're on the right track-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's what education is going to be about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whether it's using computers and the internet or pencil and paper and books. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, education is discussed in terms of whether it's a worthwhile investment 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Does it create human capital? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It can be used for economic growth and so on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it's a very distorting way to even pose the question, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Do we want to have a society of free, creative, independent individuals, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 able to appreciate and to gain from the cutlural achievements of the past, and to add to them? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Do we want that? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Or do we want people who can increase GDP? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's not necessarily the same thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 An education of the kind that ---- John Dewey and others talked about, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's a value in itself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whatever impact it has in the society, it's a value 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because it helps create better human beings. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 After all, that's what an educational system should be for. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On the other hand, if you want to look at it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in terms of costs and benetifs, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 take the new technology that we were just talking about, where did that come from? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, actually a lot of it was developed right where we're sitting, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Down below where we now are was a major laboratory back in the 1950s, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where i was employed in fact,. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which had lots of scientists, engineers, people of all kinds of interests-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 philosophers, others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who were working on developing the basic character and even the basic tools 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the technology that has now come. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Computers and the internet for example, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were pretty much in the public sector for decades, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 funded in places like this, where people were exploring new possibilities 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that were mostly unthought of, unheard of at the time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Some of them worked, some didn't. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The ones that worked were finally converted into tools that people could use. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now that's the way scientific prgress takes place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's the way that cultural prgress takes place generally. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Classical artists, for example, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 came out of a tradition of craftsmanship that was developed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 over long periods with master artisans, with others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Sometimes you can rise on their shoulders and create new, marvelous things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it doesn't come from nowhere. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If there isn't a lively cultural and educational system 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is geared towards encouraging creative exploration, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 independence of thought, williingness to challenge accepted beliefs. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If youdon't have that you won't get teh technology that will lead to economic gains. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Though that I don't think is the prime purpose of cultural enrichment in education. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There is in the recent period particularly an increasing shaping of educaiton 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from the early ages towards passing examinations. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Taking tests can be of some use, both for the person who is taking the test