All this relies heavily on the maturity of the student and the ability of educators to design environments that stimulate responsibility and self-discipline. The broad-stroke educational project sketched up to here will have to address the precise concerns connected to how and when education actually starts, what the role of the family should be-if the family remains a valid entity-and how variety and multiplicity will be addressed. In today's words and expectations, even in today's prejudices, education is of national interest in one main respect: to equip students with skills so they can contribute to the national coffers in the future. But the arena of economic viability is the global economy, not an economy defined by national boundaries. The trans-national marketplace is the real arena of competition. Re-engineering, far from being finished, made it quite clear that for the sake of efficiency, productive activities are relocated without any consideration for patriotism or national pride, never mind human solidarity and ethics.
In today's world, and to some extent in the model described so far, the unfolding of the individual through cultivation of the mind and spirit is somehow lost in the process of inculcating facts. It is its own reward to enjoy subtleties, or to generate them, to partake in art, or be part of it, to challenge the mind, or indulge in the rich world of emotions. Prepared for work that is usually different from what educators, economists, and politicians anticipate, people face the reality of work that becomes more and more fragmented and mediated. On the assembly line, or in the "analysis of symbols" (to use Robert Reich's term), work is, in the final analysis, a job, not a vocation. Physicians, professors, businessmen, carpenters, and burger flippers perform a job that can be automated to some degree. Depriving work of its highest but often neglected motivation-the unfolding of individual abilities, becoming an identity in the act- negates this motivation. Replaced by external rationale-the substance of commercial democracy-the decline of inner motivation leads to lack of interest, reduced commitment, and declining creativity. Education that processes humans for jobs promises access to abundance, but not to self-fulfillment. The decline of family, and new patterns of sexuality and reproduction, tell us that expectations, sublime on their own merit, of improved family involvement will be the exception, not the rule. Accordingly, the challenge is to understand the nature of change and to suggest alternatives, instead of hoping that, miraculously or by divine intervention of the almighty dollar (or yen, franc, mark, pound, or combinations thereof), families will again become what literacy intended they should be. If the challenge is not faced, education will only become a better machine for processing each new generation.
Many scholars of education have set forth various plans for saving education. They do not ignore the new pragmatic requirements. They are unaware of them. Therefore, their recommendations can be classified as more of the same. The sense of globality will not result from taking rhymes from Mother Goose (with its implicit reference and culturally determined rhythm) and adding to them the Mother Goose of other countries. The Victorian and post-Victorian vision transferred upon children, the expectation of "everything will be fine if you just do as you're told," reflects past ideals handed down through the moralizing fiction of the Industrial Age.
The most ubiquitous presence in modern society is the television set. It replaced the book long ago. Notwithstanding, TV is a passive medium, of low informative impact, but of high informative ability. Digital television, which extends the presence of computers, will make a difference, whether it is implemented in high resolution or not. Television in digitally scalable formats is an active medium, and interactivity is its characteristic. Education centers will integrate digital television, and open ways to involve individuals regardless of age, background and interests. We can all learn that there are several ways of seeing things, that the physics of time and music report on different aspects of temporal characteristics of our experience in the world. The movement of a robot, though different from the elegant dance of a ballerina, can benefit from a sense and experience of choreography, considered by many incompatible with engineering. The new media of interaction that are embodied in educational centers should be less obsessed with conveying information, and more with allowing human understanding of instances of change.
But these are only examples. What I have in mind is the creation of an environment for exploration in which knowledge of aesthetic aspects is learned parallel to scientific knowledge. The formats are not those of classes in the theory or history of art, or of similar art oriented subjects. As exploration takes place, aesthetic considerations are pursued as a means of optimizing the effort. It is quite clear that as classes dynamically take shape, they will integrate people of different ages and different backgrounds. Taking place in the public domain of networked resources, this education will benefit from a sense of creative competition. At each moment in time, projects will be accessible, and feedback can be provided. This ensures not only high performance from a scientific or technological viewpoint, but also aesthetic relevance.
The literacy-based educational establishment will probably dismiss the proposals set forth as pie-in-the-sky, as futuristic at best. Its representatives will claim that the problem at hand needs solutions, not a futuristic model based on some illusory self- organizing nuclei supported by the economy. They will argue that the suggested model of education is less credible than perfecting a practice that at least has some history and achievements to report. The public, no matter how critical of education, will ask: Is it permissible, indeed responsible, to assume that a new philosophy of education will generate new student attitudes, especially in view of the reality of metal detectors installed in schools to prevent students from carrying weapons? Is it credible to describe experiences in discovery involving high aesthetic quality, while mediocrity makes the school system appear hopelessly damned? Self-motivation is described as though teenage pregnancy and classes where students bring their babies are the concern of underpaid teachers but not of visionaries. More questions in the same vein are in the air. To propose an analogy, selling water in the desert is not as simple as it sounds.
We can, indeed, dream of educational tools hooked up to the terminals at the Kennedy Space Center, or to the supercomputers of the European Center for Research of the Future. We can dream of using digital television for exploring the unknown, and of on-line education in a world where everyone envisions high accomplishments through the use of resources that until now were open to very few. But unless society gives up the expectation of a homogeneous, obligatory education that forces individuals who want-or do not want-to prepare themselves for a life of practical experiences into the same mold, education will not produce the desired results. Good intentions, based on social, ethnic, or racial criteria, on love of children, and humanistic ideals, will not help either. While all over the world real spending per student in public education and private institutions increased well above the levels of inflation, fewer students do homework, and very few study beyond the daily assignment. This is true not only in the USA but also in countries with high admission standards for college, such as France, Germany, and Japan.
Translated into the language of our considerations, all this means that education cannot be changed independent of change in society. Education is not an autonomous system. Its connections to the rest of the pragmatic context are through students, teachers, parents, political institutions, economic realities, racial attitudes, culture, and patterns of behavior in our commercial democracy. In today's education, parochial considerations take precedence over global concerns. Bureaucratic rules of accumulated imbecility literally annihilate the changes for a better future of millions of students. What appears as the cultivation of the mind and spirit is actually no more than the attempt to polish a store window while the store itself lost its usefulness long ago. It makes no sense to require millions of students to drive daily to schools that can no longer be maintained, or to pass tests when standards are continuously lowered in order to somehow justify them.
Consumption and interaction
In view of the fundamental changes in patterns of human activity, not only students need education, but practically everyone, and probably educators first of all. Connection to education centers needs to be different from the expectation of children sitting in a class dominated by a teacher. On the interactive education networks, age no longer serves as a criterion. Learning is self-paced, motivated by individual interests and priorities and by the perspectives that learning opens. A sense of common interest is expressed through interaction, unfolding through a diversity of perspectives and ways of thinking and doing. Nothing can help generations that are more different and more antagonistic than ours to find a common ground than an experience of education emancipated from hierarchies, freed of authoritarian expectations, challenging and engaging at the same time. Education will be part of the continuous self-definition of the human being throughout one's entire life.