Education
_I: “Ex-duco.” The first time I heard the meaning of Education was in high school in Latin class. When teacher Elisabeth, a character whom we appreciated a lot, she told the meaning of this word so misused in our society, and upon hearing it she completely changed the vision she had of it.
_AM: “Ex” (outward) and “ducere” (carry something). Education is the action of bringing what is inside out.
_I: The opposite of what is sold to us as an idea. In reality, when people talk about education they always describe “Teaching”, which is the concept of “pointing out something”, showing or pointing out what is outside, pointing out what is considered real or true.
_AM: Have you been able to experience both?
_I: Luckily yes. I have had teachers who taught and teachers who educated, and I have been able to experience both. Those who taught gave us all the answers, and if we made a mistake they got angry or made us notice that we weren't paying attention. Those who educated asked a question, and together we looked for the answer, and their notes were new questions. He only stated the answer when one of us in the classroom had said it, and from there he developed it through public speaking or experimental activities. Since I was a child I always believed that my vocation would be a veterinarian, since I always sought to heal animals and understand them. However, when adults or other children appeared, what he enjoyed most was explaining to them about the animals. I remember that I organized days like television programs or classrooms where I would ask a series of questions and games where my neighbors would learn about each animal. But he did the same with other things, like writing or listening to music.
_AM: Playing teacher.
_I: Yes, I discovered that it was my vocation from a very young age. I remember my guides told _I: “wherever you see the word Education you will find your way.” And that's why I always followed the word. However, he hated school. I remember how much it bothered me to go to kindergarten, but I think what bothered me most were the people. This always happened to me in education, I think the teachers focused a lot on the content and failed to see that what is most difficult for us is to adapt and live together, that is why we have so many problems in adolescence and adulthood, because the time to learn to relating in harmony we have lost it by learning useless data. Throughout primary school I enjoyed learning, I loved doing homework, keeping folders organized, up to date, doing everything the teachers asked. When, at the age of 12, I began to remember my past, many of the things that were easy for me before, like mathematics, stopped being easy, and seemed impossible. I got confused between realities and I stopped being the best student... At the same time the teachers became more intense and more demanding. I went to an agrotechnical school, so we not only had normal public school subjects, but we also had field subjects. Learning to sow, harvest, farm, slaughter, raise chickens, cook, a total of 35 subjects that were spread out by quarters in commissions. From 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., we were at school, and in winter we were only home at night. I hated it, even though it was a good school with good teaching, and some of us were sometimes educated. Many believed that “educate” meant having a good manner, that is, behaving, knowing how to say “good morning,” eating well, being respectful to elders even if they make mistakes, not saying bad words, sitting correctly, chewing with your mouth closed. …It created the idea that education was the same as indoctrination in manners. As if they trained dogs to sit.
_AM: Well… It's not far from reality.
_I: When I moved to Spain, the system was very different, we only had 9 subjects, it seemed very easy, but that was what made me downplay it. Some teachers had the soul of educators, but even so the system forced us to be evaluated as products. I remember that in both Argentina and Spain, although it was more noticeable in Spain, they divided us into 3 commissions: that of the intelligent ones, that of the normal ones, and that of the stupid ones.
_AM: Fools?
_I: Well... I'm referring to the ones that had the lowest performance or were the most problematic. Some classes were shared, but others were divided, so the slower ones didn't slow down the smart ones. But over time I saw that this had the opposite effect. The intelligent ones did not learn, but instead fought to belong to that class and lived under the constant stress of feeling that they were superior. The slower ones' performance worsened, since they were treated as those who would not contribute anything to society, so they were only required to do some workshop to prepare them for basic needs or service jobs. And those of us in the middle were treated as future workers of a system that had to be nurtured from the middle class.
_AM: The class struggle, by Marx…
_I: Sometimes it seemed like it. The last two years there was an exam that defined whether you were suitable to take high school or if it was better to take a preparation course for a specific trade, closing opportunities, and emptying the High School of annoying children. And then, the University, with its horrible “Selectivity” exam, which selected people into professions based on their grades and qualifications, not their interests. And at the University many are falling away, with no possibility of continuing due to costs or topics, or whatever. In short, Education never educates, but teaches, separates and drives competition.
_AM: And yet you chose her.
_I: When it comes to awakening one's divine self, there is no other way than education.
_AM: Education is the human faculty of awakening one's own potential to face the world. Teaching is the accompaniment and guidance of those who have the experience so that you discover for yourself what you are capable of.
_I: He who teaches shows a path, he does not give the answer... He shouldn't at least. And education seems to be something that only oneself can do, not another.
_AM: Both are integrated. Education arises from oneself, and Teaching accompanies this process. As we have talked about in Learning, one apprehends or learns what is outside and incorporates it as one's own, returning it to the transformed world, in a unique and personal way, which is called Education. The Educators were companions on the road, guides and teachers who sought to show the learners various ways to find the answer within themselves. Education arises from imitation, in which animals show their young how to do things on their own. You may think that showing something is teaching, not education. And yes, that's right. However, no one solves the problem of breeding, she must do it herself. In this way, animals improve their capabilities. Education crosses the animal kingdom, since their abilities are adapted through learning, through the development of their own abilities. In teaching they find tools, in education they find evolution. In this development, the human as an animal was improving his abilities through communication. The word began to transmit knowledge in a more detailed and specific way. Mothers and fathers teach their children. The pack and the family transmit knowledge through sharing, and the guides, shamans, and leaders we have already talked about emerge as inspiration for many. The shamans become priests, who will transmit universal knowledge to the apprentices through the concept of “Paths”. In different areas of the planet, cultures designed their own Initiatory Paths, which developed ancestral religions and cultures. The paths were divided between those who worked the land, those who sought to understand the sky and those who served the group, in defense and hunting. The three initiations ordered the groups, like your commissions at school.
_I: It was always done…
_AM: Because humans do not seek knowledge, they seek practicality. Praxis is taking action, and taking into account that a human has three basic needs: eating, reproducing and sleeping, you will understand that the primary intention is to cover them, the rest is separate. Priestly schools were chosen by a few, therefore, they gave wealth, but they were not practical. The other two were essential.
_I: And why then was religious power always above everyone, controlling education.
_AM: By the “Hierarchy”. Remember, since humans understood that life comes from the invisible aspects of the universe, material existence only obtains power thanks to the sacred spiritual. Therefore, they understood heaven and what was to come, and advised warriors and farmers. The leaders, therefore, always consulted those who understood the heavens, and it began to be considered that the power of a leader came only from the power of God, from the Cosmos, the Divine power. “Jeros” means “sacred”, like the hieroglyph (sacred writing), thus, the power of the sacred is the Hierarchy. The only ones capable of granting divinity, of choosing the king or queen, were the priests, and without them, the person would never be chosen in the eyes of God. For this reason, the Initiatory Paths of the spirit were untouchable, and the custom, culture, tradition was created that every social agent must have the acceptance of the divine to be able to exercise their “praxis.”
_I: I understand…
_AM: And to ensure that this was the case, the priests, the counselors, dedicated themselves to Education. And in the quest to obtain power, they molded Education to become only religious spiritual teaching. Until, again, on the Greek islands of the Aegean, some decided to get out of this system, and instead of being religious, they became excellent questioners, seeking answers through eternal doubt.
_I: The philosophers.
_AM: Lovers of Wisdom. They left religious traditions to dedicate themselves to questioning things. In Greece, teaching ceased to be religious and passed into the hands of philosophers and soldiers. The latter were related by office, duty, they were chosen to defend and serve others, and their teaching was carried out in the concept of "college", "co-" (together) and "legós" (election). But the first shared their knowledge in open and public spaces called Agoras or Classrooms, patios where people went in their free time to listen to philosophers, to answer their existential questions after completing their political (civic) tasks. This moment of leisure and relaxation was called “skholé” (leisure, recreation).
_I: Does school mean leisure and fun?
_AM: Contrary to today, but logical. At that time there were no video games, there was no Netflix, internet or cafes, and the meeting point was to sit on a patio and talk about life. School emerges as a moment of relaxation to share. After the acceptance of the Christian religion by Emperor Constantine in the Roman Empire based in present-day Istanbul, the school ceased to be well regarded as they were the cradle of non-religious freethinkers. Thus, they are prohibited, and the schools become part of the Church. Teaching in the hands of religion, in Latin. It will not be until the Renaissance, in the 16th century, that the ideas of ancient Greece and Rome begin to be brought in, and with it, the freethinking of philosophy and schools. This gives rise to Cartesian Scientific thinking, experimentation, the search for information through doubt, and no longer faith. Since colonialism, the church imposed its collegial vision on a planetary level, adorning education in a militarized and ecclesiastical concept in the hands of the Pope, the Jesuits and Franciscans. But starting with the industrial and social Revolutions of the 18th century, secular freethinkers saw the opportunity to create republics where people could learn from doubt again, resuming education, creating Schools again, but adorned with the traditional collegiate system.
_I: And with the Industrial Revolution and the capitalist vision that emerged in Europe, instead of creating agoras of free people, factories of competing people were created, evaluating their knowledge in numbers and letters of product quality.
_AM: This is how the current school and education ends up being designed. In which you feel that you are competing for an evaluation, where you no longer seek leisure and education, but rather you are forced to teach concepts imposed by a system. Remember that in the quest to make people free from the religious school, the fathers of Enlightenment created the encyclopedia and compulsory secular education in order to eliminate ignorance and build a people free of spirit... But...
_AM: But the key to education is doubt, you cannot force someone to learn the answer to something whose question they do not yet know.
_I: What can we do to make education different?
_AM: First of all, we must remember that we are in the 21st century, not the 18th. Education, along with Politics and Religion, are the only systems that have not been modified at a global level. And this happens because the three make up one. Religion gives power to Political belief, and Politics controls people through Education. A free people stops having political representatives, and stops having religion to connect to the spirit. Nobody in the system will want to transform Education, so there are two paths.
_I: Which ones?
_AM: From above or from below. From below it implies an educational revolution, in which the populations are the ones demanding a specific change in the entire system, they just don't know what that change is. Everyone demands better education, but they don't know what they mean. They think better evaluations, better content, greater preparation or access to education, when that is not the problem, but rather the essence of not educating in liberating doubt, since it is taught in the preconceived response. An educational revolution is rethinking what type of humanity we seek to create, not what type of citizens we want to produce. And above, it is a political change, which transforms the ideology of representative power to return power to the people of direct decision-making through appropriate guidance.
_I: It is a great topic to discuss that would go a long way…
_AM: And we will. In time. Well, Education is the voice of a people, and today the word is distorted. In the time of networks, education must be on the Internet, it is essential to rethink everything you know as education, since you have left the Holocene, you are no longer the humanity that you were for 12,000 years... This is a new time, which will give a new word, the Education of the new child will be different, since the new children will know from birth.
_I: You will remember…
_AM: And so that you remember, you must learn online. Doubt is the greatest gift for the education of the Being. If you are human of certainties, you will never evolve.
_I: What is the first question I should doubt to awaken all the new education?
_AM: Am !?