Education
driven by literacy seems to be condemned to a sui generis
catch-up condition, or "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
In the last 30 years, education has prepared students for a
future different from the one education used to shape in a
reactive mode. Under the enormous pressure of expectations
(social, political, economic, moral) it simply cannot fulfill,
unless it changes as the structure of the pragmatic framework
changed, the institution of education has lost its credibility.
Classes, laboratories, manuals, any of the educational methods
advanced, not to mention the living inventory of teachers,
account for contents and ways of thinking only marginally (if at
all) linked to the change from a dominant literacy to numerous
literacies. IBM, fighting to redefine itself, stated bluntly in
one of its educational campaigns, "Since 1900, every institution
has kept up with change, except one: Education."
More money than ever, more ideals and sweat have been invested in
the process of educating the young, but little has changed
either the general perception of education or the perception of
those educated. The most recent laboratory of the high school or
university is already outdated when the last piece of equipment
is ordered. The competence of even the best teachers becomes
questionable just as their students start their first journey in
practical life. The harder our schools and colleges try to keep
pace with change, the more obvious it becomes that this is a
wrong direction to pursue, or that something in the nature of
our educational system makes the goal unreachable-or both of
these alternatives.
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