The primary goal of educational experience is independent thinking and judgment, not knowledge?

The primary goal of education is independent thinking and judgment, not specific knowledge. Wise and talented men throughout the ages have discussed the problems of education and have expressed their views on these issues repeatedly and clearly, and I cannot claim to be an authority in the least. As a layman in the field of education, with nothing but personal experience and personal beliefs, where does the courage to talk about educational issues come from? If this were really a matter of academic inquiry, one might be reticent about these considerations. But for human life and action, the situation is different. Here, mere knowledge of the truth is not enough; on the contrary, if this knowledge is not to be lost, one must constantly strive to renew it. It is like a marble statue erected in the desert, always under threat of being buried by quicksand. You must keep reaching out and brushing it to make the marble shine forever in the sun. To this end, I should also do my best. Schools have always been the most important means of transferring traditional wealth from one generation to the next: this is more true today than in the past. Modern economic development has weakened the role of the family as the bearer of tradition and education. Therefore, the survival and health of human society are more dependent on schools. Sometimes, people think of school as just a tool through which a certain amount of knowledge is passed on to the growing generation. This is not the case. Knowledge is dead, but schools serve living people. It aims to develop in young people qualities and abilities that are valuable to the prosperity of society. But this does not mean depriving the individual of his uniqueness in order to make him an unwilling instrument in the community, like a bee or an ant. Because a society composed of standardized individuals without personal uniqueness and personal goals will be a pitiful society with no possibility of development. Rather, the goal of schools must be to produce individuals who can act and think independently and who in turn regard service to society as their highest life task. But how can one get closer to this ideal? Can we achieve this through moralizing? Absolutely not! Words are, and will remain, empty voices, and the road to destruction has always been accompanied by grandiose words about ideals. But personalities are formed not by what they hear and say, but by what they do and do. Therefore, the most important educational tool has always been to encourage students to take action. This applies to students who are just learning to write, but also to university graduates who are writing a doctoral thesis, or memorizing a poem, writing a paper, interpreting or translating an article, solving a math problem, or playing sports. But behind every achievement is the emotional motivation on which that achievement depends, which in turn is reinforced and nourished by career success. The biggest difference here is that they are closely related to the educational value of the school. The same work, whose origin may be attributed to fear and coercion, to an ambitious need for power and fame, or to a sincere interest in the object of study and a desire for truth and understanding, may therefore be possessed by every healthy child. Divine curiosity, but this curiosity has long since declined. The educational impact of completing the same piece of work on studentsThe impact can vary greatly, depending on whether the inner motivator that brings him to the task is a fear of harm, egoistic emotions, or a sense of joy and satisfaction. No one would insist that school systems and teacher behavior have no impact on students\’ psychological development. The worst thing, in my opinion, is that schools teach primarily through fear, coercion, and artificial authority. This practice destroys students’ healthy attitudes, integrity and self-confidence. It produces an obedient people. It is not surprising that such schools are commonplace in Germany and Russia. I know that this worst evil does not arise in the schools of this country; in Switzerland, and perhaps in all democratically governed countries. It is relatively simple to rid schools of this worst of all evils. Give teachers as little power as possible to use coercion, so that students\’ only source of respect for teachers is the latter\’s own humanity and intelligence. The second motive mentioned, ambition, is, to put it mildly, the goal of being recognized and respected, firmly embedded in human nature. Without such emotional impulses, human interaction would be entirely impossible; the consent of fellow humans is certainly one of the most important binding forces in society. In this complex emotion, constructive and destructive forces are closely linked. Striving for approval and recognition is a healthy motivation. However, the desire to be recognized as better, stronger, and smarter than your peers or classmates can easily lead to an overly self-centered mentality that can be harmful to both individuals and the community. Therefore, schools and teachers must be careful not to use simple methods of evoking personal ambition in order to inspire students to strive hard. Some refer to Darwin\’s theory of the struggle for existence and the theory of selection associated with it to justify a revival of the competitive spirit. Anarchic systems in economic competition may also be pseudoscientifically justified in this way. But this is absurd, because man\’s strength in the struggle for survival lies in his being a social animal. Just as the war between individual ants in an anthill has no fundamental significance for survival, so does the struggle between individual members of human society. One should, therefore, be careful not to instill in young people the idea that the goal of life is to achieve success in the customary sense. Because in most cases, a successful person gets far more from his partners than he contributes to them. However, a person\’s value should be reflected in what he can give, not what he can get. In school and in life, the most important motivations for work are the joy of work, the joy of the results obtained from the work, and the perception of the social value of the results. I believe that the most important task of school education is to awaken and strengthen these spiritual powers in young people. Only such a psychological foundation can lead to the pursuit of happiness in the highest quality of human beings, that is, engaging in creative activities of knowledge and art. Stimulating these latent creative psychological forces is certainly less easy than resorting to coercion or awakening personal ambition, but it is more valuable. It is important to cultivate children\’s play instinct and motivation to pursue knowledge, and guide them into areas that are important to society – this kind of education is mainly based on cultivating students who have the ability to take on tasks and fulfill their mission in the future. If the school successfully works from this perspective, it will be highly respected by the growing generation and the tasks given by the school will be accepted as a gift. I know some kids who enjoy school more than they enjoy vacation. Such schools place demands on teachers. In the field of work of a teacher, he should be like an artist. What can we do to keep this spirit alive in our schools? There is no one-size-fits-all remedy for this, just as there is no magic bullet that will keep an individual healthy forever, but there are some necessary conditions that can be met. First of all, teachers themselves should grow in such schools. Secondly, the teacher should have broad autonomy in the choice of teaching materials and teaching methods, because the joy of his work can also be stifled by force and external pressure. If you have been following my deliberations, you may be surprised by one thing: I have spoken at length about the spirit in which I believe young people should be educated in schools. But I said nothing about the choice of course content and teaching methods. Should it focus on language education or natural science education? My answer to this is this: In my opinion, these are secondary. If a young man has trained his muscles and endurance through gymnastics and running, he will be able to adapt to any physical work in the future. The same goes for brain training and the training of mental and manual skills. So when the joker defines education as \”If people have forgotten everything they learned in school, all that\’s left is education,\” he\’s broadly right. For this reason, I am not at all anxious to take a stand in the struggle between the adherents of a classical language-history education and a more focused education in the natural sciences. I want to argue against the idea that schools should teach specific knowledge and skills that will be directly used later in life. The demands of life are so diverse that such specialized training in school is out of the question. Beyond that, I think we should be against treating individuals like inanimate tools. Schools should always aim for this: that students leave school as a harmonious person rather than a specialist. I think in a sense this also applies to technical schools that prepare students for more established careers. What should be given top priority should always be the cultivation of the general ability to think independently and judgement, rather than the acquisition of specific knowledge. If a person masters the basic principles of his subject and learns how to think and work independently, he will surely find his own path. Besides this, he is better able to adapt himself to progress and change than is the case for someone whose training consists chiefly in the acquisition of detailed knowledge only.