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'Education for All' or Education for Wisdom?

Article · January 2001

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 ‘Education for All’ or Education for Wisdom?
Jennifer Gidley

Mass Education as the Handmaiden of Globalization

One of the greatest obstacles to creating learning societies for the future is the model of western culture (and by
default, the model of education) being promoted by globalization. Sometimes called ‘Americanization’ of the ‘rest
of the world’, the processes of globalization have amplified the modernity project manifold, supported by mass
education and communication technologies, particularly the Internet and the mass media (“virtual colonization”1 ).
Its promoters argue that globalization is creating an improved economic climate, within which educational, health
and other cultural improvements will thrive. However, the economic and cultural standards, by which such
‘improvement’ is measured, mask a deeper, more far-reaching and profound cultural transgression that is emerging
in the literature on the impact of globalization. It is increasingly perceived by many non-western academics and
researchers as “a form of western ethnocentrism and patronizing cultural imperialism, which invades local cultures
and lifestyles, deepens the insecurities of indigenous identities, and contributes to the erosion of national cultures
and historical traditions.”2

It is well known that education is the most powerful method of enculturating (even ‘brainwashing’) a people. Mass
education, which transplants an educational model from one cultural system (such as Euro-American) into another
very different culture, while retaining the original standards and categories of knowledge, is tantamount to cultural
genocide.3 In a critique of the model of education put forward a decade ago at the Education for All (EFA) meeting
in Jomtien, Thailand, a number of educationists and social activists cite this model as being a further attempt to
assert the values and culture of the western materialist paradigm.4

With regards to the goal of increasing literacy levels, the concept of literacy itself has never been contested by the
World Bank.5 And yet, in the West itself, the narrow conceptualisation of literacy as the ‘new supreme force’ has
been undergoing serious critique from some educationists and futures researchers for decades. Overvaluing ‘textual
literacy’ (reading and writing text), as compared with broader categories of human expression (“social literacy”,
“oral literacy”, “emotional literacy”), reflects a narrowly-defined conceptualisation of human intelligence. Although
the literature on multiple intelligences, cognitive holism, the value of artistic education and oral literacy has been
growing in the West for decades,6 it seems that the World Bank programs have overlooked their impact.

Educational and youth futures researchers, aware of the failure of the western educational model to provide young
people with confidence, hope, a sense of meaning and a love of life-long learning, are engaged in exploring
alternative educational processes which transcend the narrow bounds of the three R’s (reading, ‘riting and
‘rithmetic).7 Perhaps it is time for the West to learn something from the 90% of the world’s oral cultures, who
primarily use symbolic systems of meaning making transfer, such as story-telling, myth and dance8 (while these
peoples still remember how it is done). The later part of this chapter will discuss alternative educational processes,
which arose in the West but which maximize such processes.9

A Monoculture in Decline: Challenges from Within

Underpinned by scientific positivism10 and materialist epistemology,11 and, in recent decades, amplified by
information technologies and the economic rationalist paradigm of commodification, the West has claimed cultural
superiority since the Enlightenment. With this self-imposed authority (at first European, now American), it has
sought to ‘develop’ the ‘underdeveloped world’, using the paradigms of “deficit” and “disadvantage” rather than
“diversity” as its justification.12 Yet ironically, the ‘over-developed’ western culture has been showing signs of
decay for decades.

The litany of symptoms exhibited by many young people of the ‘most developed’ nations, exemplify this fact with
great poignancy. Research shows that many youth of the West are increasingly manifesting high rates of depression,
eating disorders and other forms of mental illness.13 In Australia, there have been increases in youth homelessness,
and school truancy which have created an underclass of ‘street kids’, disenfranchised by society, yet often by choice.
Increasing numbers are committing suicide and other violent crimes at an alarming rate, and are expressing a general
malaise, loss of meaning and hopelessness about the future.14 Sohail Inayatullah refers to this as “post-industrial
fatigue.”15 Most of the research on suicide and suicidal ideation also show strong links with depression and also
hopelessness about the future.16 Western culture has recently been described by film director Peter Weir as a “toxic
culture”, after a spate of violent school shootings of students, by their fellow students, in the United States.

There are several major factors inherent in the western materialist cultural paradigm, which have contributed to a
failure of healthy enculturation of young people. These include the triumph of egoism over community, the
manipulation of imagination, the secularisation of culture and the degradation of environment.17

Individualism versus Community

The current age of the ‘I’ which celebrates self-centred egoism, began in the 60s and 70s with the recognition of
(and rebellion against) the injustices involved in the long-term cultural dominance of the ‘wealthy white male’. The
various movements for liberation and human rights (feminism, gay, black and indigenous rights movements) set in
motion a process where rights began to dominate responsibilities. While not wanting to undermine the gains that
have been made in terms of equity and human rights, I feel that, in the process of unmediated individualism, the
needs of family and community have often been compromised. As a result of the ensuing breakdown of families
and other social structures (linked also to the shift in male-female power relationships), we are seeing an
unprecedented fragmentation of the social glue, without which young people are rudderless in their social
orientation.

The Colonization of Imagination

Over roughly the same period of time, the imaginations of children and youth have changed; once nourished by oral
folk and fairy tales, today they are poisoned by electronic nightmares. Since the advent of TV and video game
parlors, followed by the use of computer games (originally designed to train and desensitize soldiers before sending
them off to the killing fields), western children and youth have been consistently and exponentially exposed to
violent images. Globalization has made this ‘entertainment’ ubiquitous, thus allowing for the subsequent
colonization of youth culture and imagination, globally.

The Secularization of Culture

The triumph of secular over spiritual values, coinciding with the widespread crisis of values reflected in post-
modernism as a ‘belief’ system, has resulted in a dominant world culture which — although ostensibly Christian —
is in practice amoral. Egoism that brings greed in its wake; economic rationalism stripped of principles of social
justice; the secularisation of education; the death of churches as inspiring community organizations; and, ultimately,
cultural fascism and religious fundamentalism that lead to ethnic cleansing, are all symptoms of societies that have
lost connections with moral, ethical and spiritual values.

The Degradation of the Environment

Finally, the culture dominating the global environmental agenda, which values private and corporate profit over
community and planet, has been responsible for the systematic and pervasive pollution of our earth, air and water.
What message, we might wonder, has this given to our youth?18

Emancipatory Potential of Globalization

Even whilst the globalization project threatens to be more damaging in its colonising and homogenising power than
the original Modernity project (colonialism), it also holds the potential for emancipation. It is suggested by
Bhandari that what is needed is to be able to distinguish between the hegemonic and emancipatory potential of the
diverse strands of modernity.19 I feel several emerging opportunities can be harnessed. Some of these,
paradoxically, co-exist within the western model itself:

- The inherent focus on individualism in the western paradigm, as discussed above, can be transformational if
used selflessly, for the greater good. Individual human agency then becomes a powerful force to counter the
homogenizing effects of a dominant monoculture.
- Anti-materialist, humanist, alternative streams within the western educational and cultural paradigm (that have
developed in parallel with mainstream culture) are becoming even more active, particularly as materialist
culture becomes stronger (such as the educational alternative discussed below).
- The potential of free human beings to use global networks for the common good is beginning to be harnessed.
For example, it has enabled many of the above authors to publish and circulate their book on the Internet,
thereby sharing their concerns about globalization globally!20

Policy, research and practical processes, like those suggested by Jan Visser,21 need to be put in place to foster the
emancipatory potential of globalization, to increase these opportunities, and to encourage diversity.

Reclaiming Wisdom as the Goal of Education

The industrial model of education, which underpins mainstream education in the West, and thereby the World
Bank’s EFA agenda, has not only been critiqued by educationists in the developing world. Over the past decade,
much of the youth futures research has demonstrated that many young people in the industrialised world have
become fearful of the future, disempowered and disenchanted by the education system.22 These futures researchers
recommend more holistic, integrated teaching methods, using imagination (to be elaborated on later), pro-active
social skills (such as conflict resolution, cooperative learning methods) and specific futures methodologies (such as
creating scenarios, visualising preferred futures, action plans).

It has been strongly argued by some educational futurists that the limitations of the instrumental rationality of
western scientific positivism, has rendered it as being well past its ‘use-by date’23 as a viable dominant
epistemology for the future. The ‘global problematique’24 has become so complex that the rational paradigm, with
its fragmented disciplines and specialisations, is completely unable to cope with finding solutions. What is needed
is integrated education systems, at both the school and tertiary levels, which are underpinned by higher order
knowledge systems and inclusive cosmologies.25 These include the traditional, indigenous knowledge systems of
many cultures, as well as such spiritually based cosmologies, or ‘perennial philosophies’ as are found in the West
(for example, the underpinning philosophy of Steiner education, discussed below). Such systems reclaim wisdom as
the goal of learning and transformation as the goal of a learning society.

While it is becoming increasingly vital that school and university education are underpinned by such higher order
knowledge systems and inclusive cosmologies, this is by no means to suggest that education (and learning) are
confined to schools, colleges and universities. The industrial model of education as schooling, confined to factory-
like buildings for persons between the ages of four and twenty-something, must urgently be regenerated by spatial
and temporal expansion into life-long learning in physical, architectural and social spaces that breathe with the
community. The creative imagination required to foster such transformations has been for too long impeded by the
limitations of the reductionist school education model as we know it. It will be shown later in this article that
cultivation of imagination in education enables young people to have more positive, creative and empowered visions
of the future. This would seem to be an important step in creating learning societies with wisdom as their vision.

Visions of a Transformed Society

First and foremost, there would be no one ideal society. As a first premise, my vision of a transformed society would
be far removed from the monoculture that globalisation is attempting to impose. The critical value of cultural
diversity, to the survival of human society as a whole, would be paramount. This diversity would be found between
cultures; for example, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines would be equally valued with western allopathic medicine,
so that genuine dialogue between practitioners could actually discover which approach best suited which situation.
In addition, the diversity would be found within cultures, whereby the plurality of possible ways of knowing would
be encouraged at all levels of education, including university learning. Revaluing the arts, practical skills and
contemplative processes, as being of equal value with the rational, would contribute to a holistic knowledge
paradigm for the future.

However, such a vision could not be implemented without great struggle. Powerful vested interests maintain the
status quo, whereby the few play monopoly with the vast majority of the world’s power and wealth. They cling
desperately to their monocultural myth of globalisation, which commodifies and homogenizes all values into the
economic ‘bottom line’. In the vision presented here, the economic bottom line would be superseded by what has
become known as the “triple bottom line”, where the impacts of any enterprise/policy on the environment and on the
social/human/spiritual ecology, are equally valued with economic impact. But just as it has taken decades for the
world’s scientists to admit that disregard for the environment had resulted in global warming, it may take more
decades before the grassroots visions suggested here, will develop the critical mass needed for transformation into a
learning (rather than consuming) society.

To summarize, this vision of a transformed society would no longer represent a hegemonic,26 linear and
hierarchical, global monoculture based on the endless acquisition of fragmented ‘bytes’ of information; but rather, a
pluralistic, multi-layered network of cultures within societies, committed to nurturing diverse, meaning-centered,
integrated, wisdom based cultures.

An Initiative that Fosters Education for Wisdom

While trekking in some reasonably remote Himalayan villages in Nepal a few years ago, I was taken by the hand by
some children, when they discovered that I was (at that time) a teacher. They excitedly ran with me, to show off
with pride their new school. It was a dark little square room with straight rows of seats, a blackboard, and some
white chalk, and each child had a little piece of black slate so they could “learn to write”. I tried to look happy for
them, while inwardly wondering, how is it that only the driest crumbs of the western educational model — which is
already failing our own children in droves — is being offered to these lively Nepalese children. I now wonder if this
is what is meant by ‘education for all’. And I’m certainly not suggesting that this could be improved by giving these
little schools a couple of computers.

Having been involved for 10 years in founding, pioneering and teaching in a Rudolf Steiner school in rural
Australia, I have guided numerous children from age six or seven to puberty. As a responsible participant in their
(and my) joyous learning of every imaginable subject through stories, drawing, painting, singing, movement, drama,
music, poetry, mythology and play, I knew learning could be otherwise. And surprise, surprise! The children also
became literate in the process, but not just literate in the narrow sense mentioned in the introduction. They
developed what I would call broad literacies: to ‘read’ for meaning, to write creatively, to share, to respect nature, to
imagine world’s beyond their immediate one, to have social confidence and to love learning.

The educational processes described here are not new, but they were reactivated for their perennial significance in a
child’s education by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1924), in Europe in the 1920s. With great foresight, Steiner, already a
century ago, was decrying the limitations of the western materialist cultural model. In the mode of a ‘Renaissance
man’ Steiner was a scientist, philosopher and artist who contributed significantly to the fields of education,
agriculture (biodynamics), medicine and the arts, lecturing and writing extensively on all imaginable subjects in the
first quarter of last century. A futurist and grand theorist, he called for science to be reunited with art and
metaphysics through ‘spiritual science’. In addition to valuing the conceptual/rational development of the child and
the practical, real life context of education (also recommended by Dewey), Steiner strongly emphasized the
cultivation of the imagination through aesthetic, artistic processes and highly valued the use of oral language
through poetry, drama and story telling.27

The educational movement, which has grown out of Steiner’s initiative, has resulted in the establishment of
hundreds of schools worldwide. Considered by many of its proponents to be an educational ‘model’, this
problematic belief has become one of its weaknesses, as some interpreters of Steiner’s approach can be quite
dogmatic about processes. In fact, Steiner repeatedly stated that he was not laying down dogma, but rather
elucidating knowledge of the wisdom of humanity (anthroposophy). I believe that he intended educators, who were
working out of his teachings, to be creative themselves and to reinvent the processes for different contexts (temporal
and geographic). There is still great untapped potential in this area, as many are still tempted to transplant a 19th
century German educational ‘model’ of schooling into every context.

The conceptual approach of Steiner education is an integrated approach to the development of the child as a whole.
In particular, the cultivation of the student’s vivid and healthy imagination (compared with just the dry intellect) is
considered to be extremely important. The foremost tool for this in Steiner schools is the use of storytelling as a
pre-eminent medium of teaching. Stories and pictures are used with small children to introduce the letters and
numbers; with older ones, they are used to teach anything from sewing to complex mathematical and scientific
concepts. The content, where possible, is presented thematically and the individual subjects, where possible, are
integrated rather than segregated. For example, geometry may be integrated with biology through studying flower
and leaf patterns; mathematics may be woven into music lessons; and important social and moral lessons can easily
be integrated with stories of great characters from history.

In addition, the recognition of the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, as a way of knowing and learning,
aligns this approach with many indigenous and other non-western epistemologies. This integrated approach is
supported today by recent literature on the importance of contextualizing knowledge and proponents of situated
learning. The creative arts are also widely used to promote intrinsic motivation, encourage self-esteem and help to
give meaning to the subject matter.

Contemporary research that supports the use of imagination, metaphor and visually artistic approaches to education
is historically rooted in the Platonic stream of philosophical thought, which values aesthetic education. More
broadly, the social, cultural and psychological context for using image, myth and metaphor is supported by the
psychological and literary works of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Ken Wilbur. Essentially, these writers critique
the Euro-centric Cartesian28 position, which gives importance solely to rational modes of thinking at the expense of
other forms of human expression, and instead emphasize modes such as symbological, contemplative, depictive and
mythogenetic.29

In terms of learning theory, Harry Broudy argues for the crucial role of imagery and imagination in forming part of
what he calls the allusionary base of learning. Here, he refers to the conglomerate of concepts, images, and
memories available to us to provide meaning in what we hear or read. Relating more to the connotative
(aesthetic/symbolic) rather than the denotative (scientific/functional) use of words, Broudy explains that this context
of meaning may be richly developed through poetry, literature, mythology and the arts; these are essentially the
stock of meaning with which we think and feel.30 Could it be that the lack of meaning experienced by many
western youth today is related to an education that lacks imagination and other non-discursive ways of knowing?

To test my hunch that Steiner-educated students may have a different take on the future from their mainstream
educated cohorts, I undertook some research on views and visions of the future with the senior secondary students of
the three largest Steiner schools in Australia.31 The findings demonstrated that these young people are more
positive and hopeful about the future and more empowered that they can effect change, than their mainstream
educated counterparts. In spite of having been exposed to similar negative images of the future of the world, they
appear to have emerged from this ‘hidden curriculum’ with their idealism and social activism intact. Unlike many
young people who have difficulty imagining a very different future (other than the standard ‘techno-fix’ solutions to
problems), the Steiner students’ visions of their preferred futures were very richly developed and also strongly
focused on improved social futures. In this research, it was also found that the Steiner educated students also placed
human agency at the center of the change that needs to happen if we are to prevent global catastrophe. They listed
qualities such as personal development, activism, changes in values (less greed, more spirituality), and caring about
the future, as some of the ways that humans, including themselves, need to change.32

I propose here that, in any given situation, at least two layers of education are taking place: (1) the formal
curriculum provided by the school/schooling system; and (2) the meta-layer of education, or the ‘hidden
curriculum’. The latter is provided by the tacit messages of society/culture, in particular through the mass media,
much of which provides negative, fearful images of the future. These messages are of course rapidly colonizing the
imaginations of youth globally, as discussed in the beginning of this chapter.33

With mainstream educated youth, there is a consistency between the two layers of education, in that the style and
operation of most mainstream schooling reinforces and supports many of the tacit, negative messages of society.
These messages are also embedded in the educational models implanted through the EFA agenda. This consistency
between the messages of school and society may leave students with insufficient opportunity to create alternative
images of the future, either consciously or tacitly. By contrast, Steiner education has the potential to provide artistic,
imaginative, values-based, meaningful educational experiences and processes, which can counter balance the often
fragmented, abstract, violent, meaningless and pessimistic messages of our culture provided through the mass
media. This raises the question: “How are mainstream schools today, in the West and their carbon copies in the
‘non-West’, balancing these destructive societal messages about the future for our young people?”
Strengths and Weaknesses of Steiner Education
It may appear that I have biased, overly positive views of Steiner education; however, I am critical of its application
in some settings. Overall, from my experience, I see as its strengths that Steiner students develop: a strong, intrinsic
motivation for learning; a balanced repertoire of practical, artistic, and social as well as academic skills; a positive
self-esteem, regardless of whether they are academically ‘bright’ or not; and a love of, and respect for, nature. As
my research shows, Steiner-educated students also have a sense of confidence and empowerment that they can
create a more positive, equitable and just future, and a sense of responsibility that humans (indeed they, themselves)
are the key to the future health of society and the planet.

On the other hand, I have seen children who, for whatever reason, did not thrive in this approach, and I have seen
teachers and even whole schools, which became too narrow, dogmatic and even ‘cultish’ in their interpretation of
Steiner’s ideas. Many of the Steiner schools worldwide, even in Australia and South East Asia, continue to use
primarily Euro-centric content rather than local, culture specific material, at best, severely limiting the richness of
educational experience, and at worst, contributing to cultural colonization. Many Steiner teachers, through a
combination of ‘over zealousness’ and pedagogical arrogance, have become too out-of-touch with contemporary
educational thought and have missed some of the pockets of positive change occurring globally, which may help to
keep them ‘current’. Finally, some aspects of the overall ‘hidden curriculum’ of schooling, generally, also occur in
Steiner schools. In particular, these schools seem to fall prey to the institutional mentality of teachers (i.e., the
school becomes their world), the hierarchical posturing and politics that can occur between individuals, and last but
not least, the lack of meta-questioning about whether schools, per se, need to exist at all.

Wisdom Education for Paradigm Transformation

The research described above should not be interpreted in any way to suggest that all students ought to be attending
Steiner schools. Rather, it is shared to suggest that a real dialogue of pedagogies, such as that occurring in this
collection, might open general education (and EFA) to additional processes that may empower students to create a
wiser and more positive future world. If organizations such as the World Bank are serious about developing
educational processes ‘for all’ that will underpin healthier outcomes for young people and for societies in general,
the current emphasis on narrow literacy and ‘head knowledge’ would need to be balanced by ‘heart and hand’
processes through:

* the cultivation of the imagination through storytelling and the arts (already well-developed in most of the
cultures targeted for ‘education’);
* a reinvention of human values to include positive social activism, spirituality, concern for future generations
and regard for the “triple bottom line”.

If we seek to foster the conditions in which learning societies might flourish, educational processes for the future
would need to be more holistic, artistic, imaginative and proactive, enabling the students (of all ages) to feel more
committed and empowered to create cooperative, diverse, wise futures for all. An integrated ‘head, heart and hands’
approach is ideally suited for a much broader implementation, beyond schools as a catalyst for a learning society.
Such integrated educational processes, based on a perennial philosophy with an inclusive cosmology, spiritually-
based ontology34 and integrated epistemology (regardless of its cultural origins), can provide a source of endless
material for life-long learning, which is inclusive of all cultural and ethnic content and diverse processes of
implementation. This is, of course, providing that the tendencies, inherent in any such philosophy, towards spiritual
arrogance, cultural hegemony and ‘cultism’ can be overcome in human nature. And that begins with each one of us.

Endnotes
1 Gupta 2000, pp. 12-13.
2 Lemish, Drotner et al. 1998, p. 540.
3 Nandy, 2000.
4 Jain, 2000.
5 Hoppers, 2000, p. 18.
6 Read, 1943; Anderson, 1985; Eisner, 1985; Arnheim, 1989; Gardner, 1996.
7 Slaughter, 1989; Gidley, 1996; Hutchinson, 1996.
8 Ong, 1982.
9 Steiner, 1981.
10 ‘positivism’ – empirical scientific thinking, which arose and flourished in the West after the European
Enlightenment and has since been the dominant mode of academic discourse.
11 ‘epistemology’ – a philosophy of knowledge, knowledge system, way of knowing or world-view – sometimes
also referred to as a ‘school of thought’
12 Dighe, 2000.
13 Bashir and Bennett, 2000.
14 Eckersley, 1993; Gidley, 1998.
15 Inayatullah, publication forthcoming.
16 Beck, Steer et al., 1985; Abramson, Metalsky et al., 1989; Cole, 1989.
17 Gidley, 2000; www.nr.org.
18 Gidley, forthcoming.
19 Bhandari, 2000.
20 Jain, 2000; <www.swaraj.org/shikshantar>
21 Visser, 2000.
22 Slaughter, 1989; Eckersley, 1995; Gidley and Wildman, 1996; Hutchinson, 1996.
23 ‘Use-by date’ is a term used to define the last date by which commodities, such as food products, are safe to be
eaten. I use it here to allude to the commodification and packaging of knowledge and learning in the western model,
as if they were products to be consumed rather than processes to be engaged in. In other words, western scientific
positivism is no longer safe for human consumption.
24 ‘Global problematique’ is a complex, interdependent set of problems, where the existence of a particular problem
is systematically bound into (and dependent on) the existence of other problems.
25 ‘Cosmology’ – a philosophy of the cosmos or universe. Higher order or inclusive cosmologies refer to inclusive
world views that integrate knowledge of human nature with an esoteric/spiritual understanding of nature and the
universe – sometimes referred to as the ‘perennial philosophy’. See Inayatullah and Gidley, 2000.
26 ‘Hegemonic’ - culturally dominant.
27 Steiner 1964; Dewey 1972.
28 ‘Cartesian’ – derived from the philosophical position of Rene Descartes, ‘I think, therefore I am’.
29 Campbell, 1968.
30 Broudy, 1987.
31 Gidley, 1997.
32 Gidley, 1998.
33 Gidley, forthcoming.
34 ‘Ontology’ – a philosophy of the nature of being, or a way of being.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jennifer Gidley <[email protected]> is an Educational Psychologist and Futures Researcher in the area of
educational transformation. She has many years of experience in psychology, education (at all levels) and
community learning development. She founded and developed a Rudolf Steiner school in rural Australia over ten
years and is currently working as a school psychologist as well as lecturing in Social Sciences at Southern Cross
University, Lismore, 2480, NSW, Australia. She co-edited the book The University in Transformation: Global
Perspectives on the Futures on the University, published in 2000
<http://info.greenwood.com/books/0897897/0897897188.html>. She is currently editing a new book on Youth
Futures: Comparative Research and Transformative Visions (to be published later this year by Greenwood Press,
US).

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