1 00:00:02,847 --> 00:00:04,842 On the relevance of education... 2 00:00:04,842 --> 00:00:07,478 Ok, so, the first question: 3 00:00:07,478 --> 00:00:11,911 From my perspective, education is not relevant 4 00:00:11,911 --> 00:00:15,856 or perhaps shouldn’t be relevant now. 5 00:00:15,856 --> 00:00:21,655 Because I think education is only as relevant as we all believe it to be, of course. 6 00:00:21,655 --> 00:00:26,130 And I think recent technologies and recent statements 7 00:00:26,130 --> 00:00:29,400 –I’m talking recent over the last 30 to 40 years – 8 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:33,471 there’s been a lot of questioning of the process 9 00:00:33,471 --> 00:00:36,107 and the institutions around education. 10 00:00:36,107 --> 00:00:39,471 And with the recent technology of the last 5 to 10 years, 11 00:00:39,471 --> 00:00:43,481 those questions have become more readily accessible, 12 00:00:43,481 --> 00:00:45,560 a lot more people are accessing that question, 13 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:48,052 thinking about it and furthering the conversations on. 14 00:00:48,052 --> 00:00:54,125 So the belief that education is relevant is being undermined. 15 00:00:58,725 --> 00:01:02,266 Therefore, the answer to the first question is no, 16 00:01:02,266 --> 00:01:04,261 then there’s no answer to the last question: 17 00:01:04,261 --> 00:01:06,403 how do you make it more relevant. 18 00:01:06,403 --> 00:01:08,052 But you need an alternative. 19 00:01:08,052 --> 00:01:09,841 If you’re going to say no, education is not relevant, 20 00:01:09,841 --> 00:01:11,943 then you need an alternative. 21 00:01:11,943 --> 00:01:14,846 And, from my mind, this is simply a semantic difference. 22 00:01:14,846 --> 00:01:20,118 The meaning of the word education has with it institutionalized, 23 00:01:20,118 --> 00:01:24,636 credits and certificates and bureaucracy. 24 00:01:24,636 --> 00:01:27,536 But the rhetoric used in education is around learning. 25 00:01:27,536 --> 00:01:31,562 Now, education and learning to me are completely different things. 26 00:01:31,562 --> 00:01:34,298 Education is a bureaucratization of learning, 27 00:01:34,298 --> 00:01:37,201 and learning is pure and simple. 28 00:01:37,201 --> 00:01:40,204 It’s being conscious, is exposing yourself to the right thing, 29 00:01:40,204 --> 00:01:43,026 it’s seeking to question things. 30 00:01:43,026 --> 00:01:45,654 And so, that’s the question: 31 00:01:45,654 --> 00:01:49,280 Is learning relevant and if so, how do we make it more? 32 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:52,950 Then I agree, learning is obviously very relevant, very important. 33 00:01:52,950 --> 00:01:57,507 The problem we have, had had, at least the last century, 34 00:01:57,507 --> 00:02:01,469 at least the last 50 years, is that learning is being impacted by marketing. 35 00:02:01,469 --> 00:02:05,805 And our capacities to ask the right questions, 36 00:02:05,805 --> 00:02:07,498 to find the right information, 37 00:02:07,498 --> 00:02:09,867 and to even have the motivation to find the right information, 38 00:02:09,867 --> 00:02:13,237 I suspect is being impacted by marketing, 39 00:02:13,237 --> 00:02:15,940 which tends to want us to think shallow, 40 00:02:15,940 --> 00:02:18,576 in a shallow way, to desire shallow things, 41 00:02:18,576 --> 00:02:23,647 and to keep us in a very immature state of mind, I suppose. 42 00:02:24,118 --> 00:02:26,651 And so, I think then how do we make learning more relevant? 43 00:02:26,651 --> 00:02:28,419 We need to counteract that. 44 00:02:28,419 --> 00:02:33,304 And so I think, educational practitioners who are more 45 00:02:33,304 --> 00:02:36,194 than just people who offer certificates and open the gate for people 46 00:02:36,194 --> 00:02:38,458 to get pay raises and new jobs, 47 00:02:38,458 --> 00:02:42,567 people who a genuinely interested about our collective consciousness 48 00:02:42,567 --> 00:02:46,304 and empowering people and stuff like that, 49 00:02:46,304 --> 00:02:53,044 need to counteract the marketing machine and help kids, 50 00:02:53,044 --> 00:03:00,551 I suppose, to get beyond the fashion magazines and things like that. 51 00:03:00,551 --> 00:03:03,154 I don’t really have a clear idea how we do that, 52 00:03:03,154 --> 00:03:06,200 but I think there are writers out there who have a clear idea.