Introduction
Nowadays people are living in a scraped and challenging era at an uncertain period in history. The ideologies that rule contemporary society may be going into their last, frantic stages, their “final lap” as Wolf (2007) terms it. The cultural, economic, and political policies of civilization, he claims, are unattainable, in fact, are almost collapsing.
Besides Wolf, numerous visionary individuals, including among others Joanna Macy (2006), Derrick Jensen (2006), and Richard Tarnas (2007) have lately affirmed the possible end of ideology, the final lap of an era (Wolf, 2007), possibly even the ultimate end of schooling (Jensen, 2006). In fact, many writers, like Joanna Macy (2006) and Derrick Jensen (2006), have observed that people are familiarizing with one of those exceptional past periods when a basic perspective, the only principle for controlling modernity, crumples and paves the way to an emerging historical period.
The key problem facing civilization, according to Wolf (2007), is that people have pushed away personal experiences from the pulses and/or cycles of humanity so as to emphasize selfish power around the globe for temporary benefits. Not only do these alienations make people existentially, mentally, and religiously bereft-troubled, traumatized, forlorn, and scared-but they unleash the horrible hostility of imperialism, majestic, and reserve conflicts. Additionally, the longing for ruling the earth is eventually pointless since nature’s reserve is limited, and people cannot ever use it and reduce it to waste.
Political economy, Ideology, and Schooling
While people are discussing the topic regarding the founding observers, they might identify what are possibly the most necessary features between school and society – the theory dealing with the isolation of controls. The observers tackled the prospective centralization of country power using an explicit plan-demarcating territory between the authorities that all arms of state could manipulate.
Richard Tarnas, an Australian theorist suggested a framework, which integrated the “threefold” culture that likewise partitioned its roles and/or objectives to restrict the centralization of power in only one organization (Tarnas, 2007). Even though Tarnas defended his system based on his obscure religious pedagogy (which I believe is not comprehensible), I have observed that the idea concerning “threefold” rests individually as a discerning theoretical instrument for evaluating and contesting the political views of contemporary schooling.
Arguing from my own experience, the three fundamental roles of the cultural sphere are the political economy, ideology, and schooling. The economic sphere, Jefferson claimed, regards the processing and transportation of goods, or more widely it regards the interaction between the material sphere and the general public. The political spheres form the realm of justice and humanity or the appropriate interactions between human beings.
The ideological sphere comprises the rapid innovative action of the human intellect; the technologies and the practices of learning (which Tarnas predicted) are forms of this free-flow of religious power. Economic actions that involve disparity and unpredictable commodity prices have no impact on political decisions that must be influenced by supreme fairness of lawful rights, and no single cultural action should interrupt the innovative activity of the founder, scholar, or philosopher.
As Horace Mann observed many decades ago, in the contemporary world economic enterprises have spilled over their correct territories, and the outcomes are that each element of life, including learning, have become commodities-things with economic values instead of internal values (Tarnas, 2007). Basically, my experiences are relevant to the ideas predicted by Jefferson and Mann many years back.
Historical Perspectives and Issues in learning
For the past three decades, grave yet still widely ambiguous literature have been originating from diverse academic views, comprising technology, social ethics, spiritual education, and philosophy that challenge the fundamental educational postulations of civilization, specifically their reductionism and acquisitiveness.
Various observers claim that realities are costly and dynamic, and humanity more lively and understated, than modern perspective enables. The observers suggest that there are natural relationships between people and the organic sphere, that people are fondly trapped in their pulses and procedures in a way that people are not able to notice when they split the natural world into distinct parts and blind energies.
Some wider metric of life-scientist Derrick Jensen named it the “incriminate order”-determines design, implication, and possibly even objective of the cycles of the natural world (Wolf, 2007). From historical perspectives, the principle objective of learning is not disseminating knowledge but to aid learners to undergo senses of speculation and/or avid desire in the natural world, together with patterns of critical reflection and open analysis.
Education Philosophy
The philosophy that I advocate is one that is based on the countercultural norms of holistic learning (Macy, 2006)-the distinct collection of essential learning options that include free institutions and other perspectives based on religious ideologies, and that portion of the home-based schooling approach initiated by the autonomous decentralization of learning institutions. This anti-cultural movement was at first apparent in the feedback that Emerson Alcott, an emerging democrat, initiated in Horace Mann’s popular learning agenda during the early 1850s.
The basics of anti-cultural/optional pedagogy seek to substitute a rigid and mechanistic framework of schooling-learning for all-with an approach that is more natural (aligned to the pulses and/or cycles of the natural world), customized (deferential of the exclusivity and intrinsic strength of a learner), and genuinely autonomous (receptive society). Holistic learning promotes societal and learning agendas based on various necessary pillars; 1) an integral view, 2) respect for humanity, 3) democracy and 4) openness instead of rigid ideology.
In spite of the demographical and methodological variations evident in the many alternative pedagogies- radical individuals, for instance, would debate many concerns-personally am persuaded that these major theories and practices are broadly common to the nonconformist educational policy that has emerged in order to counter the old-age schooling.
Also, I believe that it represents the after-industrial, post-civilization global perspective that is evident in numerous areas of tradition, from integral healthcare to natural, native farming to agribusiness and beyond. Integral pedagogies are not attempts to amend the old schooling system, but to replenish completely fresh frameworks from entirely diverse traditional pillars. Through rethinking the aspects constituting this holistic approach, the likely forms of “completely new systems” start to emerge (Jensen, 2006).
Conclusion
In spite of the desire of numerous schooling observers for the last two centuries, it appears very well that pedagogies do not impact society so much as reflects them. Teaching children regarding our preferred alternatives-autocratic or natural balance, cultural ethics or spiritual collectivism-does do not appear able to substantially change the intellect or political behavior of society provided the radical tradition is alive in strong financial and political institutions, social beliefs, and the emerging perspectives that surround schoolchildren, adopt other values. Attempting to alter cultures through schooling is pointless if the cultures are not otherwise ready for the change.
References
Jensen, D. (2006). Endgame: The Problem of Civilization. New York: Seven Stories Press.
Macy, J. (2006, Summer 38). The Great Turning as Compass and Lens. Yes! Magazine, pp. 22-24.
Tarnas, R. (2007). Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of New World View. New York: Plume.
Wolf, N. (2007). The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Press.