EXPERIENCING rather than LEARNING!
Carnival time will soon be over and “Mariechen” will disappear back in the attic. The Carnival Guard’s Gala Uniforms, too, which should be a thing of the past in real life (just like marching along the Honorary Guards with their bayonets if you are a Visitor of State, which I consider a pitiful tradition) will end under the roof. After all, in today’s digital world, the bodies will no longer be cut with bayonets but with drones. I do not mean this cynically – it is simply the reality in our high-tech world.
In our schools, and by now even at our universities, the evil carnival continues after Ash Wednesday.
This is why I repeat my Credo.
Above all, I want to “experience” and “live through” many things. I want to try new things and “work towards” acquiring knowledge that I need with the necessary depth. Learning in the classic diction without a goal is not my thing.
I know that I am always “part of something” and that I consciously want to belong to a “we”. It is my pleasure to take responsibility, both for myself and the shared social life. To do this, I need no motivation from outside, neither ideological nor financial.
For me, it is important to get feedback that appreciates my value and to find undistorted mirroring. However, I do not want to be graded, because I oppose for my “essence” to be metricized. Because I want to remain a human being, instead of becoming a machine. That is why I also never evaluate other persons or give them grades. In my opinion, being proud of good grades is just as absurd as being proud to be a German.
I would like to live in a society where “coaching” (in the sense of support and help) replaces reigning over others. A world where communication and networks are free and where nobody has power over others and where self-organized networks replace hierarchical structures.
Consequently, we should kiss terms such as “life-long learning” good-bye. Learning is “not nice” and getting graded for what you have learned is “even worse”. I was myself a master of “knowledge bulimia” (a better term would be: “knowledge fraud”) and know what I am talking about – also because I am a father of seven.
So it is only a logical consequence that we must liberate our children from the learning and grading stress. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised to hear that even Marlies Tepe, the director of the Union GEW, wants to abolish all grades at school – from primary school through grammar school. Unfortunately, I also had to read that there is considerable opposition against the proposal.
I am in favour of it!
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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