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What is a successful education?
Classification
We classify an education as successful if it produces autonomous and responsible citizens.
To be more precise, let's define what we mean by autonomous and responsible.
Autonomous is quite straightforward: an individual who can meet their needs within their social environment.
Responsible is much less obvious. It must be understood in the Kantian sense, meaning that if all individuals behaved that way, the world would be in good shape. However, the world, at the beginning of the 21st century, is not in good shape: The two major questions How to meet ecological constraints?' and 'How to stop the slow degradation of the social fabric leading to civil war?' do not find satisfactory answers. And for good reason, as seen in the questionWhy are small gestures for the planet dangerous?, a very large number of individuals consider themselves responsible while not being so in the Kantian sense of responsibility. Being responsible is therefore much more demanding than it seems at first glance, and implies mastering a set of achievements that we will specify a bit more in this text.
We classify an education as conventional if it produces autonomous citizens, but collectively irresponsible ones. Why the word 'conventional' instead of incomplete, partial or insufficient? Because what characterizes conventional education is, on one hand, tolerating or even encouraging the neglect of facts in favor of the mere game of alliances, and on the other hand, ignoring the effects of cognitive dissonance. This can lead to all kinds of abuses: there are no serious guardrails, as history shows. Indeed, current Western education clearly meets these criteria, as well as the great majority, if not all, of educations around the world and throughout history. Education, like politics, philosophy, and psychology, suffers from not having started by properly defining its subject by precisely and factually answering the question: What is a human being?
Finally, we classify education as dysfunctional if it harms, or even destroys, the individual through mistreatment or major emotional deficiencies.
Preamble
Never forget that in terms of education, the example given prevails over the speech held. Indeed, very early on, children master the concept of lying, so when they are confronted with contradictory speech and behavior, they interpret the speech as lying, even if for affective reasons it is not always conscious, or even the contradiction is not noticed.
Corollary: the very possibility of 'training' teachers is therefore largely an illusion.
Education is successful if, regarding the question 'How to succeed in life?', the young person resolutely orients towards 'succeeding in life' rather than 'succeeding in the world'. Indeed, this means the young person has adopted through culture a philosophy allowing them to go beyond the mere genetic heritage of the human species. This is a complete reversal compared to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's vision.
Characterization
Let us return to the three levels of education we have just defined, and try to specify what they consist of.
Dysfunctional education:
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Maltreatment or major emotional deficiencies.
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Conventional education consists of the following elements:
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Knowledge and respect for social conventions.
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Mastery of rhetoric and networking to facilitate access to a high social position.
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Successful education includes the following achievements, which will allow the child to become fully adult in the long term:
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Being able toestablish sincere relationships, which implies moderating social ambition and pursuing collective happiness.
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Mastering problem-solving techniques, i.e. primarily being able to conduct a serious and objective analysis.
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Having integrated the meaning of not judging, therefore renouncing to interpose what should be between oneself and reality. This is the preamble to action.
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Having techniques to minimize negative emotions so as not to be directed by one's fears.
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Having integrated the difference between modern science and beliefs, and the necessity to gradually acquire solid knowledge.
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Being able to carry out a long-term effort andaccept frustration.
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Having integrated the necessity of minimality.
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Having sufficient confidence in oneself to face the group when necessary. This last point is rarely acquired by the age of 20.
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Conventional education therefore largely corresponds to the recommendations of Émile Durkheim. Let us summarize what we have just discussed:
Conventional education mainly produces individuals who manage well in society, while remaining collectively irresponsible, i.e., unable to collectively solve the two major problems of our time: meeting the ecological constraint, and stemming the slow degradation of the social fabric. Indeed, this education leads to prioritizing social conventions over facts.
Moreover, conventional education models a nepotistic affect, which produces a high level of social violence, including within families.
Finally, conventional education can prove dysfunctional for individuals who do not have a standard psychological profile.
Now that we better understand the limits and dangers of conventional education, let's try to better grasp the relatively long list of points to ensure for a successful education.
Remarquons tout d'abord qu'elle contient d'un coté des techniques (résolution de problèmes), de l'autre des valeurs (recherche du bonheur collectif), mais aussi des éléments mixtes que l'on pourrait qualifier de savoir vivre ou qualités (accepter la frustration), et enfin des conséquences (capacité à établir des relations sincères).
Note also, and especially in this list, the presence of a main technique, keystone of the whole:
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Problem-solving to limit social violence.
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Avec deux techniques dont l'acquisition est nécessaire à sa bonne pratique :
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The ACT and CBT psychotherapies to make our cognitive-affective system compliant with reason.
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The modern scientific method comme méthode d'acquisition de connaissances fiables.
Elle suppose l'adoption de la prise en compte de tous les faits, y compris ceux qui dérangent, comme base morale.
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Remarquons enfin que les autres techniques et éléments de savoir vivre proposés dans la liste définissant une éducation réussie peuvent être vus comme d'autres outils utiles à la bonne pratique de la résolution de problèmes. Et surtout, rappelons que la crédibilité de l'éducateur repose principalement sur son exemplarité, c'est à dire le fait que ses actions soient cohérentes avec son discours.
Exercising authority
Authority must be exercised within the framework of problem-solving.
When a more experienced person (parent, teacher, specialist) practices problem-solving with a less experienced person (child, teenager, less experienced adult), after a complete analysis phase that has provided a lot of information on the subject, the solution proposed by the less experienced person may not be the one the more experienced person would have chosen. In this case, the more experienced person can validate this solution in order to encourage the less experienced person to become autonomous, gain confidence in themselves, and gain experience. They can also take over and impose their solution by explaining the risk they have identified and refuse to take. In this last scenario, it is the complete work done at the analysis level and the trust in the commonly practiced problem-solving process that allow the less experienced person to accept the solution imposed on them without perceiving it as tyrannical.
Note that the lack of confidence in the more experienced person generally leads them to impose their solution more often than reason would warrant. This will be perceived by the less experienced person as a sign of distrust in them. If they internalize this state of affairs, it will produce a degraded self-image and induce a lack of self-confidence. If they reject it, this will lead them to perceive the more experienced person as tyrannical, and possibly seek to escape their control.
Being right is not enough to justify authority, even less so thinking one is right. One imposes all the better the less one imposes, and within the framework of a relationship modeled by well-conducted problem-solving.
Becoming proficient in problem-solving
Once it is stated that the central point of a successful education is problem-solving, one can still enrich the list of qualities that education can cultivate, which will allow it to be practiced more effectively:
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A healthy body
When the body is not functioning well, it captures our attention and is not compliant.
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Technical knowledge and personal experience
These are elements that will be useful to the analysis and finding a solution steps of problem-solving.
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The ability to logical reasoning
The solution must be built in accordance with logic and the modern scientific method, as opposed to being a simple compromise between the various elements considered at the analysis stage. This is certainly not about ending up with a synthesis following a thesis and then an antithesis as one learns to do in literary classes.
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The ability to mobilize one's thinking
This implies a certain taste for mental effort, as opposed to the cult of rapid decision-making that powerful people use to dress up their trickery as virtue.
This also implies not being too disturbed by emotions linked to one's personal history, nor by the beliefs of one's social environment.
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An influence network
At the implementation stage of problem-solving, one often needs to mobilize resources beyond oneself.
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Possessions
Since the agricultural revolution, the accumulation of possessions has become the ultimate goal for many people, who are ready to stoop to all baseness to increase it without putting it at the service of a noble cause. Nevertheless, possessions are also as important as the network at the implementation stage, as they allow mobilizing resources without the help of others.
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Time
Problem-solving requires having time to dedicate to it, meaning not having a life too full of constraints related to earning a living on one side, and consumerist leisure on the other.
This directly refers to the minimality mentioned in the third precept of the question 'How to succeed in life?'.
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Motivation
Having sufficiently developed one's morality to move from the primitive goal of seeking personal happiness through a high social position obtained through the game of alliances, to the goal of seeking collective happiness.
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Other remarks
Etablir une relation véritablement sincère suppose de surmonter une double difficulté. La première difficulté est la tentation du mensonge conscient. Y renoncer suppose de dépasser la simple relation népotique, dans laquelle on cherche à utiliser l'autre à son profit. La seconde difficulté, beaucoup plus redoutable, est le mensonge à soi même. Y renoncer suppose d'être prêt à remettre en question ses croyances, c'est à dire accepter de prendre en compte les faits qui dérangent, ce qui constitue la base de la morale.
Effort and the search for minimality are what allow one to acquire margin to then assume the loss linked to moral choices, as opposed to an opportunistic attitude.
Deepen
Complete the answer to this question by adding the answer to the question 'What is the perversion of the school system?'
Then refer to the following questions:
Why do humans massively reason incorrectly?
What are the conditions to meet to produce a serious reasoning?
What is an adult?
What should one do to be a good person?
What is the purpose of life?
How to succeed in life?