Sooo... last week I had to face the challenge of not being able to write on the "Education Manifesto Ebook" like I wanted to so I thought maybe I can work every day a little bit on the ebook and post it on the blog to see some progress here. If you like you can gimme some feedback about your thoughts & ideas in terms of education!
Imagination is more important then knowledge
Everything new...every invention...every idea...every improvement in our life comes from our imagination - not from our knowledge!
It´s not so long ago there where no cars...no airplanes...no streets...no Internet...no PC´s...even no god damn money on this planet!!! Till someone imagined it to be possible and puffff....it became real!
So all these groundbreaking revolutions on planet earth (and many many more) came with the power of the human imagination - not from the power of human knowledge!
We didn´t know anything about all that stuff till someone came up with them.
So let´s differentiate first:
- Knowledge is the sum of what the human mind has learned and mastered in the past
- Imagination is the the ability of the human mind to dream & hallucinate things into the future!
Hmm...let´s think about the importance of our Imagination in the academic process for a moment...
Dreaming...hallucinating...being creative and coming up with new things that could become real in the future aren´t skills we learn to establish in school. And why should we? I mean it´s more important to be able to repeat what happened in the past and what lessons and thesis our teachers have told us about - right? ( imagine a very sarcastic voice asking here )
I can´t believe that we are still stuck into a worldwide education system that values more importance in the ability to repeat stuff then to come up with new ideas ourselves!!!
Ok...I have to admit that schools would face the problem of students who start to THINK for themselves rather then just repeating the stupid stuff (alright...sometimes it´s also intelligent stuff...I admit it) a higher authority is telling them.
Imagine a student who get´s a good mark because she tried to invent a new mathematical formula!
Imagine a student who get´s credit for the attempt to create a new thesis for magnetism (something the science still can´t explain)!
It´s pretty hard isn´t it? And the reason why that´s so god damn hard to imagine is because you would have to imagine a Intelligent & Flexible Teacher first ;-)
How do you measure (mark) creativity or imagination when these things aren´t as clear as repeating content from a book or class? Simply you don´t! And that´s the reason why although we all know that our education system on earth has a crisis and companies just like all organizations on earth are begging for more creative employees and better educated people ( which means nothing else then people who are able to think for themselves) - our schools still can´t deliver this!
You have to imagine a Supercool School!
You have to imagine Supercool Teachers!
And you have to imagine Supercool Students!
The old system can´t solve our problems. We need a new one. A worldwide education system who empowers people to study and teach whatever they like and to become lifelong students with unlimited learning resources. We have to give the people the power to educate the people. We have to make a change and use our resources and leverage every single one of us to make a better world.
And all this I predict will start by a few people who can & want to believe that this is possible!
I invite your minds to dream with mine about this beautiful place on earth - Supercool School!
Wish Our Dreams Come True!
Steli Efti, Education Revolutionary
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