Education Reforms
The mass Education has to disappear.
Considering that I work in Education, I had my hair standing on end when the schools closed in March because of the pandemic. Yes, the primary school children and high school teenagers were transferred to the virtual classroom in order to continue with their course, . . . I would say, more or less.
The same thing happened with the universities; but adults are now more accustomed to study and work on the Internet during the academic year, and it did not mean something extraordinary in the management of their classes, although for many it translated leaving the campus or the city where they lived, and returning to the family home to continue their studies only on the Internet. This is logical, since it was not worth paying for room and board if they no longer had to attend university in person.
Everyone did what they could: the students handled their confinement as everyone else was able to, in light of their family situation and the degree of affinity and affection they had with their parents and siblings, or any other relatives under their same roof. I think most of them became frustrated, not only because they were locked up, but because they felt the absence of their friends and recreational activities. It is very logical it was the youth who had the worst time, since for the adults staying home can even be a blessing to catch up on small matters daily life leaves behind in a drawer.
For the teachers it was such a radical change, I honestly don’t think we were all ready for it. Some were worried and didn’t believe the students were learning well. Was anything going through their minds? Since I teach languages, face to face, in private classes, I have to accept I didn’t have the experience of leading a class over the Internet, and the teaching material I usually handle during my lessons needs the presence of my students in front of me. I had to rethink how to teach with a screen and a chat, and so far I am happy with my changes. The assignments are emailed to me, and the document comes and goes as many times as necessary until it is perfect.
For the parents it was even worse, because they had to supervise their children and see they did what the school told them to do, and even establish a discipline schedule to get through the course -it is not the same thing to watch their children in the afternoon to get them to do their homework for the next day, as it is to be with them for a whole day and see they do what is established. They had to work as teachers and parents at the same time, which, according to some mothers, was exhausting for them.
I have also learned that in many countries, not even teachers had enough academic material to deal with teaching on the Internet. A chaos !
Time passed and the course ended. Everything necessary was learned? I doubt it, yet it was not the time for failing grades and reprimands and -according to some kids- there were no real exams, but . . . ok. “Next year we’ll see” -we thought many teachers. “Great, in September we’ll be back to normal and the pandemic will be a topic of conversation in the past tense of verbs,” we said.
How wrong we were!
In most Western countries, the return to schools, high schools, colleges, and universities has been for fifteen days, before detecting students infected by covid19 and having to close many educational institutions again. Wasn’t this predictable?
And what about leisure centers, family parties, weddings, and any other gathering of people in an enclosed space? Doesn’t anyone understand we can’t continue to massify education, or leisure, or living, without contracting the virus again?
In Europe, once the confinement was over and people wanted to return to normal life, they felt like going to see their relatives in other parts of the country. Ten or twelve people were reunited after two months without seeing each other. What happened? A few days later what is called the second wave of the coronavirus began. The same thing happened with the opening of discotheques, bars, cinemas, theaters, . . ., and any other entertainment that required the gathering of many people: a few days after its opening they had to close them again and maybe indefinitely. And all this happened in summer, when seasonal business open and a lot of tourists are around.
Perhaps Life (we could say God) and the Planet want to tell us something. Maybe the stage of massifying everything is already over, and in the old and outdated current events we have to find a solution for the future. I don’t think we can continue with the social customs we have had until now. I just don’t think so.
A few months ago I wrote an article called “Visualizing the Future”, where I poured my esoteric knowledge after nearly forty years of studying this topic. In some of these books, the Masters talk about what education will be like in the new civilization, once what we have now has gradually gone. I say “gradually gone,” because I hope human beings will not reach such a degrading level of chaos and corruption that they will disappear from one day to the next.
When reading things about the planetary period previous to the Western cycle -let’s call it the Atlantean cycle-, about 12500 years ago, when Atlantis disappeared, after several weeks of earthquakes and water entries to inhabited areas, one night the whole continent with about ten million inhabitants sank. Later, a big island located at the north of the territory also submerged. Atlantis had been the main focus of the Atlantean race. It was located in the Atlantic Ocean, and covered a great part of this ocean, being its remains the Azores Islands, Bermuda and a part of the West Indies. That is, as a continent, it could have had a larger extension than Europe or the United States.
Has anybody wondered why the body of water between the European and American continents is called the “Atlantic Ocean”? It has been possible to photograph its capital -Atlantis- in the area we call “The Bermuda Triangle”. This catastrophe is called in the esoteric world “the Fifth Massive Extinction” of Humanity. And they add that “this death was by water”. Before, there was another one, Lemuria, that was destroyed by fire.
I have express that “I hope it will go gradually away …”. But some authors say there is the possibility of the “Sixth Mass Extinction” of Humanity, and that it will be by fire again. What kind of fire? Well, . . . they do not say.
Returning to the mass Education, I believe that if the rulers insist on keeping the educational institutions open with the same idea of massification we have had until now, such a health disaster could be created, they would have to close them again, and this time for a long time, which would be very harmful to the current generation. Whether we like it or not, Education has to migrate to the Internet. I mentioned my article “Visualizing the Future”, because in it I comment it is scandalous to have 30 or 35 students in a class, therefore we have to look for another solution.
I make some comments on what I read, but now I will detail them a little more. I do not intend to say what needs to be done, but simply to give some ideas or clues of what I have learned from spiritual sources I trust, so that those who have to decide how to reorganize Education (and who know more than I do for sure!), start from the bottom that there will be no way back, . . the mass education is gone.
According to one of the esoteric books, of the many I have read throughout my life, the new teaching model will be one of total openness, where you can have a large virtual classroom (maybe 50 students or more if necessary), where the teacher will expose a lesson as it is done today, explaining on a “blackboard” (most likely a screen) as if she had her students in front of her. This will be done on agreed days and times, the students in their homes and the teacher in an official virtual center, or perhaps in her home as well.
On other set days and times, but only 9 or 10 students per hour, students will go to the School building, in well ventilated and comfortable classrooms, where each one will show what they have practiced and learned about the lesson the Teacher explained, exchanging data and correcting one another with the only goal of assimilating that lesson or subject. In these meetings the teacher will not always be there, unless there is some important issue to be dealt with. It is a way to awaken individual creativity, learn to communicate ideas and socialize.
As the schools will be open 6 hours a day, there is enough time for the 50 students — maximum 10 at a time — to have their space to work on different subjects and chat a little later, but without crowding. This will make the building of a high school or university not as big and massive as it is now, since not all the registered students will be in their classrooms every day, nor during the whole day.
It is clear that the school will become a regional thing, because to study by Internet it is not necessary to live in the same neighborhood or area of a city -although the tendency is that the big cities see reduced their population in benefit of rural areas. It may be that even libraries will contribute to the dispersion of Education and facilitate it.
This may be only to commence, let’s say the beginning, because perhaps in time virtual classrooms will be provincial (in America, of the state), and how young people see themselves to study may vary with the evolution of humanity.
For the moment, many professionals in Education can contribute with some theoretical suggestions, which will undoubtedly be modified with practice.
Currently, I am taking an online class in a university, where there are students not only from America, but also from other parts of the world (some very distant !), and teachers control homework, exercises, essays, and exams by Internet, having each student a web or portfolio in an established platform, where the material is left to the teacher, who corrects and leaves his notes for the student to continue working.
The first thing I think about in this situation is that the human being has to learn to spend more time alone, or at least with few people around, and to work on his studies by themselves, before talking or communicating with other classmates on the days of get-together in the real classroom. The physical building must be a support to the virtual school, and not the converse as it has been until now.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I see with a lot of sadness those concrete or stone moles that are the primary or secondary education buildings in Chicago, and even the university ones, which house many hundreds of students for lots of hours a day, and also with quite crowded classrooms. This, in the light of what we are living now, already seems to me a blunder, a madness, that humanity has to end.
In History everything, absolutely everything, has been good and necessary for years or centuries, but once its mission has been fulfilled, it has disintegrated by itself and disappeared. Mass Education is not possible any more.
The books I read refer only to secondary education -whether it is called “instituto”, “secundaria”, “high school”, “liceo”, “lycée”, “gymnasium” or whatever it is called in each country and lenguage- where the students are already teenagers and can study with others with little supervision.
I have never read anything very professional about primary education, much less kindergarten, so I have no opinion or knowledge about this, because I have never really worked with children for a whole day, only the hour I teach a language. For me, educators are the true heroes of Education, because they have to deal with restless little ones who do not know they are getting into what we call the Education System. This will shape their minds for the rest of their lives.
As a comment, the only thing I did hear at one of the many international meetings of my religious group I attended to -in one of the many countries I traveled to, or in some others I have been living in- is that children should be outdoors whenever possible, and that they should be able to see, hear, smell, taste and touch everything they are learning. More than a school, they should feel they are on a farm with fruits, vegetables, peaceful pets, ponds with fish, etc., where they can clearly feel Creation. I also remember they mentioned that the little ones’ classrooms should be painted in light pastel colors, and with motifs like stars, angels, the Sun, the sky, and other things that do not create fear or confusion inside them.
And leaving Education aside, . . . how are we going to establish leisure time without crowded places or even masses?
Culture can be made more exclusive or personal,, since movies, operas, plays, museum tours, etc. can be passed to the Internet or have them on dvds. I believe sports could also be televised as they are now without going to a stadium of ten thousand people, although it would radically alter the “sporting” spirit of the spectators and the financing of the clubs.
All this will come out by itself in due course and little by little. After all, how many centuries did it take us to get where we are now?
I hope that the change in habits we are all having now will bring us spiritual evolution and understanding to pass this historic moment of profound transformation in the best possible way, calmly, and thus avoid a great destruction.
However, if human beings choose to let out their negative emotions of rage, frustration, desire to get out of their agony by taking negative ways, such as alcohol, drugs, indiscriminate sex, violence or coercion, craving for power or domination, political authoritarianism, and so on, then we can expect to end up like the Atlanteans, with planetary tragedies usually take after many centuries of rebuilding, before human beings can develop again a decent civilization.
According to a spiritual book, the sinking of Atlantis and the total annihilation of its civilization meant to humanity several millennia to reach again the necessary level to create the first impulse of our Western Civilization.
We’d better think twice.
