Einzig aus dieser sonderbaren Einstellung ist es zu verstehen, daß der Staat die Schule als Instrument zur Aufrechterhaltung seiner Autorität ausbeutete. Wir sollten vor allem erzogen werden, überall das Bestehende als das Vollkommene zu respektieren, die Meinung des Lehrers als unfehlbar, das Wort des Vaters als unwidersprechlich, die Einrichtungen des Staates als die absolut und in alle Ewigkeit gültigen. [Stefan Zweig in Die Welt von Gestern]
Education - facilitating mutual intellectual, emotional and spiritual progress
Although I am not any more involved in full time teaching, I occasionally talk about intellectual property law or China's business environment. During my first full time position as foreign language lecturer I learned that teaching is not a one-way track. Teaching is about teacher and student walking towards each other and ideally meeting somewhere in the middle, where their intellectual spaces overlap. Moreover, teacher and student will constantly change their roles. There will be subjects and instances where the teacher turns pupil and the pupil becomes teacher. I therefore came up with the definition that teaching is facilitating mutual intellectual, emotional and spiritual progress.
Most of the educational bodies that I did experience either as student or as teacher gave me the impression that their true purpose is the restriction of youth within the boundaries of civilization. Young people that have not yet responsibilities like most grown ups, i.e. children to care for, a mortgage to be cleared, a job to be coped with, are threats to the establishment. Schools are mostly designed to keep the establishment in power. They are under direct government control and as such tools for the government and the ruling class to stay in power. That’s obviously a rather pessimistic, but indeed realistic look at our schooling system. I am aware that within the system as such, there is often a silver lining to be spotted, that there are teachers that really care about their job and their students, that there are even schools or university department that do more than bluntly following rules and regulations. And I have learned that since my schooling times there has made much progress how subjects are taught, i.e. the IB program for primary and secondary education. Still I believe that we enter school as raw diamonds and leave them as round and similar marbles. And the issues that really matter in life, the dark matter, are kept in the dark.
Most of the educational bodies that I did experience either as student or as teacher gave me the impression that their true purpose is the restriction of youth within the boundaries of civilization. Young people that have not yet responsibilities like most grown ups, i.e. children to care for, a mortgage to be cleared, a job to be coped with, are threats to the establishment. Schools are mostly designed to keep the establishment in power. They are under direct government control and as such tools for the government and the ruling class to stay in power. That’s obviously a rather pessimistic, but indeed realistic look at our schooling system. I am aware that within the system as such, there is often a silver lining to be spotted, that there are teachers that really care about their job and their students, that there are even schools or university department that do more than bluntly following rules and regulations. And I have learned that since my schooling times there has made much progress how subjects are taught, i.e. the IB program for primary and secondary education. Still I believe that we enter school as raw diamonds and leave them as round and similar marbles. And the issues that really matter in life, the dark matter, are kept in the dark.
I always felt that every great university must have some crackpots on its faculty. And if it has not, I consider it the sacred duty of every dean to see to it that some are appointed. [Jesuit friend from Leopold Kohr]
Dieses Mißvergnügen an der Schule war nicht etwa eine persönliche Einstellung; ich kann mich an keinen Kameraden erinnern, der nicht mit Widerwillen gespürt hätte, dass unsere besten Interessen und Absichten in dieser Tretmühle gehemmt, gelangweilt und unterdrückt wurden. Aber viel später wurde mir erst bewußt, dass diese lieblose und seelenlose Methode unserer Jugenderziehung nicht etwa der Nachlässigkeit der staatlichen Instanzen zur Last fiel, sondern dass sich darin eine bestimmte, allerdings sorgfältig geheimgehaltene Absicht aussprach. Die Welt vor uns oder über uns, die alle ihre Gedanken einzig aud den Fetisch der Sicherheit einstellte, liebte die Jugend nicht oder vielmehr: sie hatte ein ständiges Mißtrauen gegen sie. Eitel auf ihren systematischen Fortschritt, auf ihre Ordnung, proklamierte die bürgerliche Gesellschaft Mäßigkeit und Gemächlichkeit in allen Lebensformen als die einzig wirksame Tugend des Menschen; jede Eile, uns vorwärts zu führen, sollte vermieden werden. Österreich war ein alter Staat, von einem greisen Kaiser beherrscht, von alten Ministern regiert, ein Staat, der ohne Ambition einzig hoffte, sich durch Abwehr alle radikalen Veränderungen im europäischen Raume unversehrt zu erhalten; junge Menschen, die ja aus Instinkt immer schnelle und radikale Veränderungen wollen, galten deshalb als ein bedenkliches Element, das möglichst lange ausgeschaltet oder niedergehalten werden mußte. [Stefan Zweig in Die Welt von Gestern]
Alles, was uns heute als beneidenswerter Besitz erscheint, die Frische, das Selbstbewußtsein, die Verwegenheit, die Neugier, die Lebenslust der Jugend, galt jener Zeit, die nur Sinn für das Solide hatte, als verdächtig. [Stefan Zweig in Die Welt von Gestern]