Time for Educational Poetics : Why Does the Future Need Educational Poetics? [1 ed.] 9789004398061, 9789004398047

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Time for Educational Poetics

Bold Visions in Educational Research Series Editor Kenneth Tobin (The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA) Carolyne Ali-Khan (College of Education & Human Services, University of North Florida, USA) Co-founding Editor Joe Kincheloe (with Kenneth Tobin) Editorial Board Daniel L. Dinsmore (University of North Florida, USA) Barry Down (School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia) Gene Fellner (College of Staten Island, City University of New York, USA) L. Earle Reybold (College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, USA) Stephen Ritchie (School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia)

VOLUME 66

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bver

Time for Educational Poetics Why Does the Future Need Educational Poetics? By

Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz

අൾංൽൾඇ_ൻඈඌඍඈඇ

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

ISSN 1879-4262 ISBN 978-90-04-39805-4 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-39804-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-39806-1 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

To my parents Olga and Emilio, and to the loving memory of my sister Elizabeth Martínez Ruiz

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

ix

Part 1: Time for Educational Poetics: A Philosophy of Education for Our Time Chapter 1: The Basics of Educational Poetics What Is Educational Poetics? The Space between Two Rhythms: Unconventional Pedagogies Chapter 2: The Society of Predetermination Towards an Idea of Predetermination in Society Chapter 3: Poetics and Pedagogy of Freedom Pedagogy for Freedom

3 3 5 9 10 15 15

Part 2: Why We Care Now for Educational Poetics and a Philosophy of Responsible Innovation Chapter 4: A Creative Contemplation Approach and Responsible Innovation

21

Prospective Philosophy of Education and Responsible Innovation Demographics: Why Do We Care Now for Responsible Innovation? Reconsidering the Future: AI from an Outlook of Responsible Innovation Future-Oriented Humanistic Perspective: Towards 2030 Educative Interventions to Nourish Responsible Innovation

21 22 23 26 28

Chapter 5: The Value of Future: Infosphere and Conscious Attention Notes for a Philosophy of Infosphere Are We Instruments of Our Instruments? Conscious Attention, Egocentrism and the Infosphere A Call for Digital Ethics of Infosphere Egocentrism, Selfish Gene and Conscious Attention Future under Risk or Innovation with No Ethic Regulation Our Daily Life in the Infosphere Chapter 6: A Claim for Non-Violence and Peace Education Unemployment and Costs of Violence Unemployment, Multifactorial Violence: The Claim for $KLPVƗ

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37 37 40 45 46 50 53 55 59 59 61

CONTENTS

Youth and Re-Approaching the Future through Non-Violence Again Greek Êthos

63 65

Part 3: Why Does the Future Need Educational Poetics? Chapter 7: Interpreting Poetics, Cognitions and Aesthetic Emotion Educational Poetics Is Polysemic Creative Improvisation Harmony and Environmental Awareness Chapter 8: Creative Contemplation How Are Tagore’s Educational Ideas Still Relevant in the Era of Hyperconnectivity? Tagore, Creative Contemplation and Freedom Creative Contemplation in Educational Poetics Imagination and Recreation Freedom and the Art of Movement Chapter 9: Conscious Attention and Philosophy of Non-Violence Contemplation, Mindfulness and Meditation Philosophy of Non-Violence for Young People Epilogue: Autumn Dissipates Index

viii

71 71 72 74 77 77 78 81 83 84 89 89 94 99 101

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Gratitude is a virtue connected with generosity of the heart. I view virtue as necessary for valuing the flow of time. Accordingly, I wish to thank the many people who have taught me in countless ways by generously sharing their lives and knowledge. To a great woman, Miriam Jiménez, whose love has shown me the bright force of courage. To our beautiful children Maitreyi, Aura and Mateo, thanks for their love and inspiration. They have taught me the importance of living life enthusiastically and eagerly by smiling always and showing me our true nature: a pure heart. Thanks to my brothers Emilio, Cuauhtémoc, Quetzal, and my sister Xóchitl, for their strength and hope. Ken Tobin and Alejandro J. Gallard Martínez, scholars who have opened my mind through their mentoring by providing personal examples of intelligent, precise and ethical scholarship especially during hard times, I thank you. A special note of gratitude is for Professor Alejandro J. Gallard Martínez along with Professor Lizette Ramos de Robles who reviewed this book, provided editorial comments, and expanded conceptual ideas by sharing their knowledge. To Asoke Battacharya for his work on Tagore and philosophy of education that inspired some parts of this book. To Gustavo Canzobre for his energy and light, which is a presence for a better future. To Benjamin Preciado for his inspiration and friendship. I wish to thank our grandmother Radha Bhatt for shedding a special light on me working for peace and non-violence in our societies and educational settings. Sonia and Juan Carlos, thank you, both of you are genuine peacemakers. To Swami Shantananda for his blessings and his work on Sanskrit texts that have always kept my heart delighted with the teachings of our past and present siddhas. To Professor Luciano Floridi, a philosopher who inspires my research and the work in Chapter 5 of this book. To Professor Chakravarthi Ram Prasad, a mentor and a philosopher of our times, his scholarship still guiding my own scholarship. To my dear Elsa Cross, a poet of our time, a friend, a mother, a scholar guide in dark times and for her inspiring me through her poetics and aesthetics. To Mark Dyczkowski, always a friend and a scholar in his own way. His work contributes to contemporary Indology with his translations and work on consciousness in Sanskrit Philosophy. To Daffny Rosado, a great human being who is always a wise friend and a genuine educator. To the loving memory of my friend Ambassador Roque González Salazar. Also, I wish to thank Alexandra Aktories, Isabel Ávila and Margarita Gasque, my friends and sisters who always nourish my search for truth and my hunger for a better world. Thanks to the many people I have met over these years who inspired me by allowing me a glimpse at their dreams.

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PART 1 TIME FOR EDUCATIONAL POETICS: A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION FOR OUR TIME

CHAPTER 1

THE BASICS OF EDUCATIONAL POETICS

I would develop in the child his hands, his brain and his soul. The hands have almost atrophied. The soul has been altogether ignored. (Gandhi, 2008, p. 202) WHAT IS EDUCATIONAL POETICS?

Educational poetics is a concept and an experience that should be discussed in the context of today’s philosophy of education, pedagogy and educational research. Conceptually, educational poetics is not limited to a theoretical construction, but rather focuses on the creative, imaginative and poetic experience. Educational poetics is therefore subject to being created and recreated in the teaching-learning process. What characterizes the idea of educational poetics and what problem does it address? First, educational poetics is rooted in the Sanskrit philosophical and aesthetic thought of India, specifically in contemplative, meditative practices and creative contemplation, these practices were re-introduced in educational interventions by the Bengali educator, Rabindranath Tagore. Secondly, educational poetics is the convergence of research from three areas: (1) creative contemplation and poetic creation; (2) practices of conscious attention in education, and specialized interventions with mindfulness; and (3) practices of non-violence that form the basis of peace education. Thirdly, educational poetics leads to a new perspective in thinking about the risks that jeopardize the future of young generations, as well as that of education and humanity itself. What risks am I referring to? Among others, technological innovation without ethical regulation—in particular, artificial intelligence—environmental crisis, climate change. A more specific risk that is valuable for this book is this: the diversification and sophistication of violence in its new forms, and the impoverishment of the ethical awareness of young people. A depletion of ethical awareness of young people coupled with the impacts of the aforementioned three risks hinder the construction of an inclusive economy of well-being. Chapters in this book are thus united by a question: why does the future of education need educational poetics as a pedagogically responsible innovation? What is educational poetics? Though there is no definitive definition, educational poetics is focused on the experiences of freedom that take place in the student by recreating the freedom happening in poetic creation or in creative contemplation,

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004398061_001

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and is subject to being consciously observed and recreated within the learning process. Educational poetics refers to education as a poetic and creative act and as a means of recovering and seeking out the experiences of freedom mentioned above. Tagore (1861–1941) identified certain factors in his own experiences during the process of poetic creation, this is to say, self-learning experiences such as the importance and effects of contemplative awareness, the manifestations of freedom, creative contemplation, imagination and means of expression. These experiences were not limited by Tagore to the poet or the poem, but focused on being able to recreate them in the learning process. An example that illustrates the methods to recreate these experiences is found in creative improvisation. By creative improvisation I am not referring to a random or unintentional act, but a deliberate process that requires detailed and systematic preparation, confidence and resilience needed to appropriate knowledge and to help the young wonder about their surroundings and selves. Creative improvisation and wonder are exercises of freedom because they prevent the repetition of what has already been done—the given—as they are methods of creation, a continuous starting anew. But what are the conditions that make educational poetics possible in contemporary education? This possibility lies in the practices of mindfulness and meditation, some of which have been systematized in mindfulness-based interventions. In these practices, we find the possibility for transformation within educational poetics, and for this reason I focus on the methods and experiences contained in classical Sanskrit texts, the exegetic tradition of Kashmir from the 7th to the 12th centuries and the contributions of Buddhism. Following the aforementioned influences, educational poetics consists of a step-by-step cultivation of the states of mental equanimity, total awareness of the present, internal silence, contemplative states and the experiences of meditation in the formal and non-formal education of young people. My intent for this book is that it shall present an analysis at the intersection of conscious attention, creative contemplation and non-violence in educational scenarios, in which I found a correlation with metacognitive practices and mindful states. By cultivating conscious awareness, the desire for freedom, the solidity of the search for truth and creative contemplation, educational poetics proposes the subsequent development of constructive practices of non-violence. Therefore, one of the observable effects of learning through educational poetics is active nonviolence—the goal of peace education. This book has a long journey, which has enabled me to present the concept of educational poetics research, as an alternative way to approach current problems in education. Some of the ideas of the third part of this book were published in a Spanish shorter version, mainly accompanied by a set of translations from English and Sanskrit into Spanish, designed for an Iberoamerican reader (Martínez Ruiz, 2016). Using the Spanish shorter version as a template I updated key information, which allowed me to contextualize and thus introduce why does the future need educational poetics? As part of this updating process why questions are presented for the first time guiding this book. 4

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This is the first time that all these ideas and research on educational poetics appear in English. Over the last five years my ideas were written in Spanish. Some were published in Spanish some just remained drafts and research notes over the last years. Regardless, all of my writings on educational poetics are a roadmap to the evolution of this book that together address interrelated problems in very complex educative and social scenarios. This—I hope—can be thought of as an introduction for a reader engaged in educational research, philosophy of education, future studies, digital ethics and South Asian Studies. Additionally, this book reflects many years of investigations of intermingled problems that commonly I study separately. Thus, in this book there are different approaches, methodologies and traditions, from philosophy, ethics, philosophy of education to pedagogy, Indological and Sanskrit studies to peace education, mindfulness and creative contemplation. THE SPACE BETWEEN TWO RHYTHMS: UNCONVENTIONAL PEDAGOGIES

Why should we consider alternative and unconventional pedagogies in today’s educational research? Why should we take alternative and non-Western pedagogies into account? Educational poetics points out the dissident relevance of poetry and the search for freedom, explores the harmony of rhythms, that which exists between abstraction and form, between educational theory and practice, between two times: the past and the future. At the heart of this harmony lies the present. It is in this present that we capture an echo and recreate another point of relevance: that of the nonWestern philosophical thought. Relevance made of time and freedom, within which lies the idea that breathes life into this book, a poetics for education. Educational poetics proposes that we recreate the instant when the freely moving imagination overflows and becomes creation in its expression of learning. What experiences are encompassed within the term poetics? The experience that recreates, alludes, evokes, insinuates, wanders for the very experience of inspiration and aesthetic pleasure, where the forms which sprout up give life to a poem or a work of art, and how these forms can be recreated in order to trigger the learning process. Can the proposal for educational poetics be reduced to an aesthetic experience or one of artistic creation? It cannot be reduced to the aesthetic, because educational poetics is founded on the experiences of creative contemplation and mindfulness, permeated with profound silence and complete attention to the present moment. It is a state that resides and is experienced within the space between two rhythms, where agitation and judgment fade away. This state is intertwined with the aesthetic and creative. There is no strict separation between the different states, nor is there an established sequence, but rather freedom amidst the dissolving or that which binds us, conditions us, limits us, such as mental attachments. In this way, educational poetics cannot be reduced to the aesthetic, rather it proposes an ongoing dialogue between silence and mindfulness and the action of an artistic activity. In this intersectionality lies the desire for an unconventional educational project, less academic, rooted in the cultivation of skills that make us rethink humanism at the present moment, and as such creates 5

CHAPTER 1

the possibility to construct the future, perhaps a desire, a utopia in the midst of the 21st century. Educational poetics is an idea that I constructed, in part, on Sanskrit thought of South Asia, in its philosophy, in its practical knowledge, and in its map of the inner universe, specifically in Rabindranath Tagore’s educational ideas and interventions, of which some are grounded in Sanskrit literature or vernacular languages. The idea of educational poetics is derived from the needs of our time, particularly the educational and social needs, among others of the young. Three examples of these needs are: a. The humanizing and constructive role of art. b. The experience of creative contemplation and mindfulness, both experiences are understood as priorities, not only for today’s pedagogies but also for contemporary societies because these experiences result in a silent presence, which impregnates words, thoughts, actions. Words, actions and thoughts that are made up of contemplative silence are capable of transforming our environment, our educational concepts and practices. c. Education for peace, a training that cultivates non-violence and its role in confronting one of the risks that contains great dangers for the human race: systematic, atypical, and technological violence, as well as violence caused by other highly sophisticated mechanisms. These three factors are interwoven and merge together in the theoretical foundation not of an educational model, but of a dynamic, fluid and more creative education that is capable of constructing a present that cultivates freedom. Thus, educational poetics is not a theoretical proposal, but a possibility that aims to capture the moment of creative silence and recreate that what we call education. I founded the inspiration of this proposal in the educational ideas, interventions and experiences executed by the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore. I consider his interventions and literary work as an example of the idea of educational poetics. In his poems, essays, stories and letters, there is a creative and poetic demonstration of learning. Tagore criticized the use of education as a means of indoctrination, but he also believed that education was the possibility for freedom: “The founding of my school had its origin in the memory of that longing for freedom, the memory which seems to go back beyond the sky-line of my birth” (Tagore, 1961, p. 52). Within the word poetics lies the concept of creation and artistic creativity (poiesis), which is the development of verbal expression, reading, body movement, poetic imagination, literary creation, musical appreciation in cognitive development, and expression through the visual arts. All of this stimulated Tagore’s educational practices. In addition to the aesthetics and creative contemplation, there is a clear intention in educational poetics to capture recent research on the relevance of mindfulness practices from South Asia. The idea, as a proposal for our time, is defined by three Sanskrit concepts that are interwoven and continuous, like the branches of a banyan tree that drinks from the day and the night the very beauty it 6

THE BASICS OF EDUCATIONAL POETICS

returns to the earth, burrowing its branches into the soil and sprouting again in the future. The three Sanskrit concepts I am referring to are: (1) GKƗUDƼƗGK\ƗQDP: conscious attention and meditation. 'KƗUDƼƗ refers to the capacity for sustained concentration in the present, and is related to mindfulness experience. 'K\ƗQDPis the Sanskrit term for meditation. (2) %KƗYDQƗ is creative contemplation, associated with processes of creativity and aesthetic imagination. (3) $KLPVƗ is non-violence, characterized as active, with a longing for freedom and justice, expressed in the construction of a culture of peace in societies that are suffering from violence. How are they related? What experiences result from putting these concepts into practice? Why are they important for today’s education, as well as for the future? REFERENCES Gandhi, M. K. (2008). All men are brothers: Life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as told in his own words. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publising House. Martínez Ruiz, X. (2016). Poética educativa. Artes, educación para la paz y atención consciente. Ciudad de México: Instituto Politécnico Nacional. Tagore, R. (1917). Personality: Lectures delivered in America. London: Macmillan and Co. Limited. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/personalitylectu00tagouoft#page/4/mode/2up Tagore, R. (1961). A poet’s school. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education: Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducation-RabindranathTagore

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CHAPTER 2

THE SOCIETY OF PREDETERMINATION

But society has made its own arrangements for manipulating men’s mind to fit its special patterns. These arrangements are so closely organized that it is difficult to find gaps through which to bring in nature. There is a serial adjustment of penalties which follows to the end one who ventures to take liberty with some part of the arrangements, even to save his soul. (Tagore, 1917, p. 152) Beneath the surface of each book on education lie multiple biographies: the history of an institution, of an educational system or of the actors in the learning process. These lived experiences together make up an awareness of time and are witnesses to the problems afflicting education throughout the world today. Every era has its educational diagnosis, its challenges and desires. Every era defines its priorities and illnesses, and in every era voices rise up that represent the critical conscience of the meaning and goals of education. These lived experiences and priorities and functions of education permeates these pages by bringing together the results of educational research, as well as the corresponding methods, data and analysis, representing both the possibility and the desire for freedom. The possibility of, and a desire for freedom, nurtures the hope represented in humanity’s education, and through this we are able to consider the future in a unique way and that is by being completely immersed in the present. When I mention the desire for freedom, I am referring to the highest purpose of education: educating for freedom, not for being a good consumer. Our era is witnessing the disintegration of the meaning and highest purpose of education. However, this era is also being called upon to recreate the best of a kind of education that offers a dignified life and equality in access to well-being and practices rooted in ancient wisdom, that is also a road towards freedom. As collective or personal testimonies, the educational ideas that define every culture and era, those that have transformed us, maintain the presence of the educators involved. Between the theories and practices of each educator there is an intellectual autobiography. Generally speaking, their works and ideas are expressions of life, not only their personal lives, but the collective educational experience that shaped their era. Similarly, a society is reflected in its educational system. In other words, the type of education reflects the type of society that we are constructing. But what society is this? Amidst hyperconnectivity and digitalization, what understanding do we have of freedom? The possibility and desire for freedom can nurture the value we place on the future of education. Before the unstoppable development of technological innovations,

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004398061_002

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educational design and practices are confronted by a task which is critically reflecting on and using the technology that has changed the teaching-learning processes. The latter has another dimension if we analyze the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and in particular the category of High-level machine intelligence (HLMI) (Grace, Salvatier, Dafoe, Zhang, & Evans, 2018). In other words, there is the very possibility that AI will not only displace but also overtake human activity in technical, commercial and service jobs. Let us examine the teaching-learning process— something that concerns me directly in this book—because there we can find both risks to and benefits for education, accompanying the advances of AI, automation and intelligent machines. Then, why does the future need educational poetics? TOWARDS AN IDEA OF PREDETERMINATION IN SOCIETY

What kind of society are we constructing? In the deserts of premeditated homogenization, we have a society of predetermination, not of justice, nor of freedom. A homogenized society implies a high degree of conditioning. It reduces the kinds of futures that are possible by inducing the realization of very few futures. This implies the certainty, in the medium and long term, of conditions of inequality and the corresponding risks for a future of humanity that are already on the path to fruition (Bostrom, 2014; Brundage, Avin, Clark, Toner, Eckersley, Garfinkel, Dafoe, Scharre, Zeitzoff, Filar, Anderson, Roff, Allen, Steinhardt, Flynn, Ó hÉigeartaigh, Beard, Belfield, Farquhar, Lyle, Crootof, Evans, Page, Bryson, Yampolskiy, & Amodei, 2018). For this reason, educational research requires a wider vision of the educational phenomenon by identifying, observing, researching and understanding how the different risks confronting humanity are intertwined and what role education has in the construction of responses to these risks. The idea of responsible educational innovation is a response to this society that predetermines the human being in increasingly sophisticated ways. The society we are constructing is a society of predetermination, an idea that I present through the following propositions: 1. The critical idea of a society of predetermination was constructed by the merging of the research carried out by contemporary thinkers such as Thomas Piketty (2014) and his analysis of wealth; Byung-Chul Han (2015) and his analysis of today’s societies and his conception of the Fatigue Society in his book The Burnout Society. Luciano Floridi (2014) and his concept and analysis of the infosphere and digital ethics; Nick Bostrom’s research (2014) into the future of humanity, including the future risks and the development of a superintelligence; Markus Wilenius’s concept (2017) of future literacy for the development of thinking that reflects upon and is critical of the future. 2. The society of predetermination does not have a set definition. It is adaptable to today’s dynamism, but its foundations are continuous and illustrated through concrete 10

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examples. If we understand them together, they allow us to outline the idea of a society of predetermination. Below I mention some key symptoms of a society of predetermination: a. The increase of violence in today’s societies and its economic, social and psychological costs. b. The reduction and absence of a creative and free capacity. For example, innovation and creation are being defined in ways limited to their monetary and business value, dissipating social benefit as a central purpose of. This limited perspective reduces creative capacity and is substituted by the predetermination that is permeating technological investment with criteria of profitability and the unequal distribution of wealth. c. The reduction or absence of contemplative, creative, harmonious and free silence. d. The fading of the differences between online and offline life. e. The reduction of inner balance and of the capacity for full and conscious awareness has different effects. For example, illnesses that increasingly affect today’s societies, such as depression and its variations, from ongoing to pathological stress, the increase of mental illnesses in general and addictions to include drug use. f. The increase of the mechanisms of homogenization in order to standardize the practices that do away with diversity, cultural wealth and traditional systems of medicine. This can be observed in the reduction of local, artisanal and communitybased labor possibilities, among others, for example the increase of the power of pharmaceutical companies. The society of predetermination improves its processes and guarantees them with mechanisms for their evaluation and measurement in order to continue nourishing the level of predetermination necessary to move towards a future of wealth for a small percentage of the world’s population. g. Predetermination that centralizes the satisfaction of basic human needs, such as food, medicine, energy and technology. A society of predetermination permits the criteria of business interests to occupy the place that rightly belongs to the guidelines of social benefits. h. The more digital mechanisms and Internet navigation that a person uses, the greater his or her digital fingerprint, which results in a higher degree of predetermination of the behavior. 3. The mechanisms of predetermination are those that guarantee the distribution of wealth in unequal ways. Today we can observe that economic and development-based mechanisms that construct an unequal distribution of wealth move at a pace facilitated by technological developments, as can be observed in recent studies (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC, 2018; Oxfam, 2018). The mechanisms that have guaranteed the existence of this imbalance in the distribution of wealth—historical, current and future—oblige us to ask ourselves several questions. What predetermines this lack of balance? What mechanisms exist in society that feed the determination in intentional and immoral ways on different levels? The 11

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mechanisms that guarantee this predetermination do not exist through the imposition of ideas but through the reduction and absence of human capabilities. 4. In a society of predetermination, human beings tend to become instruments of their instruments. In the systematic reduction and absence of human capacities and will, online life, the saturation of information and the time and place occupied by intelligent devices connected to the Internet all play a central role in contemporary life. The use of communications technology can be singled out for making human beings instruments of our instruments. However, technology can also help humans and today we can see the concrete benefits of technology in terms of health, asynchronous education, and so on. 5. The society of predetermination privileges technological development and the uses of technology that facilitate the anticipation and guidance of a person’s behavior. This is accomplished through entertainment, the continuous input of information, the agony of Eros (Han, 2017), sophisticated consumption, the susceptibility to be determined through algorithms and consumption preferences, the open exposure of information, the disappearance of privacy. 6. The society of predetermination is woven together by a political paradox. The dissolving of borders is a confirmation of a neo-nationalism that constructs borders based on inequality, poverty and unbalanced wealth. In other words, we have walls, frontiers, wealth that are not visible but are virtual, and reinforced by specific boundaries. 7. The society of predetermination creates the idea of the future as something given. Developing and promoting the study of the future as a mechanism of information capable of molding the social and collective psyche in order to create the illusion of manipulating the future in a specific way, making us think about the different possible futures in a less unbiased way. 8. Automation is a sign of the society of predetermination, and it does not apply only to what we witness in the workplace but also in the way and the pace with which inequality is generated. The society of predetermination dissolves and creates jobs based on business interests rather than social or environmental interests focused on the conservation of resources. 9. A society of predetermination is a society that intentionally reinforces the extremes, such as the excess of open information and total exposure, transparency as a pretext, or the disappearance of privacy. Extremes all serve to destroy whatever is opposed to predetermination, including the indifference towards the excess of information and data, which is an indifference that guarantees the mechanisms of predetermination. 12

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10. Education is one of the realms from which we can arouse the longing for freedom or activate the conditions to predetermine the human being in the 21st century. On the one hand, it can feed into and sustain the life of a society of predetermination, and on the other, it is a mechanism for liberation from predetermination. 11. Educational poetics is a means among others of fragmenting and breaking the cycle that feeds into the society of predetermination. In the recreation of the creative cum contemplative experience (poiesis) lies the entrance to the experience of freedom. In this context, this is an open invitation to educational researchers in our time to consider the importance and complexity represented by educational poetics, the idea of responsible innovation, the wide and interrelated vision of diverse phenomena. It is also the reason we hope that both a society of predetermination and educational poetics can serve as an impulse for reflection to those who design the education of our time. Thus, as I said above, the proposal is not just to say what is happening but to introduce educational poetics as a possibility to fragment and break the cycle that feeds into the society of predetermination. Underlying the idea of educational poetics is a central awareness of a society of predetermination. These aspects are the capacity for creative contemplation, resilience, capacities to construct a culture of peace, non-violence, mindfulness, well-being, and digital ethics. These aspects are not always measurable in todays so-called educational performance standards because they are considered— erroneously—less important, and, in some cases, irrelevant for the improvement of educational systems and therefore of societies. In this book, I put forth some reasons to defend the importance of the aforementioned aspects, which unfortunately are given less consideration in the educational priorities of our time. The approach and method of proposing educational poetics is defined from the perspective of educational research, Indology, philosophy of education and comparative education that dialogues with the secular and the religious. A focus in these pages is the analysis of those social problems that impact contemporary education, such as violence in societies or schools, inequality, stress, juvenile depression, and of the alternative ways of considering inclusive well-being using different parameters. A question that comes up repeatedly in this book is the following: What can Tagore’s educational ideas contribute to today’s education? Another question is: How, if at all, can Tagore’s educational ideas contribute to the educational challenges of the 21st century? Educational poetics is not a conceptual formulation that Tagore created, wrote or explained singularly in any of his works. Rather, educational poetics is a theoretical and empirical proposal that I present here, based on different moments throughout Tagore’s poetic and prose work. Its textual elements are dispersed, but identifiable in practice, in the effects and experiences of educational institutions that Tagore founded which are in chronological order: Shantiniketan, a school founded in 1901, Vishva-Bharati, the university founded 13

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in 1918; and Shrinitekan, a rural school founded in 1922. I present the conceptual formulation of educational poetics as a possibility and an invitation to incite interest and, if possible, promote educational research of educational poetics, its fundaments and its contemporary relevance. Silence impregnates the idea of a poetics that serves to educate. The space that is opened by its presence is a simple beginning, an intuition and invitation to explore other possibilities of thinking about education for children and youth in the era of hyperconnectivity as noted by the Onlife Manifesto (Floridi, 2015). We speak to today’s reader of something that is as old as humanity and that is freedom, poetic creation and full, attentive and focused contemplation. These ideas are necessary glimpses in order to understand the risks and the future that we are presently constructing. REFERENCES Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brundage, M., Avin, S., Clark, J., Toner, H., Eckersley, P., Garfinkel, B., Dafoe, A., Scharre, P., Zeitzoff, T., Filar, B., Anderson, H., Roff, H., Allen, G., Steinhardt, J., Flynn, C., Ó hÉigeartaigh, S., Beard, S., Belfield, H., Farquhar, S., Lyle, C., Crootof, R., Evans, O., Page, M., Bryson, J., Yampolskiy, R., & Amodei, D. (2018). The malicious use of artificial intelligence: Forecasting, prevention, and mitigation. Oxford: Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford. Retrieved from http://maliciousaireport.com/ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (2018). The inefficiency of inequality. Santiago: United Nations, ECLAC. Retrieved from https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/ handle/11362/43443/6/S1800058_en.pdf Floridi, L. (2014). The fourth revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Floridi, L. (Ed.). (2015). The onlife manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era. New York, NY: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6 Grace, K., Salvatier, J., Dafoe, A., Zhang, B., & Evans, O. (2018). When will AI exceed human performance? Evidence from AI experts. USA: Cornell University Library. Han, B. C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Han, B. C. (2017). The agony of Eros. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Oxfam. (2018). Ripe for change: Ending human suffering in supermarket supply chains. Oxford: Oxfam International. Retrieved from https://d1tn3vj7xz9fdh.cloudfront.net/s3fs-public/file_attachments/crripe-for-change-supermarket-supply-chains-210618-en.pdf Piketty, T. (2014). El capital en el siglo XXI. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Wilenius, M. (2017). Patterns of the future: Understanding the next wave of global change. London: World Scientific Publishing.

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POETICS AND PEDAGOGY OF FREEDOM

… our education should be in full touch with our complete life, economical, intellectual, aesthetic, social and spiritual; and our educational institutions should be in the very heart of our society, connected with it by the living bonds of varied co-operations. (Tagore, 1951, p. 2) PEDAGOGY FOR FREEDOM

One of the proposals that should be considered for educational research today is pedagogy for freedom. A desire for pedagogy of freedom was advocated by the poet, Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore was a pioneer in moving towards one of the vital desires of the human being: the experience of freedom. Education and freedom seem antagonistic, but for the poet Tagore they were intertwined especially when the former was at the very heart of free creation, imagination, creative silence, and spontaneous delight. An education based on pedagogy of freedom opens up aesthetic sensitivity. Sounds are felt, colors are heard, and one develops an awareness observing oneself, by fostering fullness in the present. In his book, Personality (1917), Tagore captures this experience with delightful poetic images, metaphors full of wisdom, words that resound and smell of nature, that are put into practice with actions similar to that of poetic creation. This liberty is the beginning, as well as the goal, of new openings and a new continuation. It is a simple and vital return that allows education to achieve its purpose which is the recognition and cultivation of the best within the human being. The Bengali poet distanced himself from the conventional education of his time, while moving nearer to the deep roots of the human character and spirit. He did this in order to respond to inequality and poverty, not only in a material but also in a spiritual sense which is the poverty of character that no longer yearns for the human feat of freedom. In his work, 6ƗGKDQƗ(1913), Tagore presents some of the philosophical foundations of his educational ideas and interventions, some dating back to the 8SDQL‫܈‬DGV the philosophical Sanskrit texts containing reflections and arguments about death, life, the Self, nature of knowledge, and the existence of universe, as examples (Radhakrishnan, 1998). Tagore clearly criticized the kind of education that limited itself to accumulating information. He constructed, and created—in many ways outlined as an artist of education—conditions for a pedagogy of freedom. He did so, like a poet-painter in search of the words and

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images that capture realities about the value of education for contemporary human beings, that which inhabit every verse, every stroke, as Octavio Paz expressed in The Manuscripts of Tagore (2003): There is a point of convergence between the painter and the poet. This point is a true “sensitive spot” and fills the work with a profound relevance … Words become visual signs and abandon the realm of meaning; at the same time, spots, lines and colors come together and separate in a kind of pre-language. The word is vanquished, but poetry triumphs. What the poem says goes beyond language; what the painting reveals to us goes beyond vision. (Paz, 2003, p. 379) The point of convergence between image and word reveals disintegration and at the same time an appearance. It is a disintegration of those limits, which reveals human capacities as if they were fragmented, and an appearance because the intervention of imagination is associated with chance and always creates a new experience. Therein lies the possibility of educational poetics in the era of connectivity and hyperconnectivity and that is ongoing creation. This possibility lies within a tension, which is to say that it can take place in an academic space, but it is not limited to formal education. In the exercise of exploring what is educational poetics, we can find illustrative correlations in the educational ideas of Tagore and his interventions, especially because they bring to our attention certain characteristics. The below three characteristics are grounded in using diverse mechanisms, from philosophical and aesthetic postulates that allow the designing and founding of educational institutions, to an activism that was shared by Gandhi, an activism that also enriched Gandhian ideas on education (Gandhi, 2008, p. 193). i. the learning and teaching process is not guided by the merely utilitarian purpose of educating in order to acquire an exchange value; ii. a position against whatever destroys nature, against the destruction of the environment is clear; iii. their different interventions aim to disintegrate that which annihilates freedom, aesthetic sensitivity, moral power and wonder about life. Gandhi and Tagore agreed upon certain ideas, and disagreed upon others. They agreed upon a central element and that is that education must allow the best of a human being to be revealed as no longer just a potential, but a manifestation in body, mind and spirit. By contextualizing the idea of educational poetics within ideas from the traditional philosophy of South Asia, and in particular from the work and educational practices of Tagore, today we can consider the educational and social challenges that gives us a critical vision of the future that we are shaping in the present. Studying Tagore’s educational ideas, we evoke the enigma of artistic creation, which allows us to speak of education from the poet’s perspective. A perspective that confronts human dilemmas through unconventional paths that flow like a creative torrent that gushes forth from a lake of silence, in order to confront the social, educational and 16

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human needs of our time. It is from this perspective that I construct the basis of the idea of educational poetics and why it is necessary for the future of education. The renovation of learning processes that Tagore carried out in India derived from a vision of cooperation beyond the limits of nationality, cultural exchange, languages, non-disjointed experiences: “Rabindranath’s mature educational philosophy was progressive, humanist and oriented towards the arts in a number of ways, (…) it was surely his creative presence that did the most, directly and indirectly, to enrich the lives of students at his institutions” (Pritchard, 2014, p. 108). I would say that his view was humanist and oriented towards the future. He himself exemplified the encounter and recognition of the West and the East. In this sense, I outline ideas, actions and interactions that seek to contribute to the design of a better future for education. I emphasize the presence of South Asian thought and its interactions with our time, some of which have been studied in the West since the second half of the 19th century through the 20th century, by philosophers such as Dewey, William James or more recently mindfulness and meditation (Williams & Zinn, 2011). In both practices, mindfulness and meditation, we find the possibilities of silence and inner balance, harmony between the mind and the body amidst the shadows of human hopelessness, in the contemporary wasteland of the oblivion of oneself and one’s forms, expressed as stress, chronic depression and fatigue capable of revoking the possibilities of life. REFERENCES Gandhi, M. K. (2008). All men are brothers: Life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as told in his own words. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publising House. Paz, O. (2003). Obras Completas de Octavio Paz [Complete Works of Octavio Paz] (Vol. 2). Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Pritchard, M. (2014). A poem in a medium not of words: Music, dance and arts education in Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education, 13(1–2), 101–114. doi:10.1177/1474022213491344 Radhakrishnan, S. (1998). Mahatma Gandhi: Essays and reflections. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House. Tagore, R. (1913). 6ƗGKDQƗ7KHUHDOL]DWLRQRIOLIH. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/sdhanrealisatio00tagogoog Tagore, R. (1917). Personality: Lectures delivered in America. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/personalitylectu00tagouoft#page/4/mode/2up Tagore, R. (1951). The centre of Indian culture. Calcutta: Pulinbihari Sen. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.36111 Williams, J., Mark, G., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (2011). Mindfulness: Diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism, 12(1), 1–18. doi:10.1080/14639947.2011.564811

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PART 2 WHY WE CARE NOW FOR EDUCATIONAL POETICS AND A PHILOSOPHY OF RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION

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A CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION APPROACH AND RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION

The word is vanquished, but poetry triumphs. What the poem says goes beyond language; what the painting reveals to us goes beyond vision. (Paz, 2003, p. 379) PROSPECTIVE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION

The approach that nuances this chapter is that of a prospective philosophy, a vision for the coming decades that allows the identification, through existing mechanisms such as interdisciplinary studies, evaluations, indicators and statistics, of the importance of creative contemplation and responsible innovation. By responsible innovation, I mean plans of actions for innovative developments in technology which are designed and guided by ethical consciousness, value the future, and rests on axiological axes permeating technological innovations. Responsible innovation means being generous to future generations by taking into account high risks such as unethical non-responsible chain of actions. So, is responsible innovation possible? By including one key component which is creative contemplation or EKƗYDQƗ. However, we must be cognizant and cautious as to how elements of creative contemplation, inherent in responsible innovation, effect change in practices of innovation? In this chapter, I introduce a fourfold approach to this question. The first provides some demographic reasons for a meaningful point on the horizon of the need for responsible innovation now, especially when related to the basis for future educational poetics. In the second approach, reflection is centered on the relationship between education and an example of where responsible innovation should be considered: the risks of AI. In other words, thinking about the future and the dimensions of the risks implicit in technological development without neglecting the role of education and in doing so, improving responsible innovation. The third approach demonstrates the relationships among diverse interdisciplinary studies that look forward towards the 2030s, in order to reveal another key reflection regarding a philosophy of education. The fourth approach is the possibility of situating educational poetics as an aspect of AI development to develop or ensure a humanistic point of view with the goal of retrieving in the 21st century that which stimulates humanistic ideas.

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DEMOGRAPHICS: WHY DO WE CARE NOW FOR RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION?

In thinking of the future of a society of predetermination, and how to break free from such predetermination, education of children and youth play an important role. Countries with a considerable population of young people should consider the richness of creative contemplation and educational poetics as an axis of what we teach in schools. Because learning how to break free from a predetermined future is a necessary investment in the present moment because it capacitates and nourishes a more creative, ethical, conscious, open to silence and less bounded by technology. Countries with more aged population in the next decades, but with a high investment in technological innovations also have an important role for development of a responsible innovation for the future generations. Let me outline an account of demographics in some countries and a brief note related to data on higher education in general. The report Higher Education to 2030 (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, 2008; UNESCO, 2017) calculates for the 2030s, that institutions of higher education in China and India will become the nuclei for training professionals, engineers and scientists. It is estimated that the planet’s population in 2050 will reach more than 8 billion. India will be the most populated country, followed by China and the United States (US Census Bureau, 2018). The increase in the population is associated with risks such as food shortages, loss of biodiversity, and synthetic biology. For countries with advanced developments in AI, their concerns would be to understand the place of high level automation and loss of jobs, and an increase of dependence on technology for socialization. Both concerns are expressed in inter-institutional manifestos such as Policy Brief: Unprecedent Technological Risks (Beckstead, Bostrom, Bowerman, Cotton-Barratt, MacAskill, Ó hÉigeartaigh, & Ord, 2014), and directly related to ICT as Onlife Manifesto (Floridi, 2015). To approach why responsible innovation should be taken into account, technological risks and the demographic outlook for the next decades would be a central scenario. For instance, one of these risks is the level of automation accelerated by AI’s developments, and how it will bring an important level of unemployment for youth in coming decades. What, then, is the role of educational poetics in this scenario? Let us see some data and demographics of other countries, different than China or India, just to have a look at the meaning of what follows for the next years if we do not take actions in the present moment. As I said before, in the idea of society of predetermination we do not claim an imposition of ideas but a reduction of human capabilities. The plausible future is a clear example of what we should consider as a priority in this present moment. In 2030, México will be the tenth most populated country in the world, and by 2050 it will be inhabited by approximately 150 million people. Today México is the eleventh most populated country, meaning that we will also witness the disintegration of what we know today as the demographic window of millions of youngsters, as well as the increase of aged population. Additionally, India will maintain one of the 22

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highest birth rates in the world. Another important example are Japan and South Korea. In 1995 Japan was the eighth most populated country, with just over 125 million inhabitants, since the end of the last century it has faced a clear drop in the national birth rate, and by mid-2030 it will be the 15th most populated country, with a population of 117 million people (US Census Bureau, 2015). However, this should not come as a surprise to Japan since for the past two decades it has been generating the conditions to face a decline in the youth population. For example, one of its key approaches emphasized the development of its educational system and the improvement of technological innovations. With this overview in demographics we can outline the importance in nourishing capacities in children and youth, for simple reasons: countries in general won’t need just people to exploit resources but people with more ethical awareness to preserve values and practices more related with responsible innovation. Even though Japan is in the middle of two tensions, a less happy population and people life’s satisfaction (OECD, 2017), and a high level of well-being in terms of health, social security, and access to education and technology. In 2015, Japan had the necessary elements, such as development of robotics, to take care of aged people, and to confront the challenges it has experienced due to the decline in the youth population. As a result, it has become one of the countries with the highest number of robots in the world. Some robots do caretaking work for the elderly, others are focused on teaching. What consequences can this type of progress bring to the future? The case of South Korea is also relevant to this reflection because it faces the same situation of a declining youth population. South Korea’s approach has been to improve performance in mathematics, sciences and complex reading skills. In 2015, South Korea was the 27th most populated country in the world, with 49 million inhabitants, but in 2030, it is expected to be in the 36th place. The decline in population and the lack of natural resources has provoked South Korea to consider the function of its educational system as the spine for its economic development, putting its faith and investments in skills, technological innovations and intellectual capital of its inhabitants. Hanushek and Woessmann (2015) associated GDP growth rates of South Korea with the relationship between educational coverage and quality. The increase of wealth in South Korea is intimately related with the longterm improvement of its educational system. What are the effects for the future of this type of investment in education? Is it powerful enough to redirect the flow of richness, a piece of the history of richness created by investment in education? RECONSIDERING THE FUTURE: AI FROM AN OUTLOOK OF RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION

Apart from demographics, it is quite central to rethink the risks of AI and the ways young population in the world will be a consumer of such technological innovations for the future, without ethical and responsible regulations. There are two important 23

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conditions within the need for and the risks implicit in rethinking what can shape the future today. Generosity and self-examination are elements of responsible innovation that can be nourished by practices such as GKƗUDQƗ GK\ƗQDP and EKƗYDQƗ Generosity refers to the vision of working towards constructing the future of an institution or country with a humanistic tendency. In other words, the awareness of working for other human beings—whom we do not know and perhaps will never know—requires self-examination, an indispensable philosophical exercise. Selfexamination becomes the exercise that guides the vision towards the future, infused with the present and a generous reflection. Self-examination would be an important element in the very idea of future literacy (Wilenius, 2017). In more specific concerns of education as related to AI, the place of human values, generosity and ethics, calls for rethinking how we are constructing a future where automation is rising and less work opportunities will be evident, at least in what we commonly think of as a job. In some reports, for instance A Future that Works: “… about 60 percent of all occupations have at least 30 percent of constituent activities that could be automated” (Manyika, Chui, Miremadi, Bughin, George, Willmott, & Dewhurst, 2017, p. vii). What generosity is this? Less jobs for future generations? Perhaps the question should be: how do future generations deal with the age of automation? Thinking about Some Cases in Recent History Already in the 7th century, during the Sassanid Empire, the prototype of modern . chess—known by the Sanskrit term chaturan ga—implied a strategic and mathematical exercise (Monier-Williams, 1999). From then until the 10th century, the era of the Versus de Scachis, the oldest European text on chess was written. If we continue researching the changes in the game, we arrive at the 15th century, where modern chess is generally considered to have come into being. Let us remember the end of the last century, when one of the prodigious chess minds, Boris Kasparov, competed against Deep Blue, the computer that defeated him in 1997 (IBM 100, 2011) or recently the case of AlphaGo. How can we defeat Deep Blue? Today we would probably say by using another supercomputer. This is not the only case. In 2011, a computer built by IBM named Watson won at the game of Jeopardy. The machine demonstrated a type of AI design intended to manage information and select answers. But, what does the development of AI of this kind mean for humanity? This raises a simple but complex question: would Deep Blue or Watson be good math professors, in the largest sense of the word? Let us consider a hypothetical situation: an interdisciplinary team that would work on developing supercomputers for teaching mathematics, logic, and certain sciences. This would imply a group of mathematicians, logicians and scientists experienced not only in applied knowledge, but also in pedagogy, logic and science education and whose combined knowledge of different research studies focused on how to teach math would enable the correct programming of these computers. 24

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Today these examples of Deep Blue or Watson are historical references compared to the new challenges, benefits and risks generated by AI. (Global Challenges Foundation, 2017). For example, since 2009 we have Saya, a robot designed by Hiroshi Kobayashi at the University of Tokyo, whose function is to be a professor of mathematics (Crace, 2009). Saya teaches mathematics to 13 years old students and is programmed with six different types of emotions. However, Saya cannot learn, she can only teach what is programmed into her. Her success with the students was her appeal as a robot. We should also highlight the disposition of the students taught by Saya. Were they really ready to have a robot as a teacher? What made this possible? Perhaps it was the language, the socioeconomic environment, or their daily exposure to technology? Or perhaps it was the lack of a critical perspective coupled with a sophisticated capacity to adapt to technology? Here the reader of this book can refute the relevance of these questions during a debate on educational reforms focused on teacher evaluation, or the failing of students in mathematics. The invitation in this chapter is that besides not ignoring the current debates and problems on how AI and automation are reshaping education and the job market, it could also be helpful to understand them in their relationship to what is happening throughout the world, and particularly with a vision towards the future. This is not an elusive or unreal future, but rather a future that we are building now, in every country, in every research network or pedagogical strategy meant to improve learning and teaching mathematics in our particular context. Since the introduction of Saya into the classroom, eight years have passed, which can be compared to the timeline between the proto-chess model in India in the 7th century and Kasparov in 1997. Eight years does not seem a long time, but in terms of technological advances in AI and computer technology it is metaphorically centuries. What can we thus expect in the lapse of one or two decades? What will 2030 look like, if recent advances and projections on AI are successful? Will we have a version of Saya that teaches not just mechanically, but can also learn? In other words, will we have a robot with intelligence, and with all the uncertainty that this implies? Recently, the program AlphaGo defeated a human champion of Go. AI learned to predict the interactions of a 2015 previous version. improving and learning as was explained in “Mastering the game of Go without human knowledge” (Silver, Schrittwieser, Simonyan, Antonoglou, Huang, Guez, Hubert, Baker, Lai, Bolton, Chen, Lillicrap, Hui, Sifre, van den Driessche, Graepel, & Hassabis, 2017). If we consider a version of Saya in 2030 teaching one of the fields that implies less subjectivity—such as mathematics—and if we relate this with what Kant expressed in his introduction to The Critique of Pure Reason—in the sense that mathematical propositions are a priori—the relationship is plausible. This brings us to a profound reflection about the purpose of mathematics pedagogy: does it’s a priori nature make it susceptible to being programmable for the design of AI whose purpose is teaching? If this were the case, how would a robot reshape the meaning of learning and teaching of mathematics, sciences and other subjects? For many readers, these questions can be classified as futuristic. Nevertheless, the advances 25

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in AI, and computer technology call for the revaluing of something that is not mere science fiction. Hypothetically, let us consider the following: what should we expect if the projections on AI, such as super-intelligence achieve their goal? Or if all the investments in technology, synthetics biology, AI, robotics, knowledge of the human genome, as a whole are successful in their projections for the coming decades? It is probable that we haven’t given these questions the necessary importance, and we must therefore consider them. Yes, I want to open a door for observing a series of interrelated signs with a vision towards the future. I am not confirming that this will definitely happen nor is this a position against technological innovations. On the contrary, it is a call for responsible innovations by revaluing and developing a different way of thinking about technological investment in the context of a future oriented towards humanism and social benefits, rather than an increase in economic and social inequality that is becoming more acute with time. I want to add one more concern. If all these investments and projections achieve their goals, we know that they will belong to only a few countries, and specific companies. Thomas Piketty (2014) refers to this selective future as another form of creating socioeconomic inequality. Therefore, those few countries can possibly design educational systems whose function is to create the resources, identified by the business sector, and destined to their technological ends. FUTURE-ORIENTED HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE: TOWARDS 2030

An educational system should promote critical thinking about the use of technology, its application from a labor perspective and its relationship to innovation and technological development. Promoting critical thinking about technology issues could help in impacting critical thinking about ethical issues in youth’s performance in higher education in the 21st century, as well as promote ethical and responsible research. Critical thinking, ethics approaches and responsible innovation are part of the more complex idea of wellbeing. Certainly, to cultivate well-being, educational poetics, creative contemplation, mindfulness, resilience and education for peace are very important practices for the 21st century and for cognitive and labor interactions of contemporary societies, particularly in the context of the coming decades (Martínez Ruiz, 2016a). Accordingly, international evaluations such as PISA, focusing on students between 15 and 16 years of age, could play a strategic role in an educational system in two ways: to predetermine if any education system promotes homogeneous policies and to contextualize best practices in accordance with the actual necessities of each region. Nevertheless, international evaluations should consider adding evaluation of other type of skills, providing key information about how students respond to emotional life situations that require the practical understanding of responsible and ethical innovation. The rationale for this additional evaluative information is to underscore the additional types of skills that will be required in 2030, as well as their impact on the economy so that we can develop an economy of well-being. There is as 26

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an indissoluble relationship between economic growth and the skills that should be developed in educational systems today, since they will have decisive repercussions in 2030. To put it concisely, there is an indissoluble relationship between a country’s educational quality and its economy (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2015). Andreas Schleicher and Qin Tang (2015) highlight the meaning of this interrelationship: “The first of these results shows that a country’s educational quality is a powerful indicator of the wealth that will be produced in the long term” (p. 5). Schleicher and Tang are referring to the research on PISA conducted by Hanushek and Woessmann (2015), which is based on the results of diverse economic data and a pair of tests applied to educational systems, for instance the UNESCO test TERCE 2013 (UNESCO, 2015) and the OECD test for students PISA 2012 (OECD, 2013) that evaluated the population group of 15-year-old students in 76 countries. By evaluating and cross referencing data such as enrollment and student basic skills the aforementioned reports were able to conjecture the quality of education necessary for economic growth in 2030. Yes, if we redefine the direction of standardized international tests to pursue a consistent and sustained nourishing of well-being, educational poetics, creative contemplation, mindfulness, resilience and education for peace, such direction will develop a culture of responsible innovation in schools, and not a consumer’s perspective. The direction to nourish responsible innovation is necessary for a different approach to wealth and well-being in the mid and long term. There is something even more important that is, at the same time, a more relevant historical lesson for the future and that is wealth projected for the coming decades lies in the knowledge and skills cultivated by a country through its educational systems. In other words, a country’s natural resources reserves are not a guarantee of economic growth that will be beneficial, just and sustainable for the population at large. Nor can we guarantee a reduction of economic and social inequality. Schleicher and Tang (2015) understand these lack of guarantees as one of the most important warning signs to consider in an educational system: “Thus there is an important message for countries with abundant natural resources: the wealth that is latent in the undeveloped abilities of their populations is much greater than what is now harvested through the extraction of the riches of national resources” (p. 6). Even natural wealth is not a guarantee of economic equality in the coming decades, but rather a catalyst for inequality, exacerbating the lack of an inclusive educational system that values appropriate knowledge and skills for the coming decades, as expressed by Hanushek and Woessmann (2015). For a country, it is not their natural resources in and of themselves that represent better life conditions and equality in the distribution of wealth, but more so the development of a futureoriented intelligence and accompanying buried skills in the children and youth of today’s classrooms. Inequality will be fully nourished and sustained if countries with a wealth of natural resources overlook that the most important aspect of their natural resources can be found in the skills of their young populations. These skills could be the source of wealth for many decades to come by promoting the idea that

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learning and teaching can have an extremely relevant role when associated with technological development. EDUCATIVE INTERVENTIONS TO NOURISH RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION

Metacognition I want to go through an example of one skill that is related with responsible innovation or at least can trigger experiences towards a responsible criterion, that is to say: metacognition. Metacognition should not be understood as the construction of a risk in the future, but rather it should be associated with nurturing skills that trigger awareness for educational poetics and responsible innovation. In a clear metacognitive pedagogy, the learning process acts as a kind of self-inquiry and constructs a type of thinking more aware of the environment and human being. The intersection of such awareness and self-inquiry are part of the spaces in which mindfulness is developed (Martínez Ruiz, 2018). Metacognitive pedagogy also nurtures a kind of thinking that associates previous experiences as strategic and reflective ways of reasoning. Metacognitive pedagogy is unique because of its focus on socio-emotional skills as part of cognitive processes: “Current research in neurosciences has shown how cognitive and emotional systems are intertwined in the brain. Thus, improving children’s social-emotional skills can have an impact on their learning” (Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014, p. 18). With the information we have available, and the recent debates sparked by the work of Byung Chul Han (2015), we can outline a possible scenario for the next decades in which critical thinking, reflective practices and socio-emotional skills will be central to deal with inequality of the distribution of wealth and other problems. However, we can possibly break this pattern of inequality by developing a type of education that promotes more ethical practices in the distribution of wealth, and highly associated with human intelligence and socio-emotional skills to understand the suffering of people. Instead of developing the technology of extraction and transformation of natural resources without ethical and critical thinking. History can teach us about the future as well as provide a valuable outline that could be used to contemplate the coming decades. For example, the case of oil in México in the mid-1970s is an example of natural wealth that was exploited with a limited vision towards the future. The oil boom in México in the 1970s was not an investment model designed to reduce technological dependence, nor did it translate into an investment strategy to promote the development of a population with the education and skills necessary for the future. Rather, it was merely the consumption of the natural wealth associated with fuels. The past is unchangeable, but what countries like México must confront—not just for 2030, but also for 2050 and beyond—is the idea that natural wealth does not ensure sustained economic growth or a better quality of life if it does not include the development of the untapped wealth held in the basic skills and specialized knowledge of a population. The key 28

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to this development, which makes natural wealth meaningful and fairly distributed, lies in the type of education a country provides its inhabitants. I am advocating that we allow for a reevaluation of learning and teaching in a framework with a futureoriented humanistic perspective. The relationship between responsible innovation and well-being for the coming decades allows us to give educational poetics a relevant place in what we call an economy of well-being. Because innovation in science and technology also implies an ethical dimension and interconnected elements in the brain, such as creative, cognitive, contemplative and emotional systems that can trigger wellness (Tobin, 2016; Mevarech & Kramarski, 2014). This approach involves the development of innovation skills, critical thinking and creativity, communication and teamwork through the framework of educational poetics. The attention given to diverse problems presented both, by teaching and learning, at this time suggests that we should also consider other aspects. For example, what have we forgotten about pedagogies for freedom? What are we not addressing according to the needs of the youth population whose learning habits have changed in the last two decades? Some of these habits and their achievements are closely linked with a country’s economy. We should note the example of Singapore, and how this country has improved its mathematics performance through a change in its pedagogy. Due to its impact on a country’s innovation and a decline in its dependence on technology the example of Singapore can help us understand the relevance of the economy found in new ways of teaching: … the process of economic convergence is accelerated in countries with larger shares of high-performing students. Obvious cases are East Asian countries, such as Chinese Taipei, Singapore and Korea, all of which have particularly large shares of high performers, started from relatively low levels, and have shown outstanding growth. The interaction of the top-performing and basic literacy shares in growth models appears to produce a complementarity between basic skills and top-level skills. In order to be able to implement the imitation and innovation strategies developed by the most-skilled workers, countries need a workforce with at least basic skills. (Hanushek & Woessman, 2015, p. 77) How can we link cognitive and emotional dimensions in order to improve the learning process in children and youth of the 21st century? How can we achieve better performance in order to solve, understand or analyze a life situation through information, knowledge obtained at school, and life experience? To answer these questions would require a specific focus in teaching and learning and everyday situations, specifically localized problem solving which when put together comprises the link between learning and life. This advocacy marks a radical change necessary in education such that meaning is given to an educational system, in which the focus is on a student that constructs knowledge with creativity triggered by metacognitive process in many subjects. Let us see an example in mathematics, as expressed by Mevarech and Kramarski (2014). 29

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There is a broad consensus that in innovation-driven societies, teaching basic mathematics skills is necessary but insufficient. Schools have to guide students in solving complex, unfamiliar and non-routine (CUN) tasks, and foster greater mathematical creativity and better mathematics communication […] Education researchers have examined how such tasks are executed. A wealth of research has indicated that metacognition –thinking about and regulating thinking—is the “engine” that starts, regulates and evaluates the cognitive processes. (p. 15) This approach encompasses intraconnected everyday contexts of problem solving, as well as developing skills to provide a response to a given problem. Though it may be apparent to some, it is difficult for me to describe such an approach in a few sentences. However, one of the keys lies in considering how teaching and learning in many educational systems, even in our time, is separated from the real world, and posed as a kind of knowledge not related to other disciplines, resulting in a distancing of the individual from vital daily aspects of life. One example of this separation between classroom and real world is in learning mathematics, e.g. with concrete examples, as an inference, with a theoretical approach, with unconventional problems or simple with mechanical instruction to solve a given problem. Nevertheless, there are many developments over the last decades to build bridges between math and life, where metacognition can trigger responsible innovation. In the next paragraphs I hope to build the arguments necessary for us to consider subjects like mathematics as an opportunity to nourish responsible innovation and prepare plausibility for educational poetics in the middle of current changes and actual contents in syllabi around the world. Mathematics and Responsible Innovation We need to ask ourselves: how can we make mathematics content meaningful for young students, and be part of a culture of responsible innovation? What is the link between mathematics and educational poetics? When we look towards the future of students in an environment where information and technological development and the approach towards them will need to go beyond mere accumulation and mechanical use, it makes sense to consider the humanistic and creative aspect of learning mathematics, as emphasized by Winner, Goldstein, and Vincent-Lancrin (2014): It has been confirmed many times that musical education improves mathematics skills (James, 1993; Krumhansi, 2000; Nisbet, 1991; Shuter, 1968). The discussions about the mathematical properties of music date from the era of Pythagoras’s discoveries of the harmonic intervals and continue to our day. Igor Stravinsky (1971) determined that music is “something like mathematical thinking and relationship”. (p. 101) This relationship between learning mathematics and the development of musical skills, is a roadmap to aesthetic delight, and this delight is the openness to educational 30

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poetics in terms of creative contemplation. The case I am trying to make with math is to rethink what defines us as human beings, and how has this defined our way to understand the world. The way we use such knowledge such as mathematics is present in the different cultures that value mathematical thinking and made it an essential part of their lives and their explanation of the universe. In some cases, such as the Pythagorean thyasa (Kirk & Raven, 1957), developed a way of life that sought the integration of human beings with their environment through numerical reasoning (Aristotle, 1994). In India, what has occurred is an integration with the lives of humans with the teaching and learning of mathematics. India, as a civilization was able to give to zero a numerical value as not only a placeholder but also as notion of emptiness, or null, which in Sanskrit is referred to as ĞnjQ\D (Monier-Williams, 1999), as well as the Mayan civilization in the region of Central America which in that time included southern México (Thompson, 1973). Focusing on India, the mathematician Brahmagupta was able to symbolize the concept of zero around the 7th century AD. In the case of Mayan mathematicians, they symbolized and used the zero in their calculation of time about the 3rd century AD. However, the development of mathematics in India, different mathematical formulas were incorporated through poetic expression in Sanskrit, the recitation of which generated a state of constant awareness, similar to the skills cultivated in the school of Pythagoras with the acousmatics (Kirk & Raven, 1957), discussed more recently by Winner, Goldstein, and Vincent-Lancrin (2014): Is there really a link between musical education and mathematics performance? And if so, is there any evidence of a causal effect of musical education on mathematics performance? […] Vaughn (2000) carried out a meta-analysis of 20 correlation studies in order to determine if the students with musical training performed better in mathematics than students without it. (p. 101) Winner, Goldstein, and Lancrin (2014) describe correlational studies in which children who have taken music classes increase their performance in mathematics. In such case the aesthetic experience is related with a twofold purpose: responsible innovation and the relationship with educational poetics. Although not conclusive, Winner, Goldstein, and Lancrin’s (2014) research is promising and seems to be aligned with pedagogies of poetry. Another relevant example is the work of Lee and Kim (2006), in which they discuss musical activities that are part of mathematics and their effect on mathematical concepts in children. There are several other studies that hint at possible correlations between humanist-artistic aspects and the development of mathematics skills. But I offer an observation and that is that we have forgotten that what lies at the very heart of learning and teaching mathematics as a life exercise and way of understanding reality, was actively practiced by Pythagoras of Samos (570–495 a. C.E.) (Eggers & Julia, 1998). The Pythagorean way of life went beyond numerical and technical knowledge or mechanical memorization.

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Creative Thinking and Citizenship Approaching a path that responds to the dynamics of youth, their digital skills, and their self-perceptions of what citizenship means implies more than just compiling figures, statistics and opinions. To a great extent, it implies assuming the feasible but critical, systematic and sustained pedagogical construction of what we had termed as responsible innovation. The key educational levels in the development of specialized skills as innovation, are important for insertion into the pre-labor market through a type of secondary and tertiary education that promotes responsible innovation. Let us look at responsible innovation as a way of viewing the complex problem of youth unemployment. The modest idea of this proposal lies in two components: the construction of citizenship and creative thinking. Both are components for developing specialized skills based on responsible innovation, whether creative or critical, for insertion into the labor market. That is to say, that skills based on responsible innovation can avoid developing models of reproduced consumption. Using the idea of responsible innovation as a framework, would allow us to consider some central ideas necessary for rethinking the curricular designs of our days. The goal in curricular designs would be to create an intra- and interconnection among youth, school and work. Additionally, we need to consider the transition of graduates to their first employment, and particularly how to manage a sustained link with the work environment that assures, or at least improves, the insertion into the labor market of a young person upon finishing school. Why do we speak of citizenship and its ethical root with regard to unemployment? The first component—the construction of citizenship—prevents the risk of directing and managing education with solely an economic basis. Education, in its largest sense, is more than addressing the needs of a private company. There is a risk that the effort is in shaping good consumers and not citizenship when we approach curriculum design reductively. Conceptualizing employment as a means to construct citizenship will allow us to think of regional and global citizenship that has an ethical commitment. This idea was expressed by Nussbaum in Education for citizenship in an era of global connection (2002): “Our campuses educate our citizens. This means learning about different events and being versed in reasoning techniques. But it also means something else. This is learning to be a human being capable of loving and imagining” (p. 302). The skills needed for entry into the labor market should not be the ones needed only for the economic progress of a few, but those that permit the reversal of an unbalanced consumption that ravages resources and the environment. This is even more important for developing countries which have especially high unemployment rates among youth with post-secondary education (OECD, 2012). A good example, is the recession of 2008–2009 which influenced not only formal unemployment, but also impacted the real-estate sector. The second component in linking responsible innovation and the education of young people is found in the role of creative thinking in education. The impact of creativity and the arts in contemporary educational challenges, as well as employment, is based 32

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on something very simple, which is providing skills such as the ability find creative solutions to everyday problems. This emphasis could motivate students to study and at the same time create a link between school and work and local environments. Let us ask ourselves: what curricular innovations does contemporary education need in order to stimulate creativity as a bridge between school and work? Since the mid1990s, there is evidence of how the arts in some educational systems have lost space and attention. The common but misunderstood idea is that the arts are considered entertainment and not as a central factor in stimulating creative thinking. However, we need to reevaluate this idea through the following reflections: can we establish a measurable relationship between the stimulation of creative thinking and the skills for an ever more specialized employment? How can we measure the impacts of creativity in the solution of problems? Both questions allow us to glimpse some of the benefits of creative thinking, such as the development of digital and ethical communication skills, self-inquiry and the development of conscious attention skills. For the design of future education systems, we must reflect on the dilemma of whether our current curricular models should be stimulating professional employment or whether the mission is the development of skills such as creativity, imagination and the construction of citizenship. This question is relevant when we think about the number of graduates and at the same time the rates of professional unemployment (Mackinsey Global Institute, 2017). What we argue for in times of loss of jobs is the importance of the stimulation of creative thinking centered on the following benefits: a. Rupture from the tendency to reproduce models of inequality to cultivate responsible innovation and required critical attitudes and creative skills. b. The wealth of an educational system is shaped by its unique and dynamic character in relation to its global interaction. Said wealth is nurtured by, among other aspects, creative thinking because it prevents dependence in staticism. The dynamic of a curriculum implies creative capacity to approach the complexity of the present, but through a framework of continuity. c. Continuity does not necessarily mean repetition but in a larger sense, it would be understood as creation and dynamism. d. The relationship between school and work is unstable, oscillating and bumpy. This is nothing new, but we must understand that creative thinking is a way in which a curricular model or a young student can offer some tools to convert the fluctuation into an opportunity, rather than a disadvantage. Our era is experiencing a more specialization of scientific knowledge, existing since the time of Plato and clearly sought after in Aristotelian philosophy. One of its effects is the fragmentation of the knowledge of reality. Specialization, which fragments without returning to an interlinked vision of reality, has many effects on the way in which we understand education at different levels. Would there perhaps be a change if we managed to develop a unified concept of the world in children and youth through mathematical thinking? 33

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Industrialized societies constructed, consciously or unconsciously, the conditions to give meaning to unemployment and the profound social significance particular to the lack of formal employment. The specialization of human activity and knowledge versus the non-fragmented experience of reality were two-way paths for some societies, but not for all. Specialization, without a return to non-fragmentation of thought, created a way of understanding reality in specialized but fragmented notions of reality that are disjointed pieces. In this panorama, if we bring together three parallel universes such as the labor market, the providers of education and youth, we will lack connection, and each will see its immediate reality as fragmented (Mourshed, Farrel, & Barton, 2013), In an exercise to reevaluate curricular design, unemployment and the development of professionals, I suggest we consider weaving into this relationship the impact of creative thinking and citizenship. Technological development, along with its risks, represents the need for greater adaptability and also for more opportunities for scientists, educators with a more human vision and an awareness of the risks that we are creating, as Martin Rees (2014) said in the Magazine NewStatesman: “Many are concerned that it is ‘running away’ so fast that neither politicians nor the lay public can assimilate or cope with it” (para. 3). A prospective philosophy of education will have to consider the complexity of today’s concerns, among them the risk of unethical and unbridled technological development and its projection into the future. Such a philosophy of education aims to retrieve the most basic questions about the origin and nature of knowledge, as posited by some ancient Greeks. The reclamation of these questions can serve as a base for our century in the transcendence of a fragmented knowledge with the hopes of achieving a unified comprehension of reality. REFERENCES Aristóteles. (1994). Metafísica. Madrid: Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Beckstead, N., Bostrom, N., Bowerman, N., Cotton-Barratt, O., MacAskill, W., Ó hÉigeartaigh, S., & Ord, T. (2014). Policy brief: Unprecedent technological risks. Retrieved from http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/ wp-content/uploads/Unprecedented-Technological-Risks.pdf Crace, J. (2009, March 13). Who needs teachers when you could have bankers? Or better still, robots? The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2009/mar/13/ robot-teacher-tokyo Eggers, C., & Juliá, V. (1998). Los filósofos presocráticos (Vol. I). Madrid: Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Floridi, L. (Ed.). (2015). The onlife manifesto: Being human in a hyperconnected era. New York, NY: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-04093-6 Global Challenges Foundation. (2017). The global catastrophic risks 2017. Stockholm: Global Challenges Foundation. Retrieved from https://api.globalchallenges.org/static/files/Global%20Catastrophic%20 Risks%202017.pdf Hanushek, E., & Woessmann, L. (2015). Universal basic skills: What countries stand to gain. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264234833-en IBM 100. (2011). Icons of progress: Deep blue. Retrieved from http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ ibm100/us/en/icons/deepblue/ Kant, E. (1979). Crítica de la razón pura. Buenos Aires: Losada.

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A CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION APPROACH AND RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION Kirk, G. S., & Raven, J. E. (1957). The presocratic philosophers: A critical history with a selection of texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lee, Y., & Kim, S. J. (2006). The effects of integrated activity with music and mathematics on musical ability and the mathematical concepts of preschoolers. The Journal of Korea Open Association for Early Childhood Education, 11(2), 305–329. Mackinsey Global Institute. (2017). Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation. Retrieved from www.mckinsey.com/mgi Manyika, J., Chui, M., Miremadi, M., Bughin, J., George, K., Willmott, P., & Dewhurst, M. (2017, January). A future that works: Automation, employment and productivity. New York, NY: McKinsey Global Institute. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20 Insights/Digital%20Disruption/Harnessing%20automation%20for%20a%20future%20that%20 works/MGI-A-future-that-works_Full-report.ashx Martínez Ruiz, X. (2016a). Concentration is the seed: Conscious attention in educational scenarios. In M. Powietrzynska & K. Tobin (Eds.), Mindfulness and educating citizens for everyday life. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007% 2F978-94-6300-570-8_3.pdf Martínez Ruiz, X. (2018). The alignment argument: At the crossroads between mindfulness and metacognition. Learning: Research and Practice, 4(1), 29–38. doi:10.1080/23735082.2018.1428096. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23735082.2018.1428096 Mevarech, Z., & Kramarski, B. (2014). Critical maths for innovative societies: The role of metacognitive pedagogies. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264223561-en Monier-Williams, M. (1999). A Sanskrit English dictionary etymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Mourshed, M., Farrell, D., & Barton, D. (2013). Education to employment: Designing a system that works. New York, NY: Mckinsey Center for Government. Retrieved from http://mckinseyonsociety.com/ downloads/reports/Education/Education-to-Employment_FINAL.pdf Nussbaum, M. (2002). Education for citizenship in an era of global connection. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 21(4–5), 289–303. doi:10.1023/A:101 OECD. (2008). Higher education to 2030, demography (Vol. 1). Paris: OECD Publishing, Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264040663-en OECD. (2012). Getting it right: Una agenda estratégica para las reformas en México. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD. (2013). PISA 2012 assessment and analytical framework: Mathematics, reading, science, problem solving and financial literacy. Paris: OCDE. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264190511-en OECD. (2013). PISA 2012 results: Excellence through equity: Giving every student the chance to succeed (Vol. 2). Paris: OECD publishing. OECD. (2017). How’s life? 2017: Measuring well-being. Paris: OECD Publishing. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1787/how_life-2017-en Paz, O. (2003). Obras Completas de Octavio Paz [Complete Works of Octavio Paz] (Vol. 2). Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Piketty, T. (2014). El capital en el siglo XXI. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Rees, M. (2014, November). The world in 2050 and beyond. The New Statesman. Retrieved from https://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2014/11/martin-rees-world-2050-and-beyond Schleiher, A., & Tang, O. (2015). Editorial: Education post-2015: Knowledge and skills transform lives and societies. In E. Hanushek & L. Woessmann (Eds.), Universal basic skills: What countries stand to gain. Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264234833-en Silver, D., Schrittwieser, J., Simonyan, K., Antonoglou, I., Huang, A., Guez, A., Hubert, T., Baker, L., Lai, M., Bolton, A., Chen, Y., Lillicrap, T., Hui, F., Sifre, L., van den Driessche, G., Graepel, T., & Hassabis, D. (2017). Mastering the game of go without human knowledge. Nature, 550, 354–359. doi:10.1038/nature24270. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24270.pdf Thompson, E. (1973). The rise and fall of Maya civilization. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

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CHAPTER 4 UNESCO. (2015). Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE). Santiago: UNESCO and the Regional Office for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002439/243980e.pdf UNESCO. (2017). Global education monitoring report. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002593/259338e.pdf United States Census Bureau. (2015). The country ranking. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/ popclock/ Wilenius, M. (2017). Patterns of the future: Understanding the next wave of global change. London: World Scientific Publishing. Winner, E., Goldstein, T., & Vincent-Lancrin, S. (2014). ¿El arte por el arte?: La influencia de la educación artística. Ciudad de México: OCDE/IPN. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264224902-es

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THE VALUE OF FUTURE Infosphere and Conscious Attention

Success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization, … But it could also be the last—unless we learn how to avoid the risks. (Hawking, in Hern, 2016) … what sort of hyperhistorical environment are we building for ourselves and for future generations? The short answer is: the infosphere. (Floridi, 2014, p. 24) Sciences are power, knowledge and fraternity. With regard to technology, it is an instrument and not a philosophy or a divinity. We worship it because of the fatal tendency of men to become worshippers of our instruments … (Paz, 1996, p. 18) NOTES FOR A PHILOSOPHY OF INFOSPHERE

At this point I hope that the previous chapters have developed a common interest in the near future. Thus, in this chapter let us think about three concerns to ask about the value of future in a philosophical way. The first concern is the notion of infosphere, the second is the need to create awareness about the importance of interweaving personal experiences in a curriculum, and the third is the importance of creating a central place for conscious attention. These themes are the beginnings for future analyses about infosphere. In essence the task is to transmit and dialogue with the complexities of a panoramic vision, what we have lost or reduced in our lives given how we were educated in the current systems. What value do we place on the future? This is a simple yet complex question in its scope. In asking it, we are calling for a reflection on the value of future existence and its relationship to our actions, that is to say a call to rethink contemporary approaches to life and the way we do research on humanities and social sciences. There are concerns that we share, such as the promotion of technological innovation that communicates and informs us, the development of AI (Müller & Bostrom, 2016), the risk of food security, weapons of mass destruction and changes in the environment, among others (Global Challenges Foundation, 2017). In most contemporary societies, there are experiences associated with these shared concerns that make the initial question more relevant. Specifically, is our current

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behavior really placing value on the future? Is this question even meaningful for everyone? I don’t know, and I am in fact skeptical when I ask about its value. I can assert, with some hesitancy, that even dissimilar experiences can provoke similar reflections and actions. Yes, there is something in the human experience that invokes a kind of concern for the future of others. In other words, those who have not yet been born, or are just beginning their school lives, what kind of future do we want for them? This concern for the future of humanity and its relationship to the risks generated by science and technology are receiving more and more attention in universities and the academic world. It is precisely in the universities, that there has been a historical defense for the benefits of science and technology. Today there is a warning about what has been defended for so long to include the risks created by technological innovation itself on the basis of a so called scientific activity, that have been set in motion. How has research on humanities and social sciences incorporated these topics? To a great extent, the defense of the benefits of science and technology are found in our learning-teaching processes, but have we considered the other side— the risks—in our educational practices and in our learning-teaching processes? In one decade, we have seen an increase in the number of research centers, project, programs, institutes and initiatives that have been created and supported and whose focus lies in studying the global challenges represented by the risks to humanity. I am referring to centers such as OpenAI, DeepMind, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, The Future of Life Institute, MIRI, Future of Humanity Institute, Strategic Artificial Intelligence Research Centre, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and others. These centers are focusing on the study of risks that already exist, such as the technological sophistication of weapons of mass destruction, the idea of catastrophic climate change, an ecological collapse, the development of synthetic biology linked with new disease, geoengineering and AI. It highlights that the central perspective of the future is a concern for countries and universities where these centers were founded. If we peruse the topics, research, publications, disciplines and people working in these centers we can have a look that it is not just an outlook for a group of research but a series of interconnected investigations that concern humanity, and more specifically with the future of human being. What role does education play in aforementioned scenario of future risks? Does educational research already take into consideration and integrate approaches to face these risks? Can we consider the idea of educational poetics as a means to develop an interdisciplinary agenda to consider and act through different lenses to confront these future risks? In a concern for future generations we find one of the traits of our human condition, which is the desire for a transcendence to the development of a global community. And therein lies the possibility of the infinite even in finite conditions. Today, as in many examples of the 20th century, are shared concerns about not moving towards transcendence because of: (a) Terrestrial biosphere degradation, and (b) Advances in digital technology and AI in 2016 (GCF, 2017). The annihilation of transcendence through the negation of the future of the human being as we know it is far from a fantasy or a mere hypothesis. 38

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If transcending our finiteness means lasting through others, but our present annuls the possibilities for the future existence of others, we find ourselves facing a call for reflection and action centered critically on the very root of an increasing tendency for individualism and egotism. This then, can obscure the value of the future. Even scientific knowledge could underlie individualism and egotism. If high impact technologies’ capacity for transformation and innovation continues then it will bring great benefits to humanity. The caution though is that with transformation and innovation comes the possibility of great risks, if these developments lack a responsible vision for the present and the future. Neutrality ends where the intentionality we give to current technological development begins. It is in the subtle direction of intentionality where we can create a neutral character to technology. This is where we find the fundamental gravity of the need for a kind of digital ethical awareness and its applications in a future of technological innovations to include the development of an artificial super intelligence (Bostrom, 2014). Some philosophers have been highlighting changes in the form of communicating and informing ourselves and the necessity of the Internet’s architecture to protect human rights, or in food security and in all interventions that jeopardize the balance of a planet whose limits will inevitably be reached (Cath & Floridi, 2017). The future I am referring to is no different than the only one possible which is the one born in the present. There is no future without the present, but there is no present without the possibility of a future. The possibility of a future implies the construction of one, and it is there where a degree of relevance is found in these reflections. In this construction of a future there is a labyrinth through which we are currently moving—it does not and will not stop—and it is the construction of a world of information, connectivity, immediacy, wireless semantics and multiagent systems. In the unfolding of these possibilities we can recognize the need for contributing value to the future from the present moment. The time that sentences the future is the present. The past and the future merge in the unity of our present moment. If we are time, and a part of this being time is a possibility for freedom, then the present and its future have a more precious value and our dignity lies in recognizing this. Though the topics are diverse when we speak of the value of the future, in this chapter my analysis is related to a specific concept: infosphere. In 1971, the term was used by R. Z. Shepard. “In much the way that fish cannot conceptualize water or birds the air, man barely understands his infosphere, that encircling layer of electronic and typographical smog composed of clichés from journalism, entertainment and government …” (April 12, 1971). The data and the flow of information that is shaping our perception of reality are to be considered mainly in this encircling layer or bubble. When we consider the value of the future and the role of the infosphere, both then should be considered in education in a more ethical way and not just as a given fact that we use in a classroom or work place. Topics that range from boundless consumption, ethics in the use of scientific knowledge and technological 39

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innovation are often stimulated by an informational bubble that predetermines our purchasing decisions and educational orientations. When thinking about the value that a modern human being places on the future, a critical approach occurs at the intersection of ethics, educational research, the philosophy of information, and scientific-technological advances. Such critical approach should be linked to diverse global risks, to the relationship of consumption with the environment, as well as the development of a super AI, synthetic biology, and the paths of investment in technology and innovation in contemporary societies (Beckstead et al., 2014). For these reasons in this part of the book a reader can start to think about risks and the value we place on the future. Examples of our daily life and our interaction with technology, is where the limit between online and offline life is becoming increasingly narrower (Floridi, 2014). ARE WE INSTRUMENTS OF OUR INSTRUMENTS?

Why does the future of education need educational poetics? Let us start with considering an understanding of the future as a newly constructed possibility. I do not mean to suggest or imply the ancient Greek practices of the mantikos, as it is brilliantly expressed by Diotima in Symposium (Plato, Dialogues). When I say possibility, I want to signal its construction in the present, the only time that the future can be concrete. As a possibility, the future implies a series of risks inherent to the idea of something to be constructed. The risks, i.e., countable and uncountable dangers created by humanity itself and more specifically due to the direction of applied sciences, and technological developments amongst others. The risk for the future of humanity will need to be measured and prioritized in the strategies that are used for scientific-technological development and the drive for innovation. These risks are not an illusion or a screenplay. Some are no longer abstractions and have a concrete presence in our human relationships and the world we live in. Considering the value of the future means observing, studying and understanding the risks for the next generations based on present day actions. This exercise of considering the effects of our present day actions—not on ourselves, but on those who we have not yet met—reveals that the ethical dimension in thinking about the value of the future is indispensable. A profound reflection on information technology and its contemporary use, particularly its presence in our conscience, has a critical role for the coming decades. Is our technological dependence a symptom of having altered the means and confused them with the ends? Mexican Nobel Laureate, Octavio Paz, wrote in Conjunctions and disjunctions (1996) about technological progress, technification and scientific advances. On the one hand his reflections recognize the role and benefits of science and technology, yet on the other there is a critical vision that summons us not to become numb in the midst of our technological consumption. His ideas coincide with the topic of this chapter: the reflection on the value of the future and its relationship to the place we give technology in our lives. Octavio Paz explains: 40

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I have frequently mentioned in my writings the risks of the beatification of the sciences and, above all, the technification of the world. These risks are real and we should not turn a blind eye to the devastation of technology. But we must add that these dangers are not a result of the nature of technology and sciences, but of the poor use that we have made of their discoveries. (Paz, 1996, p. 17) This is an invitation to keep our eyes open and not forget the thin line between neutrality and intentionality of technological means, to reflect on the purpose we give to their use. How can we understand social and economic transformations reshaped by a sphere of data and information flowing through technological resources? The most profound concern underlying this idea is that of human existence threatened by an irreversible risk, the possible destruction of the potential of the future. Octavio Paz continues in this tone: Sciences are power, knowledge and fraternity. With regard to technology, it is an instrument and not a philosophy or a divinity. We worship it because of the fatal tendency of men to become worshippers of our instruments, from the political, such as the state and political parties, to the material and quotidian, such as the automobile. The infamous state of alienation, that has been discussed so often and in vain, consists essentially of becoming instruments of our own instruments. (Paz, 1966, p. 18) Have we become instruments of our information and communication devices? A series of lessons underlies this question, and its most dangerous effect consists in understanding the question for the future. By reevaluating the question from the perspective of global connectivity, we break with the restriction of an individual vision and enter into a collective relationship. This estrangement allows a degree of historical consciousness about the meaning for humanity of the investment in, and development of a technology that functions—with or without cables, within and outside borders—with data and information. The former is contained in the Latin word datum, neutral figures and information among other things, the latter, information, implies an intention and does not occur within total neutrality. At the end of 20th century, Octavio Paz in the essay titled Us: the others, offers an example that I ask the reader to consider as an introduction to the complexity of technological dependence in our days: Television was born of science and technology, in other words, of knowledge; moreover, its introduction would have been impossible without democracy and freedom of expression. Today, however, it has become a kind of universal anesthesia, stupefying the majority, and as Popper has shown, jeopardizing democracy, freedom and culture. (Paz, 1996, p. 18) At the end of the previous century television was a simple and relevant example, because its development illustrates the root of an enormous task of applied technical knowledge, however, is an example of necessary reflection on human behavior with 41

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regard to the meaning and role of information and communication technology in our lives. Twenty-two years since Paz’s analysis, television has quietly changed and today it is adaptive, personal, and asynchronic, representing what Paz calls universal anesthesia. When we refer to the way in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is present in our daily lives, the convergence of science and technology is not enough because—according to Paz—“it would have been impossible without democracy and freedom of expression” (p. 18). Indeed, both democracy and freedom of expression play an important role in what is happening with the use of the Internet and social networks. However, there is neither complete democracy nor a lasting freedom of expression of the silenced voices that have found, and find ways to communicate in social networks. We cannot forget that social networks created an uproar in the so-called Arab Spring resulting in a schism in the existing regime. But a question emerges: was there a strategic plan for the nation, i.e., a more solid and long-term construction of the nation, by information and communication through social networks that constituted the means for that spring? The social and political topic of the Middle East is vast and complex, and I only briefly mention the example without attempting to analyze the region. I only want to underscore the need for an ethical regulation grounded in the technological innovation we use to communicate and that has social and political consequences such as Arab Spring. But therein lies a valid concern about the implicit possibilities of democratized communication technologies that may or may not facilitate substantial social, political and educational changes, wherein the risk is confusing the means with the ends. I want to return to the example of television and how the traditional ways of watching television have gone by giving way to a personalized, individual and asynchronic relation. Our social relationships are partly mediated by the screens, which has created new meanings. The screen is no longer a passive means that requires the presence of a receptor. The same image happens in the classroom in that the student is no longer a simple receptor of information. The 21st century student has another group of skills, which are personalized and part of an asynchronic process of learning, by downloading information and data at the same time the class is going on. In this time of global connectivity—coexisting with the inherent contradiction of a digital gap—the screen has become interactive by reciprocally adapting us to its contents, at a non-linear and sometimes disruptive rhythm—in other words, it is not traditional, it is cyclical, with an increasing degree of interaction. The very idea of television has been transformed. Today there is an increase in the degree of choice and interaction with the viewer who does not passively receive contents, but constructs his or her own programming. An analogy between the simple case of television and education of our time reveals similarities, such as the asynchronic process of learning, and the necessity for an ethical consciousness able to guide new ways of learning. The place and role of screens, as an indispensable part of work, educational and social life in our days, though with diverse benefits, has also fed our universal 42

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anesthesia, as Paz expressed in the previous quotation. This anesthesia indicates both a lack of sensitivity and a hypersensitivity whose expression is found both in technological mechanisms as in our ways of communicating. Lack of sensitivity and hypersensitivity, as opposite as they may be, impact not only the present but also the future of education, democracy and freedom. Lack of sensitivity refers to the indifferent attitude before a continuous bombardment of information that converts human drama into mere pixels and bytes. Hypersensitivity refers to a reshaped individual, acute and attentive to the sensitivity that feeds egocentrism. Assessing the future is also a critical consideration of the risks and benefits implied by this sphere made up of information. Technological dependence, for the social and work interactions that we experience today, is not only related to the economic environment, but points towards an experience of emptiness that permeates our social relationships and as a consequences education. What can this experience of emptiness mean? It is probable that in ten years we will see our electronic social interactions as the remains of more human and distant interactions. If we must understand something from the use of information and communication technology, devices and mobile connectivity, it is hyper-individuality shaped by the speed of responses. In other words, in a context where the virtual character of our interaction dilutes the person, what then is real or true in interactions mediated by technological tools? The experience of emptiness in the interaction within the infosphere, to which I am referring, is the emptiness of meaning that stimulates consumption. It is not the emptiness of the Buddhist ĞnjQ\DWƗ, but axiological emptiness and the lack of a concern for life and the environment. It is an emptiness that promotes confusion. This means that being happy on the network—in many cases—is not inversely proportional to being happy in reality. Lipovetsky (2007) in Paradoxical Happiness has already underlined certain conditions of hyperconsumption and a homo consumericus in a form of paradoxical existence of consumption and happiness in contemporary societies. Lipovetsky’s essay is the starting point for a larger topic with two qualities that give the paradox a wider scope. On the one hand, we have the individual in a process of personalization that seeks the greatest level of pleasure, maximum desire (Lipovetsky, 2007), the least effort, the greatest degree of freedom in consumption, which does in fact happen. But, at the same time, there is a greater determinism constructed in the infosphere: the more we use technological tools, preferred means of communication, websites, e-mail, telephone, online purchases, etc., we create a greater determinism, we become predictable, determined by our own digital fingerprint. There is a paradox created between freedom and happiness. Byung-Chul Han (2015) completes the overview of the paradoxical existence of consumption that is situated within the middle of a competitive culture of convenience, which should mentally collapse by overwork, multitasking interactions and burnout. On the other hand, the paradox or paradoxical happiness—as Lipovetsky (2007) calls it—also lies in consuming. Generations of youth that have grown up exposed to models and practices of unnecessary and technologically sophisticated consumption 43

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will not be able to sustain these mechanisms of consumption without equality in the distribution of wealth. As a result, the paradox becomes concrete and visible in the form of a sphere of information and data fed by technological mechanisms that stimulate consumption, but which will be hindered by its own unequal construction since it will prevent access to employment by some people (Mourshed, Farrel, & Barton, 2013). The mechanisms that construct the infosphere create the possibility for a larger educational reach. A reach that allows for democratization, but also has a simultaneous challenge and that is widening the labor market and the creation of wealth for those who have been marginalized in their access to education. The paradoxical result is the creation of dissatisfaction of not being able to acquire that which has been predetermined as necessary. The emptiness of our relationships is expressed to a certain extent through excessive consumption, through language subject to the unmeasured use of a smart device, through burnout syndrome and hyperactivity (Han, 2015), aided by the loss of privacy and nonsensical of images in social networks that do not correspond to reality. What can we learn when a revolution has taken place triggered by transformative technological development with implicit risks? Let us consider that today more data is produced that any other moment in history, and that all this data stimulates an information and connectivity sphere that we sometimes do not perceive, due to our degree of immersion in it. This has created a change in the relations of production and accumulation of wealth, through one of the greatest businesses of our time, which is the management, accumulation and use of data and information (Floridi, 2009). The presence of technology in education, in our lives and the interest for what seems to be something intangible—data and information—implies a revolution provoked and catapulted by a technology whose rate of renewal has reduced the costs of the devices, but at the same time accelerates the mechanism of consumption. Doesn’t this present new challenge for the idea of a nation-state as something defined by borders or the political and social control of information and data? In other words, if the Internet has pushed barriers of communication to the point of dissolution, and everyday more information can be recovered, managed and disseminated without the control of the state, doesn’t this reveal the need for reshaping the state? This means that the contemporary state—also immersed in communication and information technologies—is being called to construct a wider digital culture interacting with AI and automation (McKinsey Global Institute, 2017), where the access to information is founded on ethics and facilitates citizenship. Otherwise, it will be surpassed by the management and accumulation of data and information, by global non-governmental mechanisms that have already dissolved borders. This portends the possibility of global citizenship for future generations. Is this already considered in our current design of education? The value of the future includes general concerns about extreme technological risks, which implies a profound relationship to the field of ethics. Responsible innovation is one of these concerns for the future of technologies with the potential 44

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to transform human life in the coming decades. What are the ways to regulate the potential risks of technological development in the future and what role does ICT have in this regulation? These regulatory ways will need to be shaped using diverse fields of knowledge. How do we exist in the infosphere and feed its increasingly important presence in our lives? The apparent boundaries between life online and offline have dissolved to the point that we are sensitively connected through objects we call smart and that provide a continuous flow of information. The biosphere of information takes place through technological tools. It is a technological ecosystem that has transformed our interaction and what is known as the infosphere. We are observing the beginning of new ways in which communication technology changed how we address the fundamental concerns of every human being. This is why we need a culture with ethical principles and educational poetics. What will the future be like if we do not assume ourselves today as the caretakers of a possible future, as caretakers that can guide human behavior for the coming decades in the midst of technological risks? The image of caretaker invokes generosity. In generosity, there is yearning, and in yearning there is a force that the Greek world called andreia, courage and when they merge, the conscience contains them, like a clear mirror, without veils, dispersing the smoke of egotistical individualism and only leaving a pristine reflection, irrefutable, full of silence that serves as a guide for behavior and its roots that we identify today with the Greek term êthos. CONSCIOUS ATTENTION, EGOCENTRISM AND THE INFOSPHERE

There is a concern that brings together morals, virtues and ethics and that is egocentrism and its creation through the practices, styles and use of information and communication technology. It is similar to an underground river, whose existence conditions daily life. The faster the technological innovation, the less capacity there is to detect these subtle transformations beneath the surface of our social interactions. What meaning do we give to technological innovation? Do we consider it separate from social benefit and human commitment? I argue that technological innovation will need to be produced based on the awareness of social benefits and guided by the construction of citizenship and ethical foundations. Luciano Floridi (2014) calls this form of foundation infraethics or ethical structure, which to a certain extent can provide the principles that shape the relevance and authority of institutions of higher education in the coming years. The ethical approach and parameters are fundamental in understanding the relationship between egocentrism and the infosphere. The idea of citizenship, of the state and even of democracy, their foundations are ethical, not technological, can no longer be shaped on the sidelines of information and communication technology and of the bubble of data and information through which we move. The necessary digital ethics is a claim to rethink the ubiquitous infosphere, as well as against the development of a voracious individuality—a promoted egocentrism— without direction but that simultaneously seeks more commercial profits. These 45

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are interrelated concepts permeating the relevance of ethics and citizenship in 21st century education. In a classical example, reflection and ethical action for the Greek philosopher Socrates are a complex and intellectual manifestation of the relationship between knowing and acting. Aristotle recognized Socrates as a person who was interested in virtues and character, something that has been debated for 2,500 years, which is that virtue is universal (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2003). The Socratic problem opens the discussion to the important topic of ethical development and its application in the daily sphere. Its relevance for our time lies in the classical topic of the consciousness and intentionality of every act because it implies the possibility that the relational conscience becomes itself and becomes self-conscience even in the midst of a context of communication and information such as we have created. In each act lies the possibility for this conscience to be regulated and warned by a disposition that precedes it, and in Socratic philosophy we identify this with two Greek terms: daimon and êthos. Together they refer to a vigilant ethical conscience that can guide judgment and is subject to being numbed or awakened, since it is prior to experience, its possibility lies in every human being. The Socratic search for the ethical framework (Field, 1913) is even applicable to the necessary ethical dimension that we can promote in the infosphere. The ethical base, or infraethics (Floridi, 2014) in The Fourth Revolution identifies the abilities shared by human beings and that are prior to the very action during which this ethical conscience is applied. We have diverse examples centered on the concern for the conditions prior to experience and that can guide an ethic even in the technological dynamic in which we are living. The examples do not come only from Western history, but also Asian history, and this is why it is important to ask: Why is it relevant to reconsider an ethical consciousness in the 21st century, era of global connectivity and the infosphere? In what context and conditions would it be innovative to reconsider a topic, from educational poetics standpoint, that has been present through history? A CALL FOR DIGITAL ETHICS OF INFOSPHERE

Relevance of ethical awareness in the era of global connectivity and the infosphere is indisputable, especially at a time when there is not even a crisis of values, but something even more complex, specifically, that there is no perceiving consciousness. What panorama provides the conditions for a change in the people immersed in the use of ICT? This is a call to reconsider the topic of ethical development in the 21st century as a need similar to those from antiquity. One of the conditions that makes the topic of ethical development indispensable is the way in which our time encourages and nourishes a form of the human being that is individualistic and excessively egocentric. What are the previous conditions that allow a person the willingness to develop an ethical and moral character? If they can be identified, what ensures their previous nature: perhaps a theoretical framework, a methodology, experience? Let us think 46

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of the plausibility of finding the previous conditions and that they would allow for ethical development. How would ethical development be developed? What instruments, practices or interventions are appropriate to such a task? Our time is one of calamities, but also of great efforts and works, and I would say also of enormous suspicion and silent conspiracies. What has happened to the social weave, the economy of a country and the awareness we have of ourselves? This is like the analogy of the house of mirrors. Suddenly there are many simultaneous images, which overwhelms reflection, critique and questioning of selves. We intuitively know that something is not right, but the image does not allow us to recognize clear causes. In this same analogy lies the possibility of glimpses of the future: what will the future be like if we do nothing now? The exercise of placing value on the future is not for a futurist imagination because it requires an awareness of the present. We are looking injustice straight in the face, distrust in institutions, the increase of violence, egocentric autism, lack of communication in the era of global connectivity, and something that is even more serious than an economic crisis, and that is a crisis capable of fragmenting our conception of human relations. It is expressed through diverse symptoms, for example the forgetting of ethical consciousness and the lack of a moral conscience. Evaluating a person’s capacity prior to ethical development means remembering one of the educational consensuses of our time, which is an education that prepares children and young people for global citizenship, for dignified work, for human development and for fair economic distribution. The ability to consider oneself in the place of the other, among the many skills that can be desired in the education of a child or young person, is not necessary only for areas of knowledge such as the humanities, but also constitutes the very possibility of the harmonic subsistence of our societies as we know them today. What threatens the stability of 21st century societies are not only caused by economic crises, but also by a profound social falling-out that allowed the obscuring of our axiological values and practices. All this is intertwined with a more pressing concern that I would say is defining the formation of 21st century societies, and has given us clear examples of what the future might be like, if we don’t do anything now: egotistic individualism. Contemporary societies are spinning towards a common cry, a balance with nongovernmental ways that allow for human development. This change of paradigm is addressed through a concrete proposal, which has been transformed into actions and continuously refines its results through research and educational interventions. Thus, the associated words with which we communicate balance and a state of harmonious calm are grasped by the Sanskrit term VDPƗVD (Monier-Williams, 1999) and with the Pali, XSHNNKƗ or “equanimity” (Harvey, 2010, pp. 334–335). Additionally, the terms connote the capacity of a human being to practically achieve the regulation of these two environments, harmonious calm and equanimity, which are both related with egocentrism or mindfulness with fundamentals rooted in the conceptual plane as well as in a corpus of understanding the complex world. 47

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There are different concerns when we speak of an ethical dimension in the infosphere. The first I want to mention is the role of developing ethical awareness parallel to technological innovation and application. Why it is important? Because it is more than the infosphere. For example, there are other forms of violence associated with overproduction and overachievement such as less commitment to others as well as their exclusion (Han, 2015). Violence in digital era deserves to focus not only on the technological aspect, but also on ethical development. For example, innovation and the use of technology that guarantees transparency as a practice in our societies. An insistence on transparency allows for other ethical principles, such as justice and reinforcing them and giving them a prominent place in a society that should not forget that transparency is the effect of applied ethics (Turilli & Floridi, 2009). Nevertheless, claims of transparency can also be associated with corruption by claiming that vague amounts of shared information can be considered being transparent. I want to underline the ethical implications in making information public. First, public information that is truly transparent can facilitate the learning process associated with a democratic education for all. Thus, what information should be accessible in order to achieve transparency in institutions and through what technological applications is this accomplished? Data and transparency of information are conditions that allow for an ethical management through what we call regulation (Floridi, 2009). In other words, both in the practice of transparency and in the practices using ICT in education, at the very least the topic of shaping ethical principles that can guide human behavior in the infosphere should be incorporated. Data produces information, but the latter and the way in which it is managed merit our reconsideration both in and outside the infosphere. The same can be said of virtual relationships aimed at the education that we are constructing, though we are not aware of many of them. We can reconstruct the implications of the ethical dimension in the infosphere based on the argument given by Hofkirchner (2010): There is a, fourth, revolution going on that by the spread of information and Communication Technologies, ICT, imposes on humans an unescapable infosphere turning them into informational agents. The inescapable infosphere makes the management of information processes (the life cycle of information) a crucial issue for informational agents. The management of information processes (the life cycle of information) requires (macro-) ethical considerations in order to shape the infosphere. (Hofkirchner, 2010, p. 178) In Hofkirchner’s argument we find the dilemma between human and machine interacting in a biosphere of information (Floridi, 2014). In this sense, there is a social transformation that Hofkirchner considers a scientific-technological revolution with important social impacts. Understanding egocentrism, one of the relevant topics of our century, represents a pressing ethical concern in order to realize and recognize its risks to human interaction in contemporary societies. Given the different relationships in our daily lives, we seem to believe that egocentric individuality is 48

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natural and it is how people are and should be. Do we ever pause to reflect on these assumptions? Do we glimpse into future decades to view how our way of being in the world will be if we continue to feed these assumptions by believing in them? Violence and egocentrism are acute ethical problems of our time, and they should be considered within the environment created by the infosphere because therein lies the relevance of what Hofkirchner (2010) has called the consideration of macro-ethics. Both, online violence and egocentrism, promoted by another use of digital means, can be juxtaposed to the topic of macro-ethics. However, they can also have a constructive effect and stimulate the ethical dimension of the infosphere, resulting in global citizenship (Nussbaum, 2010). Let us consider the possible affinity between what technological innovation offers us today and its relationship to human development to improve our societies. Though they are not exact opposites, there is an opposition that is indissoluble found within the philosophical tradition in India: the self and the others, or oneness and plurality. This opposition contains, in its ontological foundations, egocentrism, something considered by pre-Socratic philosophers with the ethical implications developed by Socrates (Kirk & Raven, 1957). We can write a history on egocentrism from different disciplines, but today we need to reevaluate egocentrism in light of the way we interact with the infosphere. Egotistical manners are manifested in unusual ways, like liquid, they take the shape of their containers. For instance, Zygmunt Bauman (2000), analyzes the present through the idea of liquid modernity or liquid time, as he explained in another oeuvre The liquid time (2006). A crisis of values and ethics, necessitates rethinking what does a human in a digital era society of hyperconnectivity, overproduction and competitive multitasking look like? Adaptability and expressions of egocentrism are as volatile as the intention of a new narration. However, it is necessary to emphasize that in this adaptability—apparently fragile—lies one of the most solid and powerful mechanisms the human being has which is egotism, a fragile and uncontainable force. This is why we understand egocentrism as a living mechanism, permeating the most basic and instinctive functions and adaptations that make up the ego of human beings. How can we address something that comprises part of us—the ego—in a technological context that perhaps we cannot or do not see but stimulates it? In other words, we should also analyze the person who is analyzing. It is like the paradox of the barber that fascinated Bertrand Russell (Irvine, 2016): “the barbers of a town only shave the men who cannot do it themselves” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). When this logic is applied to the only barber in town, the paradox emerges that he cannot shave himself because to do so would violate the basic premise. But if he does not shave himself, then some other barber will need to do so. But if he is the only barber in the town, no one else can shave him and he cannot do it himself because he would contradict the order. Something similar happens with the dilemma presented here, which is how to analyze something. If we understand analysis as an act which allows us to study something that constitutes ourselves, and is part of the 49

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cognitive structure that unifies the experience of analysis, and our experience of the world, is it this understanding that intervenes that allows us to become aware of the analysis? How can we tear our experience into pieces—in order to study them—without annihilating ourselves? Tearing experiences apart to analyze every piece, as if they were clues to help us understand each action, the intentions permeating every one of our daily decisions and thus allow ourselves to glimpse what is behind each part that makes up an experience. What type of consciousness or what machine unifies the pieces of experience—our experiences—and directs them? How does this unified consciousness protect itself and survive before going to sleep, or how is it already there at dawn? Does it have a moral conscience or is it neutral? Perhaps, this creator that is the ego, and its acute forms that we call egotism, attempts to endure with a function where moral conscience does not operate, where there is only instinct and natural survival. In other words, a mechanism that protects itself in order to survive because by doing so it allows the subject to live. Who would not accept this? I arrive at an unavoidable merging point: egocentrism and its variants can be addressed from the perspective of ethics, but there is a reconstruction where the topic of egocentrism takes on another dimension that is the inescapable infosphere. EGOCENTRISM, SELFISH GENE AND CONSCIOUS ATTENTION

Today we can consider other approaches as we try understanding the relationship between the infosphere and egocentrism. One of them is ethology, a scientific discipline focused on the study of behavior from a biological, psychological and evolutionary perspective. Another is genetic information with the map of the human genome. In other words, do we get the idea from the infosphere that we should consider ourselves only as information, as bytes like a sequence of information that takes up more than seven megabytes. Isn’t this what the contemporary human being does with our genetic information a topic that involves ethics, especially in its relationship to the shaping of the future? Richard Dawkins (1993) analyzes the ego and egotism from the perspective of ethology and evolutionary theory, in The Selfish Gene. He asks some questions that penetrate the infosphere scope and the egotism in our societies. What is the selfish gene? (Dawkins, 1993) The answer is complex, but Dawkins emphasizes some relevant points, such as the mechanisms required for the continued existence and adaptation of a gene to its environment, which is the basis of its success, its survival and reproduction. Is infosphere a mechanism for successful adaptations? If so, then would it not be urgent to address the topic of egocentrisminfosphere from an ethical future-oriented vision? Dawkins’s analysis assesses another approach to selfishness as a mechanism of adaptation and a possibility for evolution. Through his examples, he demonstrates the reasons for which apparently selfish behavior is merely a mechanism through which species adapt to their environment. In contemporary societies, the individual who inhabits or is inhabited by the infosphere has a plethora of possibilities for selfish 50

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coexistence, life in virtual groups, social networks, networks of individuals who never know each other in person but interact virtually. What I want to communicate is that we have reached a point where egocentrism can increase. Dawkins expresses this through some cases taken from the world of insects, arachnids and mammals, among others. These are the new contributions from projects such as the map of the human genome or the most recent, the epigenome, whose analysis and decodification will probably take many years if we hope to explain certain biological and adaptation foundations in human behavior. Romanowski and Glass (2015) presented the epigenome map, which establishes how to turn on or off specific information in the construction map of the human being, permitting both the comprehension of the intricate construction of egotistical behavior and the ways in which scientific and technological advances increase our possibilities of altering human biological design. These scientific and technological advances are still in their infancy, but in the future they could demonstrate more specifically how the idea of the selfish gene functions. Both maps, the genome and the epigenome, are examples of recent research that analyzes the predetermined mechanisms of genetics and determines how to stimulate or hinder adaptation and survival in a human being through what we can consider egocentric behavior. What happens when someone has enough information to be a constructive person with altruistic qualities, and also possesses all the technological means of communication and information? What is the root underlying the decision between egocentric or altruistic behavior? Ethical development and the analysis of egotistical individuality should interest us when we think about the children and young people of our time and of future generations. In countries like México, with millions of young people, actions related to ethical and more humane development, less selfish, forms of behavior are relevant in the creation of a citizenry that is to coexist. This is of concern for countries with high youth populations and accompanying birth rates, whose efforts to reduce social inequality should be carried out with special attention to the education of this sector of the population in the following two decades (OECD, 2008; UNESCO, 2017). Countries with young demographic profiles and with high birth rates will be, in some cases, more affected by corruption and environments of social degradation, and an implication of violence. As we can see, the concern for the value we place on the future is stimulated by a previous development, a kind of ethical structure and conscience that precedes the development of the subject’s character and actions. This can be the foundation of altruism in an online life. The result is a social benefit. But I can say that the humanistic and integral aspects to approaching our technological tools, without forgetting that they are tools, is the linguistic and semantic recovery of conscience, the important point is not language, but its shared natured within humanity, thus the term and the practical implication of êthos. Êthos is fundamental in the history of thinking, it is indispensable not only for the assessment of the future, but also for inhabiting the world without falling into the paradox of becoming tools of our tools. 51

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Though êthos is understood as the openness to something, it refers to the character, the values and the attitude about life, and it also unifies the set of attitudes and values that characterize a culture. The relationship of the term êthos to life is illustrated by the diverse experiences that we read in the Apology of Socrates, mentioned by Plato in Letter VII (Dialogues of doubtful authenticity and Letters, 1992). The Socratic exercise during his defense demonstrates the need for self-examination, which is the Athenians awareness of action and its interaction. The distinctive arguments in Apology are expressed with a rhythm that is none other than the living awareness of what joins me with others, it is an awareness prior to any decisions. Socrates mentions an important point in his defense, which is the ethical problem that lies behind intention and the awareness of harming others. This last point can be a criterion for ethical practices in the infosphere and in placing a value on the future. Therein lies the discernment of something immediate: our attitude and the ability to make decisions about daily situations, coming together in an online life. The capacity to understand the historical and social context of another person is an exercise of consciousness, a desirable skill in contemporary education that promotes the ability to assimilate diversity, value the future and demonstrate a critical attitude in front of technological innovation in order to listen to diversity which reverberating in institutions of science and technology, has special relevance. This indicates something prior to the experience we have when we inhabit the infosphere because the foundation of an ethical conscience lies in human nature. It is not inserted by the contents of accumulated information. For this reason, something close to a path valuing the future will have to be identified in something a priori, in something that existed before the experience, but that becomes meaningful through it. Kant (1979) understood this as “totally independent of experience” (p. 148). A priori implies, then, a shared generality that exists prior to experience, and above all, the possibility to arouse or feed already existing aptitudes in every human being. Such an aptitude would not be conditioned by different variables—religious, social, economic, time-related and quotidian—that intervene in our actions. Considering an already existing aptitude for action and the character of a human being implies thinking about one of the core topics of the history of thought. But in this context virtue and ethics can be reshaped by something like the infosphere and technology. We will have to explore, identify and develop practical connections to assess the future and be alert to the preoccupying egocentrism that exists in contemporary societies, even if we inhabit the infosphere, even in the unstoppable development of technology. If the future is life, it is also death, and the space between them opens in order to be filled with the force of love. Life, death and love are non-transferrable, just like the present we are constructing. There is only exception. The present is also made of freedom. It is because of freedom, in the middle of a society of predetermination, that it is possible to shape the future. For this reason, the future I am referring to is nurtured with love, full consciousness in the present moment, creative contemplation 52

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and non-violence, because these qualities are able to engender the generosity— attitude, virtue, experience, expression, lack of egotism, altruism—that our behavior requires in order to safeguard the existence of those who have not yet been born or are just beginning their lives. So, let us reformulate the question in the first person: What is the value I place on the future? And its subsequent conscious monologue: does my behavior place value on the future? FUTURE UNDER RISK OR INNOVATION WITH NO ETHIC REGULATION

Doesn’t technological innovation, without any ethical regulation or perspective of human conservation, represent a risk for the future of humanity? Understanding and identifying risks are important for the future. I will mention a few below, which are contextualized by the following question: why does the future of education need an educational poetics? The technology that permeates our lives today, with unequal and inequitable access to it, has already reconfigured—to a greater or lesser degree—our ways of communication, of accessing information, of producing, distributing and consuming. To a great extent, our social relationships are mediated by the screen, as are several educational interactions, that is not the problem, the point is to design, to develop both without ethical awareness or a vision on responsible innovation. In the middle of worries about the future of technology, there is an important moment for education: e-learning (OCDE-IPN-OEI, 2017). Why does the future of education need an educational poetics in the context of e-learning? The important topic of the geographical coverage of education is related to the screen. All information and communication technology enables interaction with a student in any place where—if such is the case—there is Internet signal and at any time, without the limitations of school schedules or the physical space of the classroom. The benefits of technology are undeniable, but my intention is not to create an uncritical idealization of virtual education or the technology that has allowed it. On the contrary, I want to call for a critical reflection on some of the risks implied by this information sphere. There is an implicit concern for the transition that has taken place using technology as a means to technological dependence for social and work-related interactions that we are living today. This dependency is associated with the economic environment and points towards an axiological void of social relationships, of meaning, and of caring for life and the environment. A void of this nature stimulates the confusion expressed in consumerism, in language, in the excessive use of smart devices, in the fragmentation of privacy and the nonsense of images exposed in social networks that do not correspond with reality. What was the implication for humanity of the development of a type of technology whose fundamental elements are data and information? In this combination of elements, there are relationships and dependencies that must alert us, not only for today, but also for the future. Today more data is produced than in other moment in history (Floridi, 2014), and all this information stimulates a connectivity sphere that, 53

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because of how deeply immersed in it we are, we sometimes do not perceive it. If the Latin word datum simply meant something given, and is the etymological root of the word data, that which was given was primordially related with information. The change in relations of production and the accumulation of wealth that took place during the Industrial Revolution generated a transformation of social relations. Something similar is happening today with information and communication technology. All this has characterized one of the greatest businesses of our time: the management, accumulation and use of data and information, which are essential for constructing virtual educational environments where information and rapid communication have been critical to the construction of a virtual classroom. The great business of data and information expands with some clear symptoms, such as appropriation and management, which is an important risk. However, it also creates possibilities to offer this information to large populations, such as in collective online courses or through the democratization of access to human culture and heritage. Technological presence in our life and the interest for what seems intangible— data and information—implies a revolution caused and driven by technical progress whose pace of advance has reduced the costs of devices, but accelerated consumption by its users. Doesn’t this present new challenges about the idea of the nation-state as something defined by borders, or rather by the political and social control of information and data? If the Internet has stimulated the dissolution of communicative borders, and everyday more information can be recovered, managed and disseminated without government control, doesn’t this imply the need to reconfigure the state? In other words, contemporary governments—immersed in information and communication technology—are called upon to construct a large digital culture, where access to information is constructed on ethics and facilitates civics. Otherwise, it will be overtaken by the management and accumulation of data and information by the global non-governmental mechanisms that have dissolved borders. All of this manifests the urgent need to reshape contemporary states, in order to prevent the overtaking by such management and accumulation. In other words, the state is being called upon to construct a large digital culture, susceptible to supervision and a high grade of predictability in the behavior and consumption of the average citizen. Isn’t this a great risk? The potential of ICT in education is undeniable, as are the possibilities of technological innovation and its effects on the redefinition of education, but there is also something alarming in this. The investment in technological innovations for communicating and managing information has focused more on the technological aspect, and this should be considered when we are thinking about the future of virtual education. For example, in the last ten years, haven’t we focused more on virtual efficiency and technological innovation, rather than the educational aspect? Since the term e-learning was first used in the mid-1990s, with the development of the World Wide Web (Garrison, 2011), a series of technological tools have 54

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been created to implement their potential in higher education. These tools were and still are a great resource that offers asynchronous possibilities of education. For example, the management and transmission of information in real-time to various users. Virtual education, however, cannot be reduced to information and communication technologies even when the data is in many cases morally neutral and the information already implies a level of interpretation, its impact depends on how it is used. This use implies intentionality, and therein lies a level of ethical awareness. Therefore, when considering future scenarios, we have to reflect on virtual education in a more integral way. This is why I mention its implicit ethical considerations, and I do so with the intention of giving it the same importance as technological development. Even when the topics of analysis and research in the field of ICT are recent, inasmuch as a philosophical reflection, its precedents are found in the philosophy focused on the dilemmas presented by artificial intelligence. For example, Alan Turing in the mid-1950s, amongst other works. These works led to the creation of a field of study within philosophy, which in the 1990s was identified with the very broad theme of information. Towards the end of the 20th century, there was already a field of study called the philosophy of information that, among other problems, structured the debate around the ethics of information, the reflection on technology, the meaning of ICT in our lives and the educational environment, which represents a semantic restructuring of technical terms within informatics, programming and computer development. The semantic considerations of terms from information engineering are fundamental because of their redefinition of sociocultural ideas on a global level. One of these terms is the infosphere, mentioned before as the bubble of information relationships and the semantic scope that we have woven with each technological communication device, with a characteristic more and more common among us: technological dependence. The development of virtual education is an example, that shows a change in the pedagogical paradigm that allows us to speak of a continuity of distance education characterized not only by this information sphere, but also by the constantly updated technological mechanisms that structure the virtual environments of learning. This is where ethics and an educational poetics play a fundamental role in the context of virtual education in the future. OUR DAILY LIFE IN THE INFOSPHERE

How is the infosphere present in our daily life? The limits between online life and the life that takes place away from computers (Floridi, 2014), tablets and smartphone screens are becoming more reduced every day. The apparent barriers between online and offline have dissolved and are connected by objects we call smart that provide a continuous flow of information. It is premised on the claim that the infosphere comprises a type of information biosphere that takes place by means 55

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of technological tools, an ecosystem that—whether we are aware of this or not—has transformed our interaction. At this stage of educational research, communication technology is changing the way we approach the questions that are fundamental to the human being, and provides a scope of contribution for thinking about the function of education. It is here where we need a culture of being more fully in the present moment, evolved in the context of poetics, which may contribute to current discussion on what we usually leave aside in education. I will suggest, today and for the future, the creation of scenarios with possible contributions of educational poetics in a random sense of practicing more contemplative and creative exercises, more silence and contemplative distance for a better understanding of our technological tools and what the infosphere is present for in our life. It is so, by cultivating ethical principles to transform, or rather, to renovate an educational method that pervades our practices in the 21st century, such as the presence of technology in the classroom and beyond. Nevertheless, I am skeptical of such awareness in our time, despite development of innovations and their evident risks. I can only hope that ethical awareness increasingly becomes the heart of education. Thus, let us think: what meaning does technological innovation have when it is separated from social benefit and its human commitment? What type of innovation in ICT are we promoting? For the future, virtual education and technological innovation will have to be generated based on an awareness of social benefits, and be guided by the construction of civics and ethical foundations. Floridi (2014) calls this form of foundation the infraethic or ethical structure, which can provide the principles to shape the relevance and authority of higher education institutions in the coming years. That is if virtual education, in some way, is seen as the future of education for the next decades, but we certainly do not know. That which we know by now is this: online activity is a daily constant in our schools, labs, work centers and so on. It leads me to reflect on how it is transforming our perception of reality. Will our use of technology in education empower or constrict us? An ethical approach and parameters are fundamental for the educational use of technology that informs and allows us to communicate. Let us specifically consider a practice that governments promote through technological mechanisms: a claim to transparency and access to all information (Floridi, 2009). What I want to emphasize are the ethical implications of making information public: what information should be accessible to guarantee the transparency of institutions? And how is this related to virtual education? Open information for educational purposes and information transparency are significant, true, understandable, accessible and useful. Is this semantic information different from mere data? Is it reshaping educational possibilities for the better? Data produces information, but the latter and the way in which it is used merits reconsideration, but both within and without the infosphere. The same can be said of virtual relationships—of which we are often unaware—directed at the education we are constructing. 56

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REFERENCES Aristóteles. (1994). Metafísica. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Aristóteles. (2003). Ética Nicomáquea, Ética Eudemia. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid times. Living in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beckstead, N., Bostrom, N., Bowerman, N., Cotton-Barratt, O., MacAskill, W., Ó hÉigeartaigh, S., & Ord, T. (2014). Policy brief: Unprecedent technological risks. Retrieved from http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/ wp-content/uploads/Unprecedented-Technological-Risks.pdf Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cath, C., & Floridi, L. (2017). The design of the internet’s architecture by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and human rights. Science and Engineering Ethics, 23(2), 449–468. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9793-y Dawkins, R. (1993). El gen egoísta. Las bases biológicas de nuestra conducta. Barcelona: Salvat Editores. Field, G. C. (1913). Socrates and Plato. Oxford: Parker. Floridi, L. (2009). The information society and its philosophy. The Information Society, 25(3), 153–158. Floridi, L. (2014). The fourth revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Garrison, R. (2011). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis. Global Challenges Foundation. (2017). The global catastrophic risks 2017. Stockholm: Global Challenges Foundation. Retrieved from https://api.globalchallenges.org/static/files/Global%20Catastrophic%20 Risks%202017.pdf Han, B. C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Harvey, P. (2010). Right effort, mindfulness and concentration/unification. In D. Keown & C. S. Prebish (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Buddhism. London: Routledge. Hern, A. (2016, October 19). Stephen Hawking: AI will be ‘either best or worst thing’ for humanity. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/19/stephen-hawking-aibest-or-worst-thing-for-humanity-cambridge Hofkirchner, W. (2010). How to design the infosphere: The fourth revolution, the management of the life cycle of information, and information ethics as a macroethics. Know Tech Pol, 23, 177–192. Irvine, A. D., & Deutsch, H. (2016). Russell’s paradox. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/russell-paradox/ Kant, E. (1979). Crítica de la razón pura. Buenos Aires: Losada. Kirk, G. S., & Raven, J. E. (1957). The presocratic philosophers: A critical history with a selection of texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lipovetsky, G. (2007). La felicidad paradójica. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama. McKinsey Global Institute. (2017). A future that works: Automation, employment and productivity. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Digital%20 Disruption/Harnessing%20automation%20for%20a%20future%20that%20works/MGI-A-futurethat-works_Full-report.ashx Monier-Williams, M. (1999). A Sanskrit English dictionary etymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Mourshed, M., Farrell, D., & Barton, D. (2013). Education to employment: Designing a system that works. Retrieved from http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/Education-toEmployment_FINAL.pdf Müller, V. C., & Bostrom, N. (2016). Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion. In V. C. Müller (Ed.), Fundamental issues of artificial intelligence (pp. 553–571). Berlin: Springer. Retrieved from https://philpapers.org/archive/MLLFPI.pdf Nussbaum, M. C. (2010). Sin fines de lucro. Por qué la democracia necesita de las humanidades. Buenos Aires: Katz Editores. OECD. (2008). Higher education to 2030, demography (Vol. 1). Paris: OECD Publishing, Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264040663-en

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CHAPTER 5 OECD. (2017). E-learning in higher education in Latin America. Paris: Development Centre Studies, OECD Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/publications/la-educacion-a-distancia-en-laeducacion-superior-en-america-latina-9789264277977-es.htm Paz, O. (1996). Conjunciones y disyunciones. In Obras completas, Ideas y costumbres II, Usos y símbolos. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Platón. (1981). Diálogos. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Platón. (1992). Diálogos dudosos, Apócrifos y Cartas. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Romanowski, C., & Glass, C. (2015). Epigenomics: Roadmap for regulation. Nature, 518, 314–316. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/articles/518314a.pdf Sheppard, R. Z. (1971, April). Rock candy. Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,905004,00.html Turilli, M., & Floridi, L. (2009). The ethics of information transparency. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(2), 105–112. UNESCO. (2017). Global education monitoring report. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002593/259338e.pdf .

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A CLAIM FOR NON-VIOLENCE AND PEACE EDUCATION

The first condition of non-violence is justice all around in every department of life … (Gandhi, 2008, p. 110) UNEMPLOYMENT AND COSTS OF VIOLENCE

Thinking about violence as an economic cost implies the necessity to rethink different causes associated with violence. Among them are unemployment, socioeconomic inequalities, poverty, and a lack of opportunities for a better future. The aforementioned causes associated with violence, and many others, should be considered when developing education for peace and a daily practice of non-violence. Unemployment as a category of analysis for the study of contemporary violence implies a risky and relevant allure. A historical hypothesis of unemployment would shed light on the evolution or involution—from ancient days to our times—of the original ways of relating the necessity to work to live. Through this perspective, for certain periods of recent history, unemployment should be a category of analysis of inequality and the ineffectiveness of education in a country. An increase of automation in workplaces, means a variety of ways to sophisticate unemployment, increasing inequalities thus generating a faster creation of richness in the hands of a few people and an inverse poverty that is proportionally larger and the weight of an unmeasured consumption of natural resources and inequality as seen in our time. If we adhere to what is happening in today’s societies, why unemployment is a global concern, should occupy a premier place of urgency, and must be critically considered by educational research for curricular designs of the coming decades. Diverse problems knit together the topic of global unemployment (ILO, 2013; McKinsey, 2017) and express its multifactorial complexity at present when technological innovations, robotics and automation are creating important changes in the workplace. However, my ensuing writings are intended as a suggestion, and focus on two implicit constant factors: graduation from formal education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels and unemployment. The first constant refers to how global unemployment jeopardizes one of the central axes of the current economy: consumption. Ironically, the free-market and unequal wealth distribution systems are adversely affected through unemployment.

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The unemployed creates a decrease in, or absence of, consumption. Without consumption, production suffers creating a contradictory effect capable of putting production in general in a state of crisis, because the flow of capital that renews the cycle and stimulates its consumption mechanisms has drastically decreased (Dussel, 1985). Besides the economic aspects the gravity of unemployment has the potential to create an even more profound crisis, which is the unemployment of youth and an imbalance to the environment, both of which are increasing. Precisely because both crises surpass the immediacy of our time, and are rising in unpredicted proportions they will definitely impact the upcoming decades in ways we have yet to understand. The case of youth unemployment is outlined by global figures presented in diverse analyses (McKinsey & Company, 2013). These figures trace a concern centered on unemployment around the world and a tendency towards the rise of part-time or sporadic employment, and in fields that are different from one’s formal training (ILO, 2013). An important concern in the agenda of institutions of secondary and higher education should be the unemployment of youth. Additionally, a parallel consideration must be taken into account and that is the revision of programs of study. Professional preparation will have to consider a marked tendency towards over-education without a field in which to apply their training and insert oneself in the labor market. Additionally, under-education that determines, radically, the type of employment, which accentuates and sustains a priori social inequality. Something else underlies these figures. The generations of secondary and tertiary school-age youth, or young adults, graduated or not, that have been exposed to models and practices of unnecessary and technologically sophisticated consumption, will hardly be able to sustain such practices without the income of steady employment. Consequently, the paradox is clear: a structure that incites consumption, but that in its own unequal construction, will impede it. The result is not as benign as the simple fact of not buying something. There is a consequential social impact that, without forecasting millenarianisms, would condition our behavior, that is to say our way of inhabiting the world to include consumption of goods. On the one hand, there is the threat of a crisis of food security, and on the other, the great dissatisfaction of not being able to acquire that which has been prefigured as necessary. That is to say, the mechanisms that promote consumerism are incessant and, when they are not real for someone, they generate discouragement and generational frustration. Both the threat of food security and generational frustration cause tears in our social fabric and have the power to condition the forms of social relationships represented by illegal forms of income and the violence used to obtain it. These can be latent determining factors in the present and future century, if they are not addressed now. The second constant lies in the strategic role played by education systems in the reduction or increase of the numbers of professionals unemployed. How much does unemployment really depend on education? The relationship between schooling and employment can be complex. In some countries, what you study can be beneficial to social mobility and improve the expectations to enter the labor market, but this 60

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is not the rule in every country. In thinking of the Latin American case, the study Getting it right. A strategic agenda for reforms in México, (OECD, 2012), teaches an invaluable lesson for the future: “in 2010, México was the only country with a large unemployment rate among people with a university education” (p. 130). According to this study, in México the unemployment rate is lower in those who have professional degrees. However, the interpretation of this claim must be done in a context in which we recognize that the creation of jobs does not depend only on educational systems. Though an educational system is one of the key factors, the required effort to accomplish this does not solely depend on formal education but on a more complex apparatus that involves at least three important agents: (1) the state, at all its levels commited to nonviolence; (2) an authentic social responsibility of companies, not solely determined to generate wealth; and (3) citizens with critical skills and ethical cum nonviolent commitment. UNEMPLOYMENT, MULTIFACTORIAL VIOLENCE: THE CLAIM FOR $+,06Ɩ

What does it mean to have young people with professional skills and no work because the supply of professionals is greater than what the labor market can absorb? This is a central question in the narrative of the global panorama of employment and unemployment such as described in the International Labour Organization, ILO (2013) report on global employment trends for youth. A generation at risk reflects an accumulated crisis of a decline in employment as a multifactorial problem, one that causes more than approximately 73.5 million youth unemployed in the world. The figures are approximate, but they demonstrate the gravity of the matter. They become even more alarming when we consider the rise in the number of graduates of institutions of higher education who become part of the statistics that outlines an increase in professional unemployment. This is a warning for many countries, for instance México, with a large young population graduated with talent but in the middle of a challenge of unemployment and a suitable income. Additionally, there is the uncertainty of how current social inequality will impact the characteristics of enrollment in the coming decades (OECD, 2008). The labor panorama for a generation of youth without access to a first job indicates a simple and worrying premise: there is a gap between education and job skills. This is a complex situation and represents a dilemma for educational institutions because the gap contrasts the relevance of subject matter courses we insist that students take with the daily and specialized skills that are not only sought by an employer, but that create a meaningful life path for the student. In another study, Mourshed, Farrel, and Barton (2013), Education to employment: Designing a system that works, summarize a reflection common to many educational systems: employers, educational institutions and youth are parallel universes. Each understands the same situation in its own way. The image is didactic and subsumes three key components—employers, educational institutions and youth—in the problem of unemployment. Mourshed, Farrel, and Barton (2013) support the idea 61

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that the three components are like parallel universes without a strong and sustainable connection with the following information: less than 50% of employers recognize that a graduate is adequately prepared for the first job. What happens when more than 50% believe the contrary? Here is the challenge for education in our time. Specifically, jobs that are being created require higher levels of skills, technological sophistication and intercultural relationship skills. The challenge facing youth, above all recent graduates, is the lack of correspondence between the skills promoted by current curricular models and those required for the first job. This discrepancy is by no means new, but recurring. Let us think about the number of 75 million unemployed (Mourshed, Farrel, & Barton, 2013) this decade and that it increases every decade. How many new formal jobs will need to be generated during the next ten years, in order to ensure employment for a growing number of graduates? The different efforts will have to consider employment for youth as a priority. Another noteworthy scenario is the role of China and India in the numbers of graduates. We must be mindful that “a small increase from 10.1% to 11.5% in the rate of enrollment in tertiary education in China and India can result in a figure equal to the human capital that currently exists in North America and Europe” (OECD, 2008, p. 118). This means that these two countries could, together, make up the pole position of innovation in engineering and science, before the other pole, made up by North America and Europe. Something that is not mentioned in the study is the kind of training, looking towards 2030, that specifically would provide the skills required for a job corresponding to a field of study. Addressing the labor expectations of a young person upon graduation, through a system that links curricular contents with the necessary and specialized skills of a first job, is a shared responsibility between the educational system and the three agents: state, business, and society. In this scenario, secondary or pre-university education is, consequently, can be one of many opportunities to link education with employment. The manner in which the narrative of the international studies on youth unemployment is contextualized allows us to focus at the regional and global levels in understanding the problem. Our responsibility is to address youth unemployment, critically, in a way that positions the regional aspect within its global dynamic or a region by region with comparative approach. When we have these comparisons, we can look for patterns such as which countries and regions are millions of youth without work or have deserted school. This comparison would allow us to understand the global character of regional concerns through nonhomogenized sensemaking economic measures. This is the case of Japan, with the hikikomori. These are the approximately 700,000 young people who have not left their homes, do not participate in the labor market and are not officially in academic institutions (Mourshed, Farrell, & Barton, 2013). The balance between regional reality and its global connection allows us to glimpse many related problems. For example, Japan and South Korea, their respective educational systems, though admired, have consolidated structures, which we could call good educational systems (OECD, 2008). However, since 1992 in Japan, 62

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and 2005 in South Korea there have been serious reductions in higher education enrollment (OECD, 2008), even though the adjustments of both governments, avoid the central problem of unemployment. For educational research and its link with labor and social topics, the analysis of programs in the world particularly those that have reduced unemployment and succeeded in making the transition to a first job as something more real and accomplishable. Perhaps developing a collaborative system between employers, educators and youth could provide help in decreasing youth unemployment and one of the causes that creates conditions for violence. YOUTH AND RE-APPROACHING THE FUTURE THROUGH NON-VIOLENCE

Ethics, education and citizenship inevitably implies not only a theoretical stance, but also a practical approach to the teaching-learning process, especially with regard to the inextricable relationship between education and contemporary ethics which embraces digital hyperconnectivity, as one of the foundations for the construction of current citizenship. Two ideas underlie this position. The first is the central role occupied by education in promoting a balance between economic and human development, both indissoluble and sustained. The second is how this balance is related to what we call global citizenship. Some thinkers, who have dealt with the topics of education and contemporary ethics previously are, among many others, Emmanuel Kant (1963) in considering a cosmopolitan society and Jean J. Rousseau in his oeuvre The Social Contract, with a conceptual approach on human rights, and a few millennia earlier, Socrates, who pointed to the intrinsically intermingled êthos and polis. These ideas are not new, but they are fundamental to our times, especially in defining what we understand as education in its largest sense for the coming decades, where connection, interconnection and hyperconnectivity are at the center of the debate. Considering the time in which we live determines the way we understand êthos and polis in this era, inasmuch as they guide us towards a better society, even in the simultaneous upsurging of two dynamics: global citizenship and emerging nationalisms. Thus, in this scenario how is it possible to create a balance between economics and human development? And more important for this book, what is the role of education in such dynamics? Desiring for the world an education that promotes ethics and citizenship is a shared and simultaneously anonymous demand for utopias. However, this demand is twofold in that it must (1) deal with the basic of our human nature, ontos, and at the same time, with (2) the digital world and hyperconnectivity. In 1516 during the Renaissance Thomas More foresaw the difficulties in describing and arguing for Utopia (2012). Thomas Moore felt that this concept brought together a shared desire for a more just society that always escaped from a sustainable social realization— like smoke between our fingers. However, the capacity to apply and manifest the non-existent in space and time, u-topos, is exemplified in México by Vasco de Quiroga and his implementation of Thomas More’s Utopia in the Mexican state 63

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of Michoacán. The applicability and relevance of utopias was questioned and even denied in the last decade of the 20th century. Though the notion of utopia is marked in its origins by the negation of time and space, this condition—of reflecting that which is lacking—is essential in nurturing the construction of a more just, whole, equal and humane society. The negation of time and space was the limitation in the very idea of u-topos in the 20th century, but in a digital and hyperconnected world of the 21st century, is there any possibility for another type of society another type of education for citizenship? Utopias are necessary in order to remind us of what we have forgotten. If we understand them not as chimeras but as motors of transformation, we can observe their affinity with what we call innovation. The culture of innovating with responsibility, in its largest sense, is and will need to be promoted in the educational systems of this and the coming decades. However, we must consider certain details. We understand in an elemental, but not in a reductive way, that in science, technology and education, innovation is the systematic ability to create, transform or improve something to make it applicable to the concrete solution of a problem. The central point of this ability implies a focus on shared social benefits, and therefore, benefits for humanity. The culture of innovation is necessary for transforming or renovating a system or country. But if we understand innovation as something separate from social benefit and its commitment to people, what meaning does it have? What kind of innovation would we be promoting? Within our educational spaces, nurturing a culture of responsible innovation, with an awareness of social benefits, the construction of citizenship and an ethical commitment as its principles will shape the relevance and authority of the institutions of higher education in the coming years. In the topic that concerns us—educational poetics—there lies a future that can guide the culture of innovation in the educational and technological environment, with clear and simple goals that respond to the current dynamism of our societies. Is it a chimera to think of an education that reconciles innovation—in its diverse forms—with the development of a culture that promotes ethics and citizenship, and whose goal is the transfer of benefits to our societies? Though it is not the purpose of this brief chapter to respond to this question, we cannot remain indifferent to it. The only thing we can do is offer some suggestions for the design of an educational future that we are planning now, hoping that it will be visibly feasible in this and the coming decades if we manage to understand its importance. The suggestions are the following: 1. The construction of common patterns of citizenship for the world, to include digital and hyperconnectivity patterns. Additionally, the promotion of ethics as the core of all educational spaces, guiding educational planning not as an accessory, but as its fundamental meaning. 2. The culture of responsible innovation is necessary to transform or renovate an educational system or a country, indeed, but the transfer of social benefits with a 64

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humanist commitment must guide the research-innovation-patent cycle, among other processes. 3. The ideals of a citizenship for the world and the promotion of ethics can be identified in concrete social skills that are desirable in a citizen in the classroom, such as the capacity to reason for oneself in the massive input of information, the practice of self-examination in the use of ICT, creativity from the aesthetic and contemplative point of view and the capacity to innovate with social and humanistic point of view. 4. The recovery of the humanist and holistic aspect of education is a necessary axis amid the social complexity and intercultural interaction we are experiencing today, and most important to build a culture of peace, as a clear goal in order to construct societies dealing with the best use of ICT and the best opportunity for the future. The ideas and practices of educational poetics are in the middle of that axis. These suggestions contain opposing and necessary ideas. Controlling tensions, they are a call to reconsider a most basic concept: that there is no science or technology without society, in the same way that there is no society without citizenship. Could we possibly speak of citizens with no ethical conscience? When one of these three factors are lacking, then at the core the means have become the ends. This is where the revision of our educational practices becomes critical. Otherwise, we will be preparing an empty future full of risks. AGAIN GREEK ÊTHOS

In thinking of the word ethics, it is actually impossible to escape from the original referent of the Greek term êthos in order to recall what we are really saying. Êthos has multiple meanings, as do the uses that different philosophers have given to the term, ranging from one’s inclination for, character, values, attitude before life, to the whole set of attitudes and values that characterize culture, among others. The relationship of the term êthos with the life and work of Socrates (Athens, 469–399 B.C.) is inevitable, and demonstrates the relevance of its meaning of the defense of citizen life and the ethics-education-citizenship weave that we believe should be reevaluated today. The Socratic practice of argumentation during his defense illustrates the idea and the application of the meaning of citizenship, as well as the need for selfexamination, a central part of what we call êthos as the discernment of our attitude and the character needed to make decisions and confront everyday situations. The need for methodically questioning an idea, an educational model, or a social system, among other concepts, implies the practice of defending a position that demonstrates benefits and not just the exercise of negating or accepting something without analyzing it. Even Descartes, in a well-known passage in the first reflection of the Meditations on First Philosophy (1951) suggests not accepting something as true without first having subjected it to rigorous scrutiny, to an examination that involves the discernment necessary to choosing. 65

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Today it is difficult to speak of ethics, education and citizenship without being open to cultural and linguistic diversity because of the challenge this implies in our educational spaces. Rethinking these subjects today is associated with the critical capacities encompassed in social and humanistic skills, central elements in the process of nurturing young students as citizens. Mentioning youth and students explicitly includes potential scientists, technologists, engineers and technicians, and not just humanists. Why is this important for education and its future? Because educational institutions today have unavoidable tasks, such as training students with the capacity to perceive themselves in heterogeneous societies and nations, as well as to understand the most profound relationships underlying the mere descriptive knowledge of facts. Martha Nussbaum (2005) identified basic skills in this ethical-educationcitizenship weave. They are not unique, but rather transversal to diverse disciplines and impact an engineer just as much as a humanist. One of these capacities for global citizenship is called narrative imagination, described in this passage from the book Cultivating Humanity: It can be called the narrative imagination. This means the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, and to understand the emotions and wishes and desires that someone so placed might have. The narrative imagination is not uncritical, for we always bring ourselves and our own judgments to the encounter with another … But the first step of understanding the world from the point of view of the other is essential to any responsible act of judgment, since we do not know what we are judging until we see the meaning of an action as the person intends it, the meaning of a speech as it expresses something of importance in the context of that person’s history and social world. (Nussbaum, 2005, p. 30) The capacity to understand the historical and social context of another person is an exercise in citizenship. But citizenship requires other skills that are desirable in formal education such as argumentation, resilience, digital ethics, creative contemplation, and mindfulness. All of this is a call to recover the humanistic and holistic aspect of peace education, among the social complexities and intercultural interactions we currently experience. For example, the very learning of foreign languages, apart from the English language, is an opportunity to learn citizenship since it can aid in cultivating respect and the integration of plurality. In other words, the structuring that is taking place today in institutions of higher education is to conceptualize them as sustainable organisms, capable of responding to dynamism and social needs, with the great appeal of multiculturalism. This type of educational design promotes skills for integrating diversity, for listening to vertiginous social changes oriented towards global citizenship and neural learning such as a second language is. In some cases, the multicultural, multilingual, humanistic and holistic component has been part of the foundation of the strategy used by technologyoriented institutions. 66

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At this point, we should return to a simple understanding which is that we need not train only engineers, but also citizens or ideally engineer-citizens. In this way, universities throughout the world that aim for a better and more responsible future defined by well-being and peace, will have to consider international cooperation not just as human interactions regulated by the market, but as a cooperation that creates ties in a sociocultural complexity that has surpassed us. REFERENCES Descartes, R. (1951). Discours de la méthode, suivi des Méditations. Paris: Union Générale d’Editions. Dussel, E. (1985). La producción teórica de Marx. Un comentario a los Grundrisse. Ciudad de México: Siglo XXI Editores. Gandhi, M. K. (2008). All men are brothers: Life and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as told in his own words. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. ILO. (2013). Global employment trends for youth 2013: A generation at risk. Geneva: ILO. Kant, I. (1963). Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/kant/universal-history.htm More, T. (2012). Utopia. New York, NY: Minor Compositions. Retrieved from http://theopenutopia.org/ wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Open-Utopia-fifth-poofs-facing-amended.pdf Mourshed, M., Farrell, D., & Barton, D. (2013). Education to employment: Designing a system that works. New York, NY: Mckinsey Center for Government. Retrieved from http://mckinseyonsociety.com/ downloads/reports/Education/Education-to-Employment_FINAL.pdf Nussbaum, M. C. (2005). El cultivo de la humanidad. Una defensa clásica de la reforma en la educación liberal. Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós Ibérica. OECD. (2008). Higher education to 2030, demography (Vol. 1). Paris: OECD Publishing, Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264040663-en OECD. (2012). Getting it right: Una agenda estratégica para las reformas en México. Paris: OECD Publishing.

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PART 3 WHY DOES THE FUTURE NEED EDUCATIONAL POETICS?

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INTERPRETING POETICS, COGNITIONS AND AESTHETIC EMOTION

The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. But we find that this education of sympathy is not only systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed. (Tagore, 1917, p. 116) EDUCATIONAL POETICS IS POLYSEMIC

What elements make up the unconventional educational ideal of the poet? What relationship exists between poetry, education and emotions? What is educational poetics founded upon? How does poetic creation merge with educational purposes? The answers to my questions can be found in various approaches and directions, like a dandelion carried by the wind, freely floating, changing directions, fading and creating once again. When constructing his school, Tagore wandered freely through the poetic experience, and thus allowed us to recognize that within poetic creation lies one of the foundations of education. Therein resides my proposal of educational poetics which is the experience of freedom and its merging with poetry. This experience of freedom is expressed as the exercising of the imagination. In the free creation of a poem that, when implemented in the learning process, triggers an educational process based on free aesthetic appreciation and the contemplative capacity of full awareness of the present moment. The strength required by active non-violence is supported within this full contemplation of creative silence. As we intertwine freedom and poetry we are brought closer to the meaning of educational poetics. Freedom and poetry are our guides to an unbiased objective, which is to do away with instructions that numb creativity, eliminate standardized value and to stop the suffocation caused by the orthodoxy of one single standardized education. So, is there a possibility for educational poetics in our time? I believe the answer lies within the following questions formulated by Tagore himself. The poet may he compared to that foolish butterfly. He also tries to translate all the festive colours of creation in the vibration of his verses. Then why should he imprison himself in an interminable coil of duty, bringing out some good tough and fairly respectable result? Why should he make himself accountable to those same people who would judge the merit of his produce by the amount of profit it will bring? (Tagore, 1961a, p. 45)

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Educational poetics is not found in utility and profit, its root are of another nature, outlined by certain general aspects that I discuss below. The idea of educational poetics is polysemic. There is no single or closed meaning, or hindering of the integration of dynamism or the creative adaptability required by how reality is portrayed in the classroom. However, therein lies its novelty, precisely because it reveals the simplicity found in creative acts seeking freedom through education as a poetic. We must recognize that one of the challenges faced by today’s educational systems is to respond to social dynamism and not to distance learning and research from the needs of the population or minimize the diversity of circumstances that make up the learning process in every region. Tagore understood the role of freedom and dynamism of the learning process through observing the creative process of poetry. He thus chose a polysemic path to design the objective of school and guide the learning process, through a creative focus, poiesis, free and in harmony with nature or the essential elements of educational poetics. In his school, Tagore released his educational ideal from the great risk that defeats many other methods which is the dogmatism of models and the disassociation between education and life. CREATIVE IMPROVISATION

Another element of educational poetics is the role Tagore gave to improvisation, which for him is a defining activity for the types of practices that comprised his educational ideal. Improvisation for the Bengali poet required preparation and should not be confused with random ideas or carelessness. For Tagore, improvising means avoiding what has already been created, digested, given and static. Improvisation is a method of creation that is directed towards the learning process, eliminates impositions and allows for both the exploration and the nurturing of wonder. The confluence of exploration with wonder and improvisation shapes a method that is relevant for creative life and education, with a purpose that is centered on freedom: I wish I could say that we have fully recited my dream in our school. We have only made the first introduction towards it and have given an opportunity to the children to find their freedom in Nature by being able to love it. For love is freedom: it gives us that fullness of existence, which saves m from paying with our soul for objects that are immensely cheap. (Tagore, 1961a, p. 57) Improvisation as a method is synchronized with a goal of which Tagore never lost sight of and that is freedom. Improvisation and freedom are intertwined, because the former is part of the latter, and when improvisation happens, a renewed appreciation for nature and its free character is found. The ways of expressing this harmonious improvisation and directing it towards the experience of freedom are eminently artistic. Therefore, improvisation for the Bengali poet awakens and nurtures the best in the human being. 72

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Arts and Aesthetic Sensitivity Educational poetics come together with the arts and the development of aesthetic sensitivity as pillars in Tagore’s educational ideal. The Bengali poet developed the program for Vishva-Bharati University, founded by Tagore on 24 December 1918, creating an important space for literature and poetry, music, theater arts, visual expressions and dance. These subjects are brought together by a common theme which is life itself. The message is clear, life with its complex situations can never be disassociated from the poet’s school or its most far-reaching educational goals. In this simple and great action lies one of the most relevant achievements of educational poetics and that is the role of arts in education. Life in Shantiniketan, a school founded by Tagore on 22 December 1901, in West Bengal, India, was characterized by arduous labor that transformed both the environment and students. Shantiniketan school was gradually constructed on the basis of the South Asian tradition, without denying the presence of Western thought and art. This was reflected by Tagore’s appreciation for European art and his vision of building bridges between the West and Asia. For example, his rural institution Sriniketan is guided by the rural school vision of L.K. Elmhirst Sriniketan. Sriniketan resulted in a type of education experience that integrated different spheres of life, the consideration of the riches found in nature and the needs of the social environment surrounding the school. The objective was to ensure that the students’ corporal and mental capacities were stimulated and brought to a balance. At the heart of educational poetics is the figure and role of the teacher. For Tagore, a teacher is a person who understands that teaching is learning. He or she is not a factory head who seeks the repetition of information. The idea that teaching is learning, constructs the idea of the student and the teacher, mutually interacting as apprentices. The teacher and the student begin with a learning method that embraces the very order that is expressed in nature as an open book for the teacher and the child. The teacher directs attention towards colors, music, sound, movements, aromas, and through these the student searches and learns. Teaching is based on the process of searching and learning how to awaken sensitivity in the child in order to grasp the self-revelation of nature, and to develop a personal meaning for this awakening. If a teacher is a person who knows that teaching is learning, then he is preceded by another larger idea which is one of the most important aspects of educational poetics. Do not to be guided by a utilitarian purpose in education, but by the idea of cultivating the best in the human being and of nurturing the desire for freedom. Tagore said: But in our educational organization we behave like miners, digging only for things substantial, through a laborious process of mechanical toil: and not like a tiller of the soil, whose work is in a perfect collaboration with nature, in a passive relationship of sympathy with the atmosphere. (Tagore, 1961a, p. 64) 73

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HARMONY AND ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS

The Bengali poet constantly returns to images from his childhood, and in these contemplations, wanders through the sky, light, earth, sounds, a series of impressions, of memories that flow together like rivers in the second element of educational poetics and the foundation of his school and that is the practice of harmony with the environment. I cannot help believing that my Indian ancestry had left deep in my being the legacy of its philosophy: the philosophy which speak of fulfillment through a harmony with all things. For good or for evil such a harmony has the effect of arousing a great desire in us to seek our freedom, not in the man-made world but in the depth of the universe and makes us offer our reverence to the divinity inherent in fire, water and trees, in everything moving and growing. (Tagore, 1961a, pp. 51–52) For Tagore, harmony and freedom are intertwined and as such reveals to us how to transfer our educational experiences to the experience of developing harmony with our surroundings, and with the world around us. It is not a relationship based merely on information but on the integral understanding of life and the world. Education for the poet is the awareness for awakening, guiding and nurturing this harmony. In A Poet’s School, we read: “Children with the freshness of their senses come directly to an intimacy with this world. This is the first great gift they have. They must accept it naked and simple, and must never again lose their power of immediate communication with it” (Tagore, 1961a, p. 52). He noted—in children— their capacity for immediate communication speaks of the idea of harmony and the need for its presence in education. To a great extent, the school which Tagore confronted was part of an educational system that minimized harmony between us and nature to the point that it was frozen onto paper, into a concept, into a definition to be memorized. We can see this in cities as a systemic mechanism that gradually provokes the isolation of the individual. The same urban mechanism is paradoxically applied in rural areas. The relationship between human beings and nature occupies an important role in the educational practices of Rabindranath Tagore. There are different forms of intervention that enabled him to implement this idea in the daily routine of his school, Tagore did so, based on a philosophical idea: The object of education is to give man the unity of truth. Formerly when life was simple all the different elements of man were in complete harmony. But when there came the separation of the intellect from the spiritual and the physical, the school education put entire emphasis on the intellect and the physical side of man. (Tagore, 1917, p. 126) The central axis of this relationship between human beings and nature is harmony between both planes. But Tagore was thinking in a double in one harmony, one is in the 74

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human being, harmony between intellect, the spiritual and the physical; and the other is harmony between human being and nature. The forms of educational intervention are expressed in his verses, communicated as poetic creation acknowledging this harmony in the learning process. The descriptions of educational system in Tagore’s time cannot attempt to communicate sufficiently the inexpressible experience of suffering, moving through literary forms, expressing desires and possibilities, in order to go beyond complaining or being destructive by offering unconstructive criticism of the educational system of his time. Tagore constantly recounted his academic life and in a certain way his memories illustrate how school eliminated or suffocated his harmonious relationship with the environment. We can discern in these accounts the search for what he desired: The non-civilized in me was sensitive: it had a great thirst for color, for music, for the movement of life. Our city-built education took no heed of that living fact. It had its luggage van waiting for branded bales of marketable result. The relative proportion of the non-civilized and civilized in man should be in the proportion of water and land on our globe, the former predominating. But the school had for its object a continual reclamation of the non-civilized. (Tagore, 1961a, p. 53) Tagore criticized the education of his time, rejecting the practices that guide them as something able to be bought, as well as the risk that this education promotes a relationship with nature as a labeled product for sale. This criticism permeates his educational texts and we can find it in the way he expresses harmony among education, the human being and the environment in the learning process of his schools (Tagore, 1917). Metaphors and analogies expressed harmony among the arts and nature. Splendid metaphors communicated via images of musical instruments. For Tagore, the educational process is the horizon upon which we can refine the skills that are already within a child or youth, and that allows them to nurture and understand their relationship with the environment. REFERENCES Tagore, R. (1917). Personality: Lectures delivered in America. London: MacMillan and Co., Limited. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/personalitylectu00tagouoft#page/4/mode/2up Tagore, R. (1961a). A poet’s school. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education: Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducation-RabindranathTagore Tagore, R. (1961b). Parrot’s training. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education: Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducation-RabindranathTagore

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CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION

The fact that the world stirs our imagination in sympathy tells us that this creative imagination is a common truth both in us and in the heart of existence. (Tagore, 1922, p. 9) There is an image-making joy in the infinite, which inspires in us our joy in imagining. The rhythm of cosmic motion produces in our mind the emotion which is creative. (Tagore, 1922, p. 10) HOW ARE TAGORE’S EDUCATIONAL IDEAS STILL RELEVANT IN THE ERA OF HYPERCONNECTIVITY?

The Bengali poet provides a poetic and autobiographical presentation of his educational ideas in essays, stories, poems, letters, and speeches, and exemplifies his ideas in the reality of the schools he founded. These institutions are Shantiniketan, a primary school, founded in 1901; Vishva-Bharati, a university, founded in 1918 and Sriniketan, a rural school, established in 1922. Tagore’s biography is a roadmap of his educational ideas which are not based on a treatise or pedagogical theory. Tagore had no aspirations to create a pedagogical model (Tagore, 1917). His interest was to nourish the roots of an education that is capable of cultivating the best in the human being. Based on this interest he set the foundations of a complex and unconventional educational model and accompanying theory. His sharing of pedagogical ideas is not based on the prescriptive conceptualization of education or on a discourse comprised of the specialized language of the pedagogue (Tagore, 1961a). If we analyze both Tagore’s ideas of his school and his prose and poetry texts, we might ask what are the links between education and the aesthetic, between social problems and the enormous economic inequalities of his time. How are Tagore’s educational ideas still relevant in the era of hyperconnectivity? This question has an important place in the contemporary problem of income inequality and the distribution of wealth (Piketty, 2014). The current relevance of his educational ideas—because of his autonomy and search for freedom—can be recreated in a different era. Tagore converged two great visions and ways of being in the world: the poet and the educator. Together these visions create an ongoing movement, unwavering recreation, artistic representation, the search for freedom, nature in harmony with

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poetic creation and creative construction without violence. The poet’s vocation is the source of being in the world as an educator. Both vocations mutually nourish one another and come together in an artistic vision of education, an education immersed in the skills and sensitivity that the arts awaken. Both cultivate, converge and give meaning to educational poetics. The poet’s vocation, then, is the foundation of an unconventional pedagogical tradition that rejects homogenous and prescriptive educational models. There are no fixed theories that stifle the flow of the learning experience. Clearly, his decision not to present his ideas as if they were educational theory were intentional and implies a criticism of the education that he himself received and rejected. Tagore expressed his ideas with poetic tools and analogies in his book Personality (Tagore, 1917). He did not create a fixed theory of education that was closed to criticism, but rather introduced an idea expressed through dynamic practices that branch out as if they were plants taking in oxygen, returning it to the environment, growing, surrendering to the wind and the sunlight. Both in the application and the different forms of expression of Tagore’s educational ideas, we can find a deep rootedness in philosophical and social aesthetics, which was a way of questioning the educational system in which he lived and did not thrive. His receiving the Nobel Prize in 1913 demolished the boundaries that did not recognize non-Western poetry. This very constructive demolition is manifested in his educational work by dismantling the foundations of the established system in order to recognize the wealth of the philosophical and educational past in South Asia that belongs to humanity and opens itself to a present that values the future. In his educational ideas lies the magnetic pull of the beauty of free poetry, unattached to any ideology. His conception of art in general also underlies the mechanisms of learning, a conception in which the human being and nature exist in harmony. The complexity of human relationships and the simplicity of beauty are found in these ideas. Harmony and simplicity are sacred for Tagore, and he brings them into the educational panorama. Within this harmony lies the relevance of an education whose core is life itself, because it aims to reconcile the deep imbalances of societies such as poverty, injustice and inequality. I dare to say that Tagore’s ideas are, a pedagogy of freedom, and I hope to develop this idea in the following pages. TAGORE, CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION AND FREEDOM

Rabindranath Tagore had the ability to recreate the deep meaning of education for children and youth by cultivating the imagination through the arts, knowing how to listen, an absence of violence, the art of movement, mindfulness even amidst an agitated life, and respectful dialogue between nature and the human being. All this was guided by two central ideas: freedom and harmony within existence. The search for the ultimate nature of reality, of the deepest expression, that which exists at the meeting point of nature, community and education as an encounter with oneself, which leads to one of the highest objectives of education, which is freedom. 78

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Tagore’s educational ideas are made up of apparent contradictions, but as soon as they merge with daily life, they become intertwined without clashing. His educational ideas become a rhythm, that freely merge into their environment and give life to one of the purposes of education which is freedom and harmony with nature. The Shantiniketan school was an example of this harmony that awakens and nurtures the most human potential, the wholeness of virtue and its unity with reality? Was this not one of the highest purposes of the Greek paideia (Jaeger, 1962). Between these two currents—fragmenting thought through specialization and the disjointing of life and knowledge—we can find the kind of education that for Tagore was capable of showing us the unity that we are. Learning to experience ourselves as a whole related with others and with nature is not a mere concept, but rather an intimate connection with daily life. The expressions of life that weave together Shantiniketan’s story emerge from what is experienced every day in school. The language used to communicate the learning processes was the aesthetic experience guiding the educational process, something similar to poetic creation. Through the gradual construction of learning by means of creative movement, including the moments of silence that arise from the aesthetic experience, emerges an impeccable stillness, an open stretch of land and ocean, a rhythm between silence and activity. In other words, educational poetics. This is where the conditions for learning to which I refer emerge, and where we can find the root of the very construction of learning that is similar to educational poetics (Tagore, 1917). Educational poetics implies thinking about formal and non-formal education as the horizon for awakening and cultivating the best in the human being. But how can we cultivate the best? What is involved in an education that not only offers information but also allows harmony with nature? Is there any possibility for a classroom without walls (Kane, 2016)? At this point, there is a beginning that reveals itself as poetic prose and expresses an educational ideal. As soon as poetry is created, it ceases to belong to the poet. It is free because it cannot be different from its origin. Freedom, poetic imagination and creation are symptoms and the exaltation of the poetic that is found in the pedagogy of freedom: In educational organizations our reasoning faculties have to be nourished in order to allow our mind its freedom in the world of truth, our imagination for the world which belongs to art, and our sympathy for the world of human relationship. This last is even more important than learning the geography of foreign lands. (Tagore, 1961a, p. 64) At the heart of a pedagogy of freedom we find the sequence and simultaneity of the processes of learning, guided by poetic experience, creative contemplation and liberty. The different exercises of artistic education, poetic creation and Tagore’s educational ideals are examples of a pedagogy that cannot be reduced to mere instruction, information or prescription derived from a theoretical treatise or a single and homogenous educational model to be followed. With the concept of a pedagogy 79

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of freedom I am not referring to how we understand the process of learning as something useful, but to a wider process that involves both internal—cognitive, emotional, contemplative, aesthetic, metacognitive—and external processes. In other words, the complete existence that is implied and flows together in the paradoxical harmony between education and liberty (Martínez Ruiz, 2018). Tagore had the clarity of this harmony embedded in his pedagogical actions. It is a clarity that awakens a yearning for truth. Daily experiences and phenomena, such as the wind, the sun, the trees, the rain, the earth, cycles of the seasons, and the weather—all of this plays a role in the harmonious integration of Tagorean pedagogy. For the educator and the poet, speaking about nature is an ongoing activity that never attempts to be univocal and by resisting this temptation, it remains open to error in every learning experience (Humayun, 1961; Gosh, Ayaz, & Vijh, 2012). Something similar to this continuous interrelation took place in ancient India, from which we can recover theories and practices of recognizing the role of nature and the inner harmony of the human being that were applied in the schools Shantiniketan and Vishva-Bharati, I am referring to different exercises and techniques, some contemplative or based on meditation, incorporated into the functioning of both schools as daily exercises that nurture harmony in our existence, as he wrote in Personality (Tagore, 1917). The educational poetics to which I refer is possible because we can recreate it in contemporary contexts which is necessary because we live in societies that have diminished moments of contemplation, of creative contemplation and of continuous attention. Educational poetics is difficult to consider as a mere conceptual category. The nature of educational poetics escapes definition by a single model. How can it be recreated in a historical moment so different from the early 20th century in India? In the merging point of the concepts held within poetry and education lie the elements that revolutionized the practice of teaching and learning and the very function of school. At this point, the idea of educational poetics comes closer to a counter-position and a utopia. What do I mean by this? A counter-position emerges because its revolutionary nature is centered on recovering—not abandoning—the roots of the human spirit that longs for freedom, the roots that can be observed in the artistic expressions of both India and the West. The Bengali educator tends a bridge between the two traditions. In this way, he initiated a revolutionary transformation that is a return to the aesthetic root of a non-Western tradition, and to the foundations of post-Vedic thought applied to education. Through this, Tagore achieved a critical reconsideration that promoted the importance of art and poetic creation, as well as breathing and contemplation techniques in education (Tagore, 1917). While opening the door to a transformation of the educational system of his time, Tagore reflected upon and united the concepts of poetry, education and utopia. This educational utopia came to life in the schools Shantinketan and VishvaBharati (Battacharya, 2010). As soon as the concept was sown, educational utopia vanished because it came into reality. Tagore found the realm through which the 80

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utopia ceased to be such, not only in the classrooms and physical space of the school, but mainly in the inner universe of children and youth. Through the exercise of the ongoing quest for human nature and the longing for freedom, he found the way to cultivate the best in the human being through simpler educational practices, connected with their environment and nature. Tagore’s pedagogical perspective was—without losing focus—at the very heart of what creates education, which is the search for freedom in the human being. In this search, there is a latent condition that is, at the same time, it’s very drive: love. This huge force is firmly rooted in the experience of freedom. Love and freedom are two experiences from which it is possible for the poet to begin his educational utopia, because they ensure—as soon as they begin to intertwine—the destruction of utopia. This is negated when it becomes reality even though its negation is not complete as part of it always lingers. The persistence of utopian thought is constantly stimulated by the presence of love and freedom. Tagore did not understand education and the idea of school as something static, as an imposed model that must be followed in a specific way, lacking imagination and creativity, without the presence of life, distanced from love and freedom. Tagore’s third school, Sriniketan, Institute of Rural Reconstruction, was founded on February 6, 1922, and adapted to its rural environment. Its focus was centered on the creation of an education designed in accordance with the regional needs and guided by local cooperation. The school was directed towards community education, with programs designed by the rural community, with the intention to link the benefits of education to the needs of agricultural life. Two essays by Leonard Elmhirst (1961), “The Foundation of Sriniketan” and “Siksha Satra”, demonstrate a panorama of Sriniketan and Tagore’s vision of education in non-urban areas. A certain utopia traverses Tagore’s educational ideal that does not negate the pedagogy of freedom because its starting point is an educational poetics created from poetic revelation and implemented in the realm of education. Educational poetics can be expressed through the voice of a weaver of verses and realities, words and imagination, guided by the utopia of an education that liberates. Utopia is not the mere absence of a place, u-topos, but also the very impulse behind dreams that drive us towards something better, to achieve what we cannot in the present, but that is possible to reach. This pedagogy of freedom designed by Tagore is an unconventional education, similar to the recreation of a poet using words. This utopian drive moves us and gives value to the future. CREATIVE CONTEMPLATION IN EDUCATIONAL POETICS

Tagore’s educational ideas have an eminently poetic character, similar to the creative and free experience that reside within the words of a poem. But how can educational poetics be carried out? The how is outlined by the free and creative act of a poet that breathes life into an educational ideal (Tagore, 1961c). The poet pours forth creativity, imagination, becoming a cultivator of images that become verses. Words 81

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and ideas flourish, like freedom they are synchrony, and their roots nourish the great tree of educational poetics. Words and ideas do so with an intermittent rhythm, twinkling, dividing, flowering in children and youth, or better yet, helping them to flower. Observing rhythms—in the poem, in nature, in the arts—comprehending them and their presence in learning, in the movements of the body, is another key to understanding how to implement educational poetics within a school’s curriculum. The foundation of educational poetics, or one of its pillars is something so simple yet indecipherable and free as poeticizing is that the practices of educational poetics are like seeds that cannot be uprooted when they have grown into plants, as expressed by Tagore (1917) at one point. For Tagore poeticizing, did not represent a preconceived notion, but rather something that is recreated in the very act that gives rise to the poem. This is the panorama from which educational poetics derives. Tagore visits the sources from which poetry flows: imagination, the free recreation of something that comprehends existence. The full exercise of freedom makes up a pedagogy that finds its affinity with the rhythms of life, and in the exaltation of existence. Rhythm and exaltation flow together in educational poetics. “Poetry is not a judgment or interpretation of human existence. The provider of rhythm-images simple expresses what we are; this is a revelation of our original condition, regardless of the immediate or concrete meaning of the words in the poem” (Paz, 2013, p. 148). The intuition underlying the founding of Tagore’s school is none other than a poetic intuition. This leads to an encounter with human nature, knowledge of oneself that allows us to dialogue and reflect, not only informing but also learning to live and to live in order to free oneself. This knowledge of oneself is similar to one of the foundations of postSocratic Greek thought in Plato’s Seventh Letter: the soul dialoguing with itself about the being (Plato, 2000). Tagore’s educational ideal lies in the poetic act, analogous to the act of education when it takes place as an act of recreation—such as reading a poem. It is key to understand that the pedagogical labor of Tagore is not focused on the reception and accumulation of this or that information, but on evoking the creative act, poeticizing while learning. In other words, the poetic act that leads to the poem and the act of recreating the poem are its mechanisms, they are educational poetics. Learning is closely related to the act of creating and recreating, similar to what the poet experiences while poeticizing. These educational ideas are difficult to grasp because they are not defined, however, they can be recreated. In the act of poeticizing we can find the conjunctions that similarly make education meaningful (Tagore, 1917). One of the characteristics that sets the idea of educational poetics apart is precisely the act of making learning and education an experience similar to poetic creation. Education and poetry have a shared goal, the longing for freedom. Yet this longing is not a mere desire, but rather an action in order to reach the objective. For Tagore, education is a temporary bridge that connects two great realms of reality—the human and nature—by connecting them, the distance between them vanishes. What we understand as education does not end unless we recreate another 82

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original human quest and that is freedom. Because in one way or another, we will rediscover our nature, our condition, our possibility and freedom, even amidst the inevitable destiny that we cannot escape: death. Though Tagore did not see his own ideas as an educational model, they are capable of producing profound transformations in current educational models and systems. The models in today’s education indicate that we follow a system that makes teaching homogenous and evaluates partial aspects of learning in standardized ways. But where are contemporary educational systems headed? Can we see this path clearly? IMAGINATION AND RECREATION

What the Bengali poet creates and recreates is not an educational model, nor does it aim to standardize the way in which children and youth see the world through a series of memorized information and the mechanisms of a homogenized educational system (Tagore, 1961b). What his ideas seek is the possibility of free, imaginative, creative and silent experience of educational poetics. To this end he used different artistic methods, contemplative techniques and methods from the traditional medicine of India that integrates food, the relationship with the environment, the needs and harmony of these factors with the rhythms of nature. What Tagore had in mind, and was implemented in his school, is an imaginative education, capable of cultivating creativity. In the idea of educational poetics, the imagination in the learning processes is founded in the very root of poetic creation. In other words, imagination in this process is guided by different signs, the brilliance of life expressed in poetic and artistic creation, love, the certainty of death, the revelation of what and who we are and as a result finding one of the characteristics of the tradition of thought in India: a non-dualistic vision. Creative education is not limited to the exclusive cultivation of the humanities. However, it is common to relate Tagore’s educational ideas only with fields in the humanities, the scope is much wider. Though the arts and humanities are the starting point for the curricula of Shantiniketan and Vishva-Bharati, some of the interventions are directed at technical training for practical trades such as agricultural work, rural health, the creation of local wealth, such as in the case of Shriniketan. These interventions led to the creation of a rural school, Shriniketan, adapted to the needs of the local children and families (Elmhirst, 1961). This school was focused on harmony with the environment, previously developed in the educational laboratory of Shantiniketan, and did not veer away from the Tagorean objective of freedom. Because it was conceived as an education in life and not for life, life itself is not understood as separate from or occurring after the educational process. Life and education are inseparable. Tagore argued for his educational ideas with poetic images that evoke the most acute thoughts and define his style. For example, the butterfly is an image that represents the poet, pleasing the treasurer of colors, a vision in contrast with the search for utility in everything: 83

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The significance, which it may possess, has neither weight nor use and is lightly carried on in pair of dancing wings. Perhaps it pleases someone in the heart of the sunlight, the Lord Treasurer of colors, who has nothing to do with the account book and has a perfect mastery in the great art of wastefulness. (Tagore, 1961a, p. 44) The poet veers away from the concept of school defined by profit and a mere utilitarian vision. Is it truly possible to recreate the ideal of education that motivated Tagore in the creation of his school, among all the educational objectives of our time? FREEDOM AND THE ART OF MOVEMENT

Freedom is our condition. Sometimes its presence is pale or appears merely as a distant memory that is vanishing. Longing for freedom transforms us and through this longing we do not cease to be what we are but begin to be what we have always been which is the embodiment of freedom. The longing for freedom sets the foundations for Tagorean schools and educational poetics. The education sought by educational poetics is that which is capable of revealing our free nature to human beings. This is an act comprised of contradictions, experiences that juxtapose one another but are ultimately not contradictory because they can be reconciled. The purpose is to realize freedom, and this does not imply obtaining something external to us, but realizing that which is already latent within us (Tagore, 1961c). The longing for freedom is the longing for our true nature. The revelation of the moment when human nature is unveiled is the very experience of freedom. Neither the longing nor the revelation nor the freedom can be reached through a verbal definition. The distant memory allows us to glimpse something we suspect, a possibility, the notion that set the foundation for Tagore’s educational project: freedom in harmony with the world. Is this possible in the era of global hyperconnectivity? Upon first glance there is an exclusive paradoxical relationship between freedom and education. Freedom—in the philosophical tradition of India—is the longing for that which underlies human freedom, and education is not the exception. Education for Tagore stimulates the search for freedom. The art of body movement is not guided by a concept or academic study but it is the freedom that awakens at the very heart of the educational experience of the child, in life, in movement. Experiences in the search for freedom are not limited to time spent in school, but includes the time spent outside of school and in non-formal learning contexts. (Tagore, 1961c). The longing for freedom is the basis of the poet’s school, which is a continuous recreation, a return to knowledge of ourselves, a harmony that restores us to our environment. Harmony among freedom, school and nature is found in the words and the silence contained in poetry, by the creative act, and in its rhythm. Between the words and the silence and the spaces of silence and the words, there is a rhythm that constructs the poem, similar to the art of movement in education. In the movement of the body and the images of a poem there is a testimony to the tangible nature of 84

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our existence here, and this is the rhythm. Rhythm is time and the possibility of silence. In Tagore’s schools, we can see this harmony as witnessed by children and youth, through their intuition and rhythm, in theatre, dance, running in the fields, in the unrepressed movements of the body. The rhythm of the dramatic arts guides the rhythm of learning. The key to unlocking rhythm is found in the pace of the rhythms of nature. These rhythms are cyclical, an important part of our harmonious relationship with nature. The transformative possibility lies within understanding educational rhythms. Rhythmic movement and nature feed the longing for freedom: Freedom in the mere sense of independence has no content, and therefore no meaning. Perfect freedom lies in the perfect harmony of relationships, which we realize in this world-not through our response to it in knowing but in being. Objects of knowledge maintain an infinite distance from us who are the knowers. For knowledge is not union. Therefore, the farther world of freedom waits us what we reach truth, not through feeling it by our senses, or knowing it by reason, but through the union of perfect sympathy. (Tagore, 1961a, p. 63) Longing is the transformative intention capable of recreating itself in an educational organization. This longing for freedom emerges from an idea that is counter to an education that only provides information which is guided with a utilitarian vision of the world and of others. Longing for freedom is a constant reflection on the environment and the way to harmonize the development of a child in a balanced interaction with nature. The most important part of this development is to nurture the affinity for freedom which means doing away with indifference and ignorance, as Tagore claims: “I believe that the object of education is the freedom of mind which can only be achieved through the path of freedom—though freedom has its risk and responsibility as life itself has” (Tagore, 1917, p. 147). One of the key aspects of Tagore’s pedagogy is the role given to dance, theater and music in the tradition of India, conceptualized as the art of movement in education. In 1924, Tagore went to South America with Leonard Elmhirst, a very close friend. In Argentina, Tagore talked with Elmhirst about educative ideas that are mainly focused on movement and their pedagogical role, which was central in Tagore’s days and which in particular challenged, something that Tagore called the art of movement. What is the art of movement and what role does it occupy in the educational ideals of India? Children need the opportunity to give expression of their sentiments through perfect and graceful movements of the body. Never allow this capacity to use the whole body as a medium of expression to die out. Man, as a fraction of a multitude, may feel he has to repress his individuality. Let us defy this feeling. So—introduce the dramatic arts into your school from the beginning. (Tagore, 1961c, p. 106) The possibility of using body movements not only to express feelings, but also to harmonize the body and its movements with the natural rhythms of thought is one 85

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of the contributions from the Indian tradition to the education of children and youth. But how can we harmonize the movements of the body with the rhythms of thought? School obligates the mind to limit its movements and use only one part of the body in learning. Through the simple observation that rhythm, inasmuch as the natural movement of the body such as in dance, is comprised of periods of rest, we can construct an important analogy in educational poetics: But the moment you leave a little space fallow, the utilitarian will pounce upon it and say, ‘Why leave this space unfilled? You should grow a crop there.’ They possess such a superstitious faith in the efficiency of their own teaching, that they don’t realize that periods of non-teaching are just as important as a means of tempering formal instruction. Utilitarian by nature, they must fill every niche and leave no space or time for ‘Not-teaching’. Poor body. Nature made a perfect adjustment between the body and the mind. It is civilized man who, by his formalism in the classroom has caused dissension between the two of them who has severed the connection and made the gap as wide as possible. But body and mind are indissolubly connected. (Tagore, 1961c, p. 110) The rhythm of learning requires—in the context of educational poetics—harmony between thinking and body movement, dynamism and rest, periods of formal and non-formal instruction. For this reason, learning is at the heart of life itself, and life is at the heart of learning because there is no rupture between formal learning in school and the period of non-formal learning that takes place during any event of daily life. Therefore, what we learn in the periods of non-formal instruction is considered as part of the experience that is expressed verbally or non-verbally through the movements of the body (Tagore, 1961c). The affirmation is convincing. Body movement and thought harmonize rather than fragment the child’s development. Movement implies space and time, while thought is also a temporal activity. Thus, we have a spatiotemporal panorama, and the art lies in finding a way to harmonize them: the harmony between body movements and thought. The affirmation is not only convincing, but it counters the idea of a student at his seat eliminating any expression of bodily distraction, and at the same time manifests a more complex idea which in the tradition of South Asia, is that the movement of our body is the most immediate presence. Body movement and thought exist in harmony and cannot be dissociated. We read that movement in and of itself implies the realization of something latent but stillness is the negation of this possibility. In this Tagorean statement we found a paideia both similar to and different from the Greek concept. It is similar because it aims for the realization of an excellent form (areté) of character, the virtuous life of a citizen, of a human being that harmonizes his or her actions with the city, and in this action, reveals the balance of a higher order: the kosmos (gr.). For Tagore, this harmony corresponds to a higher order, YLĞYDP or the universe, and is the harmony of the human being with him or herself. The similarity is also apparent in examples such as the peripatetic who 86

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paced around the hall while thinking or the pauses of Aristoteles during this pacing dictated a rhythm that was not only that of thought but also of harmony with his body. I mentioned that the theory of the Indian paideia is also different in certain ways from the Greek version. This is because the fundamental axis of the Indian tradition is more an aesthetic, a total investment in the arts, and above all in the educational capacity for freedom that resides in poetry and the very act of poetic creation. Centuries after the pre-Socratics, it was clear for Plato that the epic poets and playwrights had no place in his ideal of the State and of education as described in the Republic (book X). In this distinction between Plato and Tagore, there is no negative emphasis, but simply a different way of achieving the objective of the paideia—this other way is contained within educational poetics and one of its most important elements is rhythm: But for creative work the mind acts as a coordinator of ideas, and we discover best by thinking and by expressing. When we try to express ourselves merely in words, we feel incomplete, and for the fullest expression there should certainly be arm and leg movement as well. The poet, or the musician, gesticulates as he works. He must move his arms, his hands, and wrinkle his face. Why, then, doesn’t he start up from his chair and dance his ideas out in the sunshine? (Tagore, 1961c, p. 103) Nor does this mean that we should do away with certain instructions that require focus without distracting movements, such as in mathematics; both creative work and mathematics require attention and concentration (Tagore, 1961c, p. 103). In both cases, it is important to focus and pay full attention to something, either to do creative work, with the body in movement, or to sit down and learn mathematics. These techniques of attention and concentration are part of the processes known as contemplation and meditation. Tagore believed that obtaining information as the goal of education hindered this capacity for attention and focus, at the same as it altered or distanced us from our awareness of another key element in understanding the importance of movement: breath. Tagore understood the place of body-mindenvironment relation has in educative process, in pedagogy for freedom: The result is that the whole body, which is designed for expression through movement, loses one of its most important missions in life, the urge to express. The body becomes feeble, and only the face retains some power and freedom to express through movement. (Tagore, 1961c, pp. 103–104) REFERENCES Battacharya, A. (2010). Education for the people: Concepts of Grundtvig, Tagore, Gandhi and Freire. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Elmhirst, L. K. (1961). Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education: Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd.

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CHAPTER 8 Ghosh, R., Naseem, M. A., & Vijh, A. (2012). Tagore and education. In A. A. Abdi (Ed.), Decolonizing philosophies of education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-94-6091-687-8_5.pdf Jaeger, W. (1962). Paideia: Los ideales de la cultura griega. Cuidad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Kabir, H. (1961, décembre). Le rebelle et le précurseur. Le Courier, XIV(12). Kane, T. B. (2016). Tagore’s school and methodology: Classrooms without walls. Gitanjali & Beyond, 1, 83–101. Martínez Ruiz, X. (2018). The alignment argument: At the crossroads between mindfulness and metacognition. Learning: Research and Practice, 4(1), 29–38. doi:10.1080/23735082.2018.1428096. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23735082.2018.1428096 Paz, O. (2013). El arco y la lira. Cuidad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Piketty, T. (2014). El capital en el siglo XXI. Ciudad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Plato. (1918). The republic of Plato (F. MacDonald, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.149150 Plato. (2000). The seventh letter. Retrieved from http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/seventh_letter.1b.txt Tagore, R. (1917). Personality. Lectures delivered in America. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/personalitylectu00tagouoft#page/4/mode/2up Tagore, R. (1922). Creative unity. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/creativeunity00tagouoft Tagore, R. (1961a). A poet’s school. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education. Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducation-RabindranathTagore Tagore, R. (1961b). The parrot’s training. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education. Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducationRabindranathTagore Tagore, R. (1961c). The art of movement in education. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education. Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducationRabindranathTagore

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The highest truth is that which we can only realize by plunging into it. And when our consciousness is fully merged in it, then we know that it is no mere acquisition, but that we are one with it. (Tagore, 1917, p. 184) CONTEMPLATION, MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION

Creative contemplation is related with experiences that are the basis of educational poetics and that is mindfulness and meditation. In different moments throughout his work, Tagore refers to these experiences as being interrelated. “Only when the mind has the sensitiveness to be able to respond to the deeper call of reality, is it naturally weaned away from the lure of the fictitious value of things” (Tagore, 1961, p. 57). The development of sensitivity that nurtures the mind or, rather, allows it to focus on its real inclination towards freedom of mind, freedom that salvages from the ocean of a society of predetermination. The yearning of such freedom of mind is also an attitude which is a kind of harmony that is intimately intertwined with equanimity between mind and body and, to a great extent, is understood through the practices of contemplation, mindfulness, and meditation. Both Gandhi and Tagore were continuously involved in practices of contemplation, mental focus, mindfulness and meditation. In one way or another, their lives and works pass through identifiable moments in which they incorporated techniques into their daily lives to achieve states of mental equanimity, creative contemplation, peace and a profound practical understanding of the world and the complexity of humanity. Tagore implemented these techniques in education and aesthetics, while Gandhi did so in activism for freedom in India and the practice of non-violence, DKLPVƗ. Currently there is much academic and scientific interest in these practices, with an increase in research in the West and the publication of the results of studies of these methods and their effects (e.g. Powietrzynska & Tobin, 2016; Ricard, Lutz, & Davidson, 2014). The application of Tagore and Gandhi’s techniques or practices in intervention efforts have been implemented in different fields, for example, education, health, working life and systems of justice. Contemplation and the state it produces were systematically cultivated in Tagore’s school. The techniques of sustained concentration that gradually lead to mindfulness

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004398061_009

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and creative contemplation allow states of meditation and can be referred to in general with the Sanskrit term GKƗUDƼƗ. This denotes a method to sustain mental concentration, intentionally directing it towards the interior and focusing it on a single point. These methods are part of the tradition of India and are systematized in different Sanskrit texts (Martínez Ruiz, 2008, 2016). It is through GKƗUDƼƗthat the mind is guided towards a conscious state of attention without mental distractions. A set of methods or GKƗUDƼƗ brings together different states of mental equanimity and harmony, as well as creative contemplation, profound peace and meditation. The secularization of these methods has allowed the West to incorporate them into its educational practice and we can refer to them as techniques to achieve a state of mindfulness. It is worth considering their effects and the role of mindfulness, contemplation and meditation in education, and in many ways, this relationship is also intimately connected to health, working life and systems of justice. What Is Tagore’s Message to Our Time? In thinking creative and non-violent roads for youth today, let us analyze what is Tagore’s message for the youth of today? This question has an emblematic intention and opposing focuses. That is to say, how should we speak of the teachings of someone who left school at 14 years of age, who was not a pedagogue or a specialist in education, but who founded three educational institutions where the key concept was to avoid the reproduction of the same conditions that led him to leave school? Such a particular experience is the foundation for transformation. Tagore’s unwavering certainty is condensed in his intention to not reproduce the educational model he hated, but to create the school he longed for. How to accomplish the creation of a school desired by a young person, and how to know the perspective and needs of contemporary youth? And, consequently, what ideas and expectations do we have when we use the term youth? When we speak of youth, as a category of analysis, we are referring to a historical, polysemic construction, in some cases necessarily contextualized in a specific time and place. To a large extent, the idea that we have today of youth is formed from the perspective of industrial and urban societies. This is manifested in many cases by warnings from sociologists of a sector of the population they blamed for certain kinds of violence and rebellious acts in urban areas towards the end of the 19th century. Robert E. Park (1952) refers to this as disorganization caused by social contagion in urban societies. At this moment, it is important to question what type of construction of citizenship is expected from our youth. When we speak of a young person, are we speaking of a passive subject? The idea of a youth as someone who suffers and therefore needs to be channeled and molded in order to become a complete social being is something upon which we should reflect. Youth and education make up a matrix of opposing but not destructive forces. They interweave, yes, but they do not cancel each other out as both take part in an exchange. Youth is a power capable of transforming the 90

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educational dynamic, such that education can channel that which represents the full potential of being, children and youth. In México, José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) recognized the transformative power of youth, or their capacity for action, during his youth and when he was Minister of Education (1921–1924). He carried out an impressive educational project by understanding the transformative power that lies in the youth. In 1921, Vasconcelos began another battle against educational obstacles in the midst of a country devastated by the Mexican Revolution of 1910. His education policies focused on the promotion of culture and, most importantly, on the teaching of literacy whose central concept was an object that symbolized his vision to a large extent, reading the books of classical authors. This collection, which ranged from Plato to Dante, and from Tagore to Tolstoy, represented the reconstruction project of a country through education. Between 1921 and 1924, throughout México, Vasconcelos distributed free of charge, books by Euripides and translations of The New Moon, Personality, and Nationalism, by Tagore (1988), among others. How many children and youth of that time embraced and were inspired by the reading of the books that Vasconcelos distributed? Maybe it is more relevant in our case to consider how the classics influenced those who read them in a context that was still reverberating with the echoes of revolutionary violence. In 2011, Vasconcelos’ collection of classics was republished in a historical context in which the reading of these books is, once again, a light amongst the shadows of our days. Youth and education are susceptible to autonomous change and imposition. The two possibilities, in constant tension and that confront one another allow for or prevent transformation. The latter represents the negation of creative possibility and, consequently a dramatic shift towards homogenization and an unimaginable direction of a youth that only acquires information, without generating its own thoughts or the capacity for critical thinking. Youth studies represent a challenge, not only in an academic, but also in a historical and cultural sense. Our context requires new paths for generating specialized knowledge that critically evaluates the imposition of life models upon youth, guided by the criteria of consumption and based on the idea of molding a consumer and not a human being. In other words, we need roads to foster human development in the attitude and thought processes of contemporary youth. Roads that are not entirely guided by economic criteria, where the alarming social inequalities make us reconsider the price of unjust societies, lacking in creative and imaginative freedom and critical thinking. In Oviedo, Spain, on October 26, 2012, Martha Nussbaum clearly expressed these ideas in her acceptance speech of the Prince of Asturias Award: The importance of philosophy for economics suggests something further, which is another subject of my work. We need an education system strong in humanities to realize the potential of societies that are striving for justice. The humanities provide us not only with knowledge about ourselves and others, but they make us reflect on human vulnerability and the aspirations towards 91

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justice of every individual, and they would prevent us from passively using a technical concept, unrelated with the person, to define the objectives of a specific society. I do not consider it too bold to affirm that the flourishing of humanity requires the flourishing of the humanistic disciplines. Our focus on youth studies is far from merely describing or justifying reality and social inequalities. Rather, it is to cultivate non-violence in youth through the development of argumentative skills and young people’s own thought processes, which are fundamental aspects for the shaping of citizenship in youth, a central aspect in Nussbaum’s proposal. It must be clarified that social reconstruction can take place from the perspective of non-violence, due to a simple premise that it is an attitude that is awakened and nurtured in each individual, different from the way information is acquired. This is why it is necessary to educate people in non-violence. M. K. Gandhi considered non-violence (DKLPVƗ, in Sanskrit) as something fundamental to the human condition. This leads to both an ancestral and contemporary quest for truth and knowledge (Gandhi, 2011). Each youth renews this quest for truth and knowledge perhaps through their dreams. Sadly, some never awaken or remain in oblivion, other young people will allow the person to accomplish one’s goal of non-violence. One of the urgent dreams of today is to form non-violence as a durable weave that will allow us to construct a better society. In his book Mahatma Gandhi. Essays and Reflections (1998), Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan writes: “Ahimsa or non-violence is the highest duty” (p. 20), this teaching is clearly noted in the Mahabharata. Its practical application in many scenarios, for instance the Gandhian DKLPVƗ is at the very heart of satyagraha, or strength of the truth. The idea of non-violence, DKLPVƗ, in our times must take into account the current languages we have to approach other recent forms of violence. However, it constitutes one of the formative pillars for contemporary youth. The commitment of educational institutions is rooted in providing tools, such as argumentation and the defense of one’s ideas, that will allow the construction of a society with resistant characteristics, like human dignity, equality and the systematic reduction of injustice that promotes violence. Between Tagore and Gandhi, between the poetry of one and the texts of the other, there were many differences, but there was also a dialogue (Paz, 1996). They are the two shores that allow the construction of a bridge and prevent a free fall towards estrangement and dehumanization. Between Tagore and Gandhi there was a dialogue between the poet and the sage. One manages to unravel the aesthetic fibers capable of shaping a youth, while the other experiences, in silence, the intimate nature of non-violence and translates it into an action plan, called the Constructive Program (Gandhi, 1941). Tagore responds to a frequent question with regard to the origin, foundation and purpose of one of the educational institutions he founded in 1901, he wrote: “In the first place, I must confess it is difficult for me to say what is the idea which underlies my institution. For the idea is not like a fixed foundation upon which 92

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a building is erected. It is more like a seed which be separated and pointed out directly it begins to grow into a plant” (Tagore, 1917, pp. 111–112). However, Tagore recognizes two aspects of the origin of his school Vishva-Bharati, absence and presence, which characterize his confession. Absence because the foundation of his school is neither an educational theory nor a book imposed upon human beings and the world, but a creative educational experience that creates harmony between the student and the world. And I say presence because Tagore sustained his educational project on a foundational pillar which is that the experience of education “does not only provide data, but brings our lives into harmony with all existence” (Tagore, 1917, p. 253). Tagore left school at about 14 years of age. However, at 40, he founded an educational institution characterized by arts, aesthetics, promotion of the creativity of young people, as well as critical thinking, multiculturalism and global citizenship. In 1913, at 53 years of age, he became the first non-European citizen to receive the Nobel Prize of Literature. Tagore’s educational ideas regarding the educational dynamic for young people—among other examples—are not fixed nor are unchangeable constructions. They rest on certain foundations but are closer to the image mentioned by Tagore: seeds that become plants, unable to be contained or extracted from the space-time context. In both the case of seeds and educational models, our crucial focus should be on caring for them and allowing them to flourish. In other words, we need to be gardeners who nurture, renew and prune in order to allow growth. The image, in its simplicity, illustrates another possible approach to how we understand the educational experience of a young person in an educational proposal without fixed models. Let us proceed to the second moment and the task of connecting the Bengali poet’s educational project with the topic that concerns us. Tagore practiced several ways in which harmony between the student and the world was a formative characteristic in the children and youth of his school. All of this is mentioned by him in essays such as Personality (1917), which are the collected lectures in Tagore’s visit to America. The most intricate weave of his harmony lies in learning, and the center of learning is the experience of arts, especially at the basis of dance expressions and creative experiences at the moment when poetry is created. Daily life—seen through a creative dimension learned in school and a self-reflective mechanism of investigating, ƗWPDYLFKDUD, that is self-knowledge: “Self-knowledge for Tagore was a conscious dynamic activity, closely dependent on ‘reflective education’ with its stimulation derived from living experiences …” (Gosh, 2017, p. 27). This educational project consequently, created an educational environment for youth where creativity, imagination, the arts as expression of what had been learned and the profound social and humanistic sense were focused on creative, critical and imaginative learning, and not on the mnemonic study of information. Isn’t an education like this right for the youth of our times? This kind of creative learning is intimately linked to what Tagore understood as freedom.

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PHILOSOPHY OF NON-VIOLENCE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Youth and philosophy of non-violence juxtaposes two of the most complex concerns that exist in today’s educational spaces. The former takes as its starting point the perception of young people that are born, live and design the future in the digital cum hyperconnected era, in the middle of the socio-educational dynamic of complex relations of social inequalities. The latter decidedly proposes a ubiquitous non-violent culture as a core element in the education of young people, and simultaneously as ground for constructing citizenship according to our time. After seeing the cost of violence in Latin America (Jaitman, 2017), alternative proposals are central in agenda of policymakers in education for the next decades. Our proposal here is founded, in many ways, on the current relevance of classical Indian philosophy. Thus, both faces of this juxtaposition are viewed as possibilities and hope. In thinking about violence in the world and how it shapes the future of youth. One of the arguments of this book was based on the idea of DKLPVƗ, nonviolence, as a framework for peace education in the middle of aforementioned vision and numbness. The intention throughout these pages was offering glimpses of hope that are capable of constructing imaginative prospects for young people. Our fascination and certainty that there is hope in dreams and, by their realization, in life is our wager. What is a young person without hope or dreams? What are we—if we hold positions in the educational spaces—if we do not promote such hope, dreams and better reality? This certainty can be distant for some, but it easily moves closer to the familiar when we remember figures such as Tagore or Gandhi, who simultaneously formulated and materialized one of the central axes that stitches the framework of this project together: non-violence as practice, training, and by means of social transformation for young people even in contexts of violence and despair. The proposal of educational poetics for a ubiquitous culture of non-violence takes as a starting point three specific areas. The first is the complex interrelation with the stress and psychological factors that affect young people (Martínez Ruiz, 2016a). In this case, I use the Sanskrit concept GKƗUDQƗ, as the lens for understanding and defining this starting point, and the emphasis upon sustained attention and concentration. The second area of study is developed within the frontiers of education and its intimate connection with the social, and the suggested approach is DKLPVƗ or non-violence (Gandhi, 2016), one of the central concepts of this book. The third is focused on addressing today’s issues, such as the educational model of Rabindranath Tagore (1917). My proposal with its three ideas maintains a simple but ambitious hypothesis which is that parallels among traditions are explored from the perspective of Indology, revolving around the aim of proposing approaches, methodologies, or reflections—derived from Asian philosophical thought—that contribute to a new understanding of contemporary problems (Ram-Prasad, 2002). This interchange of ideas between South Asia and Western tradition of thought is central to understand the idea of educational poetics. In this sense I argued this interchange before (Martínez Ruiz and Rosado Moreno, 2013). 94

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Today, the knowledge generated by new studies and translations of Sanskrit sources, as well as interdisciplinary research, reveals the obsoleteness of these prejudices. Consequently, the challenge confronted by a proposal of this nature, in its aim to lay bridges between traditions, as Tagore explains: “The object of education is to give man the unity of truth” (Tagore, 1917, p. 126). However, our educational systems separated such unity, and we have accentuated the intellectual and physical. The abovementioned is linked to something else and that is that which encourages us also consumes us like miniscule embers. This something else is utopia versus the practice of non-violence. However, even saying it is paradoxical. I mention two cases of practical application of ideals that appear like utopias. On the one hand, let us remember the case of non-violence as action and social transformation, Gandhian utopia, that was accomplished by a program of action and by the gain of the independence of a country. On the other hand, we have the dream of a creative education, meaningful and fully connected with life, that was carried out by the educational model of Rabindranath Tagore. Violence, in its many and frenetic forms, takes place like a numbing-sleeping spell, strangling human capacities, such as citizenship, critical thinking, creative imagination, argumentation, and understanding, to name just a few. However, this numbing-sleeping is more complex. It also provokes the fading of our capacity for wonder before the mysteries that bring a human being to life. This loss of consciousness is at the same time the forgetting of a common, but jeopardized, task of our human condition, which is the search for meanings (Tagore, 1913). Very probably the disappearance of this search triggers the abandonment of inquiry into the nature of this universe and the human condition. This numbingsleep recklessly dissipates our capacity to hear vibrating waves of the delicate mystery that is life being fragmented by a powerful, uncontainable yet fragile fountainhead: violence. Fragility, even more than the strength, is what drives violence and cultivates this numbing-sleep, and results in the annihilation—whether sharp or gradual—but always of something. Life and death are two mysteries that make us human, but the complex web of violence can nullify or put us to sleep. Throughout history, there have always been times of crises. The state and the idea of crisis are opportunities to expand and enlarge ourselves and achieve a better condition. However, things don’t always work out that way, especially when crises— education, social, financial, or moral—become a damaging subterranean river that continues flowing, constantly working, without warning against those on the surface of its complexity. Martha Nussbaum (2010) defines the crises with the most impact as the silent ones, for example the educational crisis. In this case, we mean the unobvious crises, or better yet, the minimized ones, the ones that pass by unnoticed even if we know they exist. They probably go unnoticed because of the dizzying dynamics of contemporary changes, the distractions, the thousands of images that leave no room for silence, contemplation, and critical thinking. All of this exhausts the mystery of 95

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and respect for life. Without these and other experiences, the sacred in the world and the sensitivity that makes us human, vanish. This disappearance provokes a feeling of orphan hood that young people try to alleviate with different sedatives, some of which are expressed in human conflicts—such as the various forms of violence that impregnate our modern society—or even the use of drugs. In the prologue of Excursions and Incursions, Octavio Paz (1994) expresses it in this way: I don’t aim, of course, to treat this subject and limit myself to observing that, if we really want to combat the use of drugs, we must start from the beginning, that is to say from the reform of society itself and its social and spiritual foundations. Once laid this humble premise, I will make one more comment. I said that abandonment creates a necessity: what is the nature of that necessity; what is its name? It rises from a lack and has many names. It manifests itself sometimes as a thirst for rest and forgetting, others as the thirst for reaching beyond our paltry lives and touching what the tales and myths have promised us. It is an anxiety to escape from ourselves and find what? No one knows exactly. What we do know is that this anxiety is the thirst for happiness, the thirst for wellbeing. (Paz, 1994, pp. 22–23) There is a possibility to cultivate non-violence and understand it not as passiveness but as action as an incentive, in the midst of the modern numbness, which finds its counterpart in what Octavio Paz calls the thirst for happiness. In the simplicity of this intention we can hear the echo of the Aristotelian voice speaking of happiness or eudaimonia that, as complete simplicity, is chosen for its own sake and never for any other reason (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1097b). The abandonment and sensation of orphan hood are experiences of youth that can be covered up by the use of drugs or thousands of meaningless things, or they can trigger the search—in the widest sense—of something that transcends the paltriness and inspires this thirst for happiness. In this search, inspired by happiness, there are moments in which what we know as social and educational should be lived with the same passion with which we live the situations in our small private worlds. Octavio Paz explained it better, referring to Jean Paul Sartre: Sartre lived the ideas, struggles, and tragedies of our time with the intensity with which others live their private dramas. It was awareness and a passion. The two words do not contradict each other because his was the awareness of a passion; I mean to say: awareness of the passage of time and of men. (Paz, 1994, p. 397) In thinking how other authors engaged in interdisciplinary and non-western approaches towards two thematic horizons, youth and non-violence, Ram-Prasad (2003) distills a proposal from many years of philosophical analysis from IndoEuropean notion of otherness and a daring concept of violence which are based on Jainism and Gandhian thoughts. He offers a moral response contained within nonviolence, and focuses his analysis on the cultural practices that feed social inequality. 96

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He studies specifically how the development of moral criteria in children and youth evolves through mechanisms that respond to the moral relativism of every society. Another approach to the moral relativism and plausibly related to violence is Elliot Turiel’s research (2013), which analyses one of the most complex frameworks that engenders violence and that is social inequality and injustice. We find reasons for considering non-violence, the promotion of citizenship, and argumentation as central themes for the design and implementation of the educational training that young people receive now and in the future. For this reason, considering the young generation that will replace that which comes before it, with a vision of a future capable of constructing a culture of non-violence, specifically interrelated with that of a kind of citizenship that holds its rightful place in contemporary education is critical. It provides an example of the foundations—open for consideration—to promote non-violence and cultivate the faculty of argumentation. Non-violence and argumentation are directed towards the design of the education of young people. It puts forth cases of moral and political reflection on political and moral aspects of the study, application, and learning of logic. The violence of young people’s lives has become a serious issue that—as they point out—is a cause of death and conflict all over the world, and that has had alarming repercussions in public health, in addition to its religious, educational, and socioeconomic impacts. Understanding the costs of violence is an urgent issue. Just taking into account that it costs in Latin America 3.55% of regional GDP (Jaitman, 2017), reveals that for the future this cost will be increasing for the next years. Education is not enough to approach and solve the problem of violence, but it is central to create strategies for a culture of peace and for shaping a better future. Thus, how the subject of violence is of interest to educational researchers, in some societies it is a central issue, due to the rise in juvenile violence in schools and the higher social impact of the culture of bearing weapons among youth. Confronting the problem of violence at many levels of quotidian life, should be approached from different sides, of which one of these is a proposal based on educational poetics. Nevertheless, causes and current complex scenarios must be approached to figure out, why does the future need educational poetics? What is the relationship between an educational poetics for the future and problems in the present? Let’s see in the next part some of these problems shaping the ground for an answer as educational poetics. REFERENCES Aristóteles. (2003). Ética Nicomáquea, Ética Eudemia. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos. Gandhi, M. K. (1945). Constructive program: Its meaning and place. Ahmedabad: The Navajivan Trust. Gandhi, M. K. (2011). From Yeravda Mandir. Ahmedabad: The Navajivan Trust. Gosh, R. (2017). Aesthetics, politics, pedagogy and Tagore: A transcultural philosophy of education. West Bengal: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/ pdf/10.1057%2F978-1-137-48026-2.pdf

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CHAPTER 9 Jaitman, L. (Ed.). (2017). The costs of crime and violence: New evidence and insights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. Retrieved from https://publications.iadb.org/bitstream/handle/11319/8133/The-Costs-of-Crime-and-Violence-NewEvidence-and-Insights-in-Latin-America-and-the-Caribbean.pdf?sequence=7&isAllowed=y Martínez Ruiz, X. (2008). Siva-Sutra. Estudios de Asia y África, XLIII(1), 141–157. Retrieved from http://www.redalyc.org/comocitar.oa?id=58611165006 Martínez Ruiz, X. (2016a). Concentration is the seed: Conscious attention in educational scenarios. In M. Powietrzynska & K. Tobin (Eds.), Mindfulness and educating citizens for everyday life. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/ chapter/10.1007/978-94-6300-570-8_3 Nussbaum, M. C. (2012, October 26). Speech by Martha C. Nussbaum, Prince of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences, Acceptance ceremony, 2012, Oviedo. Retrieved from http://www.premiosprincipe.es/ discurso/martha-c-nussbaum-premio-principe-asturias.html Nussbaum, M. C. (2010). Sin fines de lucro. Por qué la democracia necesita de las humanidades. Buenos Aires: Katz Editores. Park, R. E. (1952). Human communities. Glencoe: Free Press. Paz, O. (1994). Excursiones e Incursiones. In Obras completas 2. Cuidad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Paz, O. (1996). Obras Completas de Octavio Paz (Vol. 10). Cuidad de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Powietrzynska, M., & Tobin, K. (2016). Mindfulness and educating citizens for everyday life. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-946300-570-8 Radhakrishnan, S. (1998). Mahatma Gandhi: Essays and reflections. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House. Ram-Prasad, C. (2002). A comparative treatment of the paradox of confirmation. Journal of Indian Philosophy, 30, 339. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021125219309 Ram-Prasad, C. (2003). Non-violence and the other: A composite theory of multiplism, heterology and heteronomy drawn from Jainism and Gandhi. Angelaki Journal of Theoretical Humanities, 9(3), 1–22. Ricard, M., Lutz, M., & Davidson, R. (2014). Neuroscience reveals the secrets of meditation’s benefits. Contemplative practices that extend back thousands of years show a multitude of benefits for both body and mind. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ neuroscience-reveals-the-secrets-of-meditation-s-benefits/ Tagore, R. (1988). La luna nueva, Nacionalismo, Personalidad, Sadhana. Cuidad de México: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Dirección General de Publicaciones y Medios. Tagore, R. (1913). 6ƗGKDQƗ7KHUHDOLVDWLRQRIOLIH. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company. Tagore, R. (1917). Personality: Lectures delivered in America. London: MacMillan and Co. Limited. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/personalitylectu00tagouoft#page/4/mode/2up Tagore, R. (1961). A poet’s school. In L. K. Elmhirst (Ed.), Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer in education: Essay and exchanges between Rabindranath Tagore and L. K. Elmhirst. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/PioneerInEducation-RabindranathTagore Turiel, E. (2013). Razonamiento moral, prácticas culturales y desigualdades sociales. In X. Martínez Ruiz & D. Rosado Moreno (Eds.), Estudios de la juventud y filosofía de la no violencia. Cuidad de México: IPN, Colección Paideia Siglo XXI.

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EPILOGUE Autumn Dissipates

To the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, México1 Indeed, the future of education is uncertain, but something is in our hands. When this book reaches the reader, 4 years will have passed from an autumn which vanished when it was just beginning, an autumn embedded in our memory: 43 stories ceased, detained in silence. The ineffable pain is still throbbing, the pain of 43 voices and gazes that are silenced and blinded, but are also longing, and hoping to be a voice. There is no voice if there is no one listening. We can listen. We should listen. May this silence be the sun and the earth of a field where 43 forms of hope and freedom flourish and flower. Let us be the gardeners of this earth, so that children and youth do not forget the 43 trees in a garden of hope, peace without time, a rest from pain in the middle of light and silence. So that children and youth may live full lives, that they may live their dreams and, while doing so, they may listen in the boundless silence to hope and freedom speaking to them in their 43 ways. NOTE 1

On the night of September 25th, in 2014, in Mexican State of Guerrero, Iguala, 43 students of Ayotzinapa Normal School disappeared. Over these years our claim was against such injustice, pain, grief and violence. Even till now we don’t know where the students are. Thus we call at international community to let them know: no more! So, a Spanish version of these lines and others was published – with some hope and critical thinking, but after 4 years I don’t know—in Martínez Ruiz, X. (2015). Palabras en epílogo. Innovación Educativa, 15(68), 13–14.

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004398061_010

INDEX

A Abilities, 27, 33, 46, 47, 52, 64, 66, 78 Accomplished, 12, 48, 95 Action, 5, 39, 46, 50, 52, 66, 73, 82, 86, 91, 92, 95, 96 Active non-violence, 4, 71 Adolescence, 3, 4, 22, 23, 27, 30, 32, 33, 47, 51, 60, 61, 94–97 $KLPVƗ, 7, 89, 92, 94 Analysis, 4, 9, 10, 13, 31, 39, 42, 49–51, 55, 59, 63, 90, 96 Approach, 4, 5, 13, 21–23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 38, 40, 45, 50, 51, 56, 62, 63, 71, 92–94, 96, 97 Aristotle, 46 ƖWPDYLFKDUD Attachments, 5 Attention, 3–5, 7, 16, 29, 33, 37, 38, 45, 50, 51, 73, 80, 89–97 Awareness, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13, 15, 23, 24, 28, 31, 34, 37, 39, 45–48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 64, 71, 74, 87, 96 Ayotzinapa, 99 B Banyan tree, 6 Barber Paradox, 49 Basics, 3–7 Bauman, Zygmunt, 49 Beckstead, Neil, 22, 40 Behavior, 11, 12, 38, 41, 45, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 60 Being, 3, 4, 9–13, 15, 16, 21, 23–29, 31, 32, 38–40, 43–52, 54, 56, 60, 62,

66, 67, 72–75, 77–82, 84–86, 89, 91, 93, 95, 96 Bengal, India, 73 Bengali poet, 6, 15, 72–74, 77, 83, 93 %KƗYDQƗ Bodily movement, 86 Bostrom, Nick, 10 Brain, 3, 28, 29 Breath, 5, 81, 87 Breathing, 80 Breathing, exercises, 80 Breathing, meditation, 80 Buddhism, 4 Buddhist meditation, 43 Burnout Society, 10 Butterfly, 71, 83 C Capabilities, 12, 22 Capacity, 7, 11, 13, 25, 33, 39, 45, 47, 52, 63, 65, 66, 71, 74, 85, 87, 91, 95 Classical Sanskrit texts, 4 Cognition, 71–75 Cognitive development, 6 Cognitive processes, 28–30 Concentration, 7, 87, 89, 90, 94 Concept, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 31, 33, 39, 46, 63, 65, 74, 79, 80, 84, 86, 90–92, 94, 96 Concept of educational poetics, 3, 4, 14, 80 Conscious attention, 3, 4, 7, 33, 37, 45, 50, 89–97 Conscious awareness, 4, 11

101

INDEX

Consciously observed, 4 Constructive, 4, 6, 49, 51, 78, 92 Constructive Program, 92 Constructive role of art, 6 Contemplation, 3–7, 13, 14, 21–34, 52, 66, 71, 74, 77–87, 89–90, 95 Contemplative experience, 13 Contemplative practices, 89 Contemplative silence, 6, 14, 56, 71 Contemporary education, 4, 13, 32, 33, 52, 83, 97 Creation, 3–6, 11, 14–16, 33, 44, 45, 51, 55, 56, 59, 61, 71, 72, 75, 78–84, 87, 90 Creative, 4–6, 11, 13, 16, 17, 22, 29, 30, 32–34, 56, 71, 72, 77–79, 81–84, 87, 90, 91, 93, 95 Creative contemplation, 3–7, 13, 21–34, 52, 66, 77–87, 89, 90 Creative improvisation, 4, 72–73 Creativity, 6, 7, 29, 30, 32, 33, 65, 71, 81, 83, 93 Critical conscience, 9, 40 Critical thinking, 26, 28, 29, 91, 93, 95, 99 Cultivate non-violence, 92, 96 Curriculum, 32, 33, 37, 82 D Daimon, 46 Data, 9, 12, 22, 27, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 48, 53–56, 93 Dawkins, Richard, 50, 51 Decodification, 51 Demographic, 21–23, 51 Descartes, Rene, 65 Development, 4, 6, 9–12, 21–24 'KƗUDƼƗ 'K\ƗQDP Difficult students, 25 Digital ethics, 5, 10, 13, 45, 66 Digital technology, 38 102

E Education, ix, 3–7, 9, 13–17, 21–34, 38–40, 42–48, 51–56, 59–67 Educational, ix, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13–17, 21–34, 38–40, 42–48, 51–56, 59–67 Educational poetics, 3–7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, 26–31, 38, 40, 45, 46, 53, 55, 56, 64, 65, 71–74, 78–84, 86, 87, 89, 94, 97 Educational systems, 9, 13, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 61, 62, 64, 72, 74, 75, 78, 80, 83, 95 Educative, 5, 85, 87 Educative interventions, 28–34 Elmhirst, Leonard, 73, 81, 85 Embodied experience, 84 Emergence, 42, 49, 79, 80, 85 Emotion, 25, 28, 29, 66, 71–75, 77 Emotion and cognition, 71–75 Emotion regulation, 47 Emotional intensity, 96 Employment, 32–34, 44, 60–62 Ethical awareness, 3, 23, 39, 46, 48, 53, 55, 56 Ethical consciousness, 21, 42, 46, 47 Ethical development, 46–48, 51 Ethical regulation, 3, 23, 42, 45, 48, 53 Ethics, 5, 10, 13, 24, 26, 39, 40, 44–50, 52, 54, 55, 63–66 Ethnographic study, 54, 56, 64 Ethos, 45, 46, 51, 52, 63, 65 Eudaimonia, 96 Event, 32, 37, 86 F Feelings, 85, 96 Floridi, Luciano, ix, 10, 45, 56 Fourth Revolution, 46, 48 Freedom, 3–7, 9, 10, 13–17, 29, 39, 41–43, 52, 71–74, 77–87, 89, 91, 93, 99

INDEX

Future of Artificial Inteligence, 10, 21–26 Future of education, 3, 9, 17, 33, 40, 43, 53, 56, 99 Future of human being, 38 Future of innovation, 53–55 Future of technology, 39, 44, 53 Future progress, 23 G Gandhi, Mohandas, 16, 89, 92, 94 Gandhian, 16, 95, 96 Gandhian DKLPVƗ, 92 Gandhian non-violence, 59–67, 92 Gandhian philosophy, 94–97 Global citizenship, 32, 44, 47, 49, 63, 66, 93 H Happiness, 43, 96 Harmony, 5, 17, 71, 72, 74–75, 77–80, 83–87, 89, 90, 93 Historical context, 52, 66, 91 Hofkirchner, 48, 49 Homogenized educational system, 83 Human capacities, 12, 16, 95 Human condition, 38, 92, 95 Human dilemmas, 16 Human hopelessness, 17 Human values, 24 Human vulnerability, 91 Humanistic disciplines, 50, 66, 92 Humanistic perspective, 26–29 Humanizing, 6 HyperconnectivitY, 9, 14, 16, 49, 63, 64, 77–78, 84 Hyperconsumption, 43 I Imagination, 4–7, 15, 16, 33, 47, 66, 71, 77–79, 81–83, 93, 95 Increasing inequalities, 59

India, 3, 17, 22, 25, 31, 49, 62, 73, 80, 83–85, 89 Indian education, 17, 22, 31, 62, 80, 83–85 Indian philosophy, 74, 94 Indian thought, 3, 83, 85 Indian tradition, 49, 83–87, 90 Individualism, 39, 45, 47 Individuality, 43, 45, 48, 51, 85 Indology, ix, 13, 94 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), 22, 42, 45, 46, 48, 54–56, 65 Information revolution, 44, 54 Information technologies, 40, 44 Infosphere, 10, 37–40, 43–50, 52, 55–56 Infraethics, 45, 46 Innovation, 3, 9–11, 13, 21–34, 37–40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 49, 52–56, 59, 62, 64, 65 Instruments of our instruments, 12, 40–45 Intentionality, 39, 41, 46, 55 Interest, 11, 12, 14, 37, 44, 46, 51, 54, 77, 89, 97 International Labour Organization, 61 Intervention, 3, 4, 6, 15, 16, 28–34, 39, 47, 74, 75, 83, 89 Intuition, 14, 82, 85 J Jaeger, Werner, 79 Jainism, 96 Japan, 23, 62 Jeopardize the future, 3 Jeopardizing democracy, 41 Jeopardy, 24 Job skills, 61 Joy in imagining, 32, 77 Judgment, 5, 46, 66, 82 Juxtapose, 49, 84, 94

103

INDEX

K Kane, T. B., 79 Kashmir philosophy, 4 M Mahatma Gandhi, 16, 90, 92, 94 Manuscripts of Tagore, 16 Mechanisms of predetermination, 11, 12 Meditation, 4, 7, 17, 65, 80, 87, 89–90 Meditations on First Philosophy, 65 Mental equanimity, 4, 89, 90 Metacognition, 28–30 Metacognitive pedagogy, 28 Metacognitive practices, 4 Method, 4, 5, 9, 13, 56, 72, 73, 83, 89, 90 Mind and body, 16, 17, 86, 87, 89 Mindfulness, 5, 7, 13, 17, 26, 27, 28, 47, 78, 89 Mindfulness and creative contemplation, 3–6, 13, 21–34, 66, 77–87, 89, 90 Mindfulness intervention, 3, 4 Mindfulness meditation, 4, 17, 89–93 Mindfulness practice, 4, 6 Mindfulness strategies, 89–93 Monier-Williams, 24, 31, 47 More, Thomas, 63 Motivation, 33, 84 Multiculturalism, 66, 93 Musical appreciation, 6 Musical skills, 30 P Paideia, 79, 86, 87 Piketty, Thomas, 10, 26

104

Poetic creation, 3, 4, 14, 15, 71, 75, 78–80, 82, 83, 87 Predetermination, 9–14, 22, 52, 89 Pythagoras of Samos, 31 R Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi, 96 Risks, 3, 6, 10, 14, 21 S 6ƗGKDQƗ, 15 Samasa, 47 Sanskrit, ix, 3–7, 24, 31, 47, 90, 94, 95 Sanskrit texts, ix, 4, 15, 90 Satyagraha, 92 Shantiniketan, 13, 73, 77, 79, 80, 83 Siksha Satra, 81 Social interaction, 43, 45 Society of predetermination, 9–14, 22, 52, 89 Socrates, 46, 49, 52, 63, 65 Sriniketan, 73, 77, 81 T Tagore, Rabindranath, ix, 3, 4, 6, 13, 15–17, 71–75, 77–87, 89–95 Technification, 40, 41 Technological innovation, 3, 9, 21–23, 26, 37–39, 42, 45, 48, 49, 52–54, 56, 59 Tobin, Kenneth, ix U 8SDQL‫܈‬DGV, 15 8SHNNKƗ, 47 V Vasconcelos, José, 91