A recent local debate was dedicated to the future of education. English sociologist 
Furedi is a representative of thinkers that agitate against the properties and effects of a post-modern society. He analyses the way we value things like intellectualism and knowledge in a post-modern society to be problematic. They have lost there intrinsic value and have become valuable as instrumental to a different means, a deduction of money through the concept of a hyper capitalistic society. Being instrumental and not intrinsically valuable means that whenever something more efficient or effective comes along we can replace the old with the new. This is what is happening at the moment, Furedi says, in the education system. He warns us to rethink this before it is to late and we have to come to the conclusion that knowledge and intellectualism have disappeared while they have been the cornerstone of human development throughout history. Furedi thereby tells us that there is a intrinsic value in knowledge, a sense of truth as you may put it.
Moravec has a totally different perspective. The knowledge that Furedi talks about, he says, can be found on devices that fit the palm of your hand. Memorizing topography is purposeless when you have a device that supplies you with everything you need to know and beyond. What becomes truly important is the skill to operate these devices, or in other word to manage knowledge, and relate that to knowledge in different areas, thereby creating a context for creation and innovation. This table illustrates how he signalyzes and formulates a shift from an industrialized society, through a post modern society, towards a knowledge orientated society. His concept of the knowmad explains his view on the necessity of a different perspective in comparison to a workplace that requires “people to settle in one place to perform a very specific role or function.” The education model has to be reshaped to ‘prepare’ students for this new workplace.
Now the statememt/ question:
Who is going to fill all these hand held devices with knowledge, how are we going to take care that the report of history does not end here, how are we going to ensure the value of accumulating knowledge and what other intrinsically valuable aspects might be lost as well in his future of education?
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Like Moravec said, Furedi’s concept of ‘knowledge’ is not more then just ‘information’. And information is what all kinds of devices can handle or keep better than humans. It is what we do with all the information that’s important. Furedi doesn’t really talk about that, about creativity he doesn’t say a thing. Too bad!
And about handwriting, well, I do it lot’s of times but can’t even decipher my own scribbling anymore because of the ugliness. Not because I mostly use devices; for me it’s too much a question of the past and not of the future. All those piles of paper with ugly handwriting, what a waste! ;-)
I agree with you on a large part. Still I think there is some intrinsic value in ‘carrying’ the knowledge yourself as a human being. I don’t thing the human brain is but a processor, as well as it is not just a hard disk. To me, intuitively as I don’t know a lot about human physics, let alone the human brain, the unique thing of a human is that it has integrated both the processor and the hard disk into this grey compote that fills the top part of our body. Memorizing all kinds of facts, information, knowledge or what ever you might call it is I think a sort of preset or default in which some one approaches the world. It is the context for interpreting the world and also the source of creativity, in this sense seen as connecting new experiences, observations or objects to information gathered in the past. An external hard drive will not do this for you I guess…
Well, we agree, I think! And both not with Furedi… And one thing, we shouldn’t overestimate ourselves as human beings ;-)