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Education as:
Teaching and Learning within Perspective of Abundance
An Analogy
(through a personal story)
During the academic year 1997/98, I was a visiting scholar at the
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. I did not have an
income and my wife’s salary was not enough for us to live on. The only
way to survive was to change certain aspects in our ways of living and
consuming. One element which was crucial during that period (especially
for me) was eating dandelion which was abundant everywhere. [For those
who don’t know, dandelion is a wild plant, which is very rich in nutrients, and
of which every part is edible: the leaves, the flowers, and the roots, and it
grows wildly in most countries and most and under all kinds of weather.]
I started eating it on a daily basis (of course, as long as the weather was not
too cold for it to grow).
There were two ways in which my wife, Carmen, entered the
story. As a good American, she used to dig and uproot, this “most
undesirable weed” that grows everywhere and ruins everything (which usually
means ruining the grass in the landscape)! I had to plead with my wife in
order not to dig it. The second way in which my wife entered the story
was through noticing me picking leaves and eating them directly from the ground
(especially after it had been raining). She said, “Don’t let any of the
neighbors see you. They will think you are weird.” The image that
immediately jumped into my head and which helped formulate my response was
seeing neighbors eating potato chips, out of strange shiny little bags. I
said, “I see them opening shiny bags and eat something that is artificial and
looks weird. Who should be embarrassed: I who eats something which is
natural, healthy, organic, and abundant, or those who eat something very
artificial, which they claim to be food but really is not?!” Since then,
Carmen and I have been thinking of writing a small book that revolves around
that story, because it embodies two totally different worlds of living.
We haven’t done it yet but some day we will.
In this paper, I am going to choose the theme “scarcity vs.
abundance” to discuss the difference between the two worlds symbolized by PC
and DL: a world governed by the perspective of scarcity and a world lived
through the perspective of abundance, and how this difference is manifested in
two worlds of education. Although now, when I look back at what I have
done in education since 1971, I see that I have been thinking and working
within the perspective of abundance. I never articulated it in these
terms until I read Illich in 2000 (at the recommendation of my friend Gustavo
Esteva), who makes it clear how current institutions have been built around the
scarcity perspective. In other words, scarcity is basic in the
establishment and functioning of institutions and professionals. It is
basic in a world that is governed by the values of control, winning, and
profit.
Before I move on to discuss education within the two perspectives or
worlds, I would like to elaborate a little more on the analogy of dandelion
(DL) vs. potato chips (PC). For DL to grow, all what is needed is the
workings of nature, the workings of the miracle of life. In contrast, PC
needs institutions and professionals and artificial ingredients for its
manufacturing. To be sure, in the case of DL, institutions and
professionals are needed, but only in order to kill the plant, not to help it
grow. They are needed, for example, in order to produce chemicals that
would be effective in killing dandelions; they are needed to transport such
chemicals, to sell them, and to get rid of the containers in which they were
stored. Moreover, official bodies are needed in order to test the quality
of the chemicals, give licenses etc. In addition, special institutions are
needed to certify those professionals who are qualified to produce, transport,
sell, etc. Companies would compete as to which one is more effective in
killing dandelions, and that their ways in killing the plant are more
permanent! Even worse, some department may be created for the specific
role of conducting contests and giving awards to those who prove to be better
killers.
Education within the scarcity perspective vs. within the abundance perspective
Education, in its present dominant form, is built around the
perspective of scarcity. Institutions and professionals are needed at
every step in order to do what can be done naturally within the perspective of
abundance, which is learning. Learning and knowledge become commodities
that need institutions and professionals in order to control every step along
the way. What I would like to present here is how education may look like
within the perspective of abundance. Probably, there is a need to clarify
my position here. When I speak of an alternative to education, I do not mean
one that would fit all, and I do not mean that we should abolish all
schools. Believing in an alternative that is universal, or advocating
abolishing all schools, would be falling into the trap of the dominant
logic. Universal thinking, i.e. believing in a single, undifferentiated
path for progress, is the problem, rather than believing in a particular
way. Advocating compulsory un-schooling would embody the same logic as
advocating compulsory education. My position, in this regard, is to let
schools be for those who want them and benefit from them. What I am
advocating here is ending the hegemony of one form of teaching and learning,
and allowing various ways to grow and flourish. This is a pre-requisite
for a real and sincere movement towards education for all in the sense of
providing spaces, facilities, and means where everyone can learn …
Education for all is possible and meaningful only if we build on abundance,
which means if we allow diversity in the ways through which people learn, which
in turn means having diversity in budgeting (people, for example, using their
money to provide facilities instead of paying to a central ….) Education
for all is impossible within the concept of scarcity.
Teaching and learning within the abundance perspective necessarily
require a shift in our perception of ourselves as human beings and our place in
the world, and our relationship to it. Just like a seed or a root is
uniquely complete (this is a phrase which I heard from Satish and Shilpa in
India), a person, within the abundance perspective, is looked at as uniquely
complete. All what a seed needs is an appropriate environment (soil,
nutrients, water, sun, temperature, and loving care) in order for it to
grow. The internal ingredients are complete and unique in that
seed. [Genetic engineering would make sense in the scarcity perspective.]
Similarly, what a person needs to grow healthily is a healthy
environment. Every person is uniquely complete, which means, among other
things, that comparing and measuring are unnatural, even harmful to that
uniqueness and completeness.
I will first mention some of what I have been involved in
establishing since 1971, which embodies the abundance perspective, and then
what we can do along this perspective now (as an extension of the ideas
embedded in the various projects).
Within the scarcity perspective, the stress is on needs and what
people lack as starting points. Within the abundance perspective, the
stress and the starting point are on what people, society, and culture have.
Abundance is related to:
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Pluralism, not universal thinking
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Cyclic, not linear thinking
Examples from my experience:
Probably the most crucial aspect in our conception and perception of
ourselves within the abundance perspective is considering every human being a
source of meaning and understanding; i.e., looking at people as co-authors of
meanings and understandings and knowledge, and consequently as co-partners in
building reality. This was my conviction in the 1970s when I encouraged
Palestinian students and teachers to start/ form math and science clubs in the
schools of the West Bank in Palestine. They used to ask what they could
do or discuss in these clubs and my answer was always that science starts with
questions that people ask, and which they would like to investigate and follow
up with. I used to tell them, “Come with at least one question that you
are interested in. Together, you form the club.” Questions are
abundant.
Another example: I used to go around and ask children about the
meaning of words such as point and equality; questions such as “what is a
point?” and “what does it mean to say 1=1?” Investigate meanings
independently and then share them with one another. Another example of an
abundant idea. This independent investigation of meaning is central in
Islam. Every person has the right and duty to investigate the meaning of
words, sentences, expressions, etc in light of his/her experiences, readings,
discussions, inner convictions…
I also used to challenge teachers to point to a child who is not
logical. Believing that there are only few people who are logical, and
that they can be logical only if they study logic at some university with
certified professionals, is an example of the scarcity paradigm.
Believing that every person is logical, and that people develop their logic
through interaction with life, is an example of the abundance “paradigm.”
A very important distinction between the two is clear: the scarcity paradigm
embodies the belief in “universals” while the abundance paradigm embodies the
belief in pluralism.
During the first Intifada when Israel closed all schools, I
started a reading and writing campaign. Again, an abundant idea.
Then, the QU project, in which any group can start its magazine… is
another example of building on abundance. The AEF is a forum for all who
are ready to reflect on what they do and express and share it with
others. Every one is invited; the decision to get in is totally
theirs. Qeematu
Concepts like educating, training, empowering, … all fall within the
scarcity perspective.
Like in the case of DL vs. PC, education within the scarcity
perspective requires institutions and professionals in order to do the various
tasks.
Measuring and counting create scarcity…
One last remark: the irony in western thinking is that it
deals with what is abundant as scarce (such as knowledge, expressions,
meanings…) while it deals with what is scarce as if it were abundant (such as
land and water). The level of consumption of water and the use of land
reflects an assumption that they are abundant. So far, it has worked
because the Europeans extended themselves into several continents, clearing
their populations and taking their lands and resources (such as what happened
especially in North America and Australia, and to a slightly lesser extent in
Central and South America). A settler from the US comes to the West Bank
or Gaza Strip and takes land from its indigenous Palestinian owners and uses
their water at the rate of 40 times as much as the Palestinian. Part of
the collapse, which we see in the world today, is due to the fact that there
are no more continents to conquer, and no more resources to steal.
In this sense, the way into the future has to take these two facts
into consideration and build upon them: that knowledge and learning are
abundant and that natural resources are scarce.
Whereas DL is abundant, PC is not, in the sense that it is not
naturally abundant. [It is possible of course that in some regions it is
another kind of plant, which carries the same qualities, that is
abundant.] Killing DL, on the other hand, is unnatural and scarce, in the
sense that it requires a whole set of institutions and professionals in order
for it …
It embodies the spirit of the modern way of living …
Universal thinking has been a major factor in destroying diversity,
distorting pluralism, forcing learning to move along narrow paths, equating
understanding to acquiring information and technical skills and knowledge, and
pushing wisdom aside. The logic embedded in universal thinking naturally leads
to the belief that one person/ people/ nation/ country/ religion/ culture can
be absolutely better than another (according to some supposedly universal
measure!) and, thus, can impose their ideas and ways on the world at large. The
belief that one’s ideas and ways are the best is not new. What is new (and
exclusively characteristic of western civilization) is the successful
diffusion/ dissemination, through “universal” tools (softly or coercively),
certain beliefs and practices as universal. The most effective tool has been
education as it has been conceived and practiced at least during the past 300
years – through a curriculum taught to all students, and through standards
measures, concepts and meanings that are assumed to be universal.
Mathematics and the sciences with their claims to universal truths, and
technology with its magical impact on people, have been part of this triumphant
march of universal thinking and the belief in a linear path for progress.
Ignoring wisdom and pushing it outside people’s consciousness seemed necessary
for science and technology to develop at an amazing rate. However, they have
been, at the same time, a main cause for the catastrophic situation and trends,
which we witness today around us. A civilization (even life) cannot hold
together for too long without wisdom.
Munir Fasheh
Director, Arab Education Forum
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