Positive education, or just education

Abstract

The quality, sustainability, and future perspective of any modern society depend on the quality of its educational system. The globalization of information, trade and travel, along with the increased level of competition following it, has put an immense focus on education everywhere. Cultures and societies stand and fall with their ability to foster citizens able to carry the torch further onward; and willing to, as they find it worthwhile. However, many of the initiatives taken to improve education over the last decades have failed to impress, and have often come at a high price, with many pupils and teachers suffering demotivation, stress, and even depression. Currently, the overwhelmingly dominating paradigm around the world is one of centralized control over content combined with decentralized economy, predominantly top-down-management, monitored through standardized testing, comparative statistics in form of rankings, often sadly tempered by a culture of low trust and a sense of diminishing professional autonomy. This paradigm is very much in line with the so-called New Public Management paradigm taken from organizational leadership studies, which in many ways function similarly to what is squarely known as privatization of public institutions dating back to the Reagan-Thatcher era in the 1980s. It is by and large an extension and elaboration of the industrial type of mass education that has been dominating for more than two centuries, but it has been continuously "refined" by use of still more detailed curricular demands and sophisticated evaluation technologies for centralized monitoring. The paradigm does hold some merit in that it is able to bring a population together in a shared "form", and teach specified content as to ensure common language, knowledge, values, and practices.