Opening barriers now - New ways of learning and teaching

A wall falls

In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, a brilliant cameraman not only filmed the thousands of people crossing the wall in jubilation, but also the faces of the guards who, dumbfounded, watched their fellow citizens pass in front of them.

On their faces we could read their amazement: so much unleashed joy told them in return what their work had consisted of during the 28 years of the wall. The verdict was final, and they themselves played the role of judge. They could not take part in the jubilation, however contagious.

Not that they endorsed the wall; they were simply part of a system from which they earned their livelihood, and the system was disappearing...

Walls around knowledge

In a system of compulsory school attendance, the individual must necessarily overcome the fact that he or she is being coerced if he or she is to benefit from what is so kindly offered.

But the stricter the system, the less easy this acceptance becomes for individuals, and the more limited it becomes. Many rebel in various ways, and it is then that the actors in this system must actively coerce, usually against their very principles.

After a few years of this regime, to which these actors have themselves been previously subjected as students, there is no longer any easy questioning, and a set of justifications is put in place to defend the coercion allegedly necessary in education. Yet there is nothing more pedagogically false than coercion in learning.

Students' joy at the end of class reminds them, day after day, of what part of their job consists in.

Crumbling walls

The arrival of the Internet and communication technologies in education brings the possibilities of distributed learning, in multiple locations and through a wide variety of sources.

New ways of organizing teaching enable individuals to regain control over their own learning, allowing them to personalize their teaching, and reducing the constraints of schedules, locations, programs and interlocutors. However, they also act as reminders of the constraints imposed and suffered, and in turn provoke the expression of justifications.

There is no such thing as a valid justification when it comes to individuals taking back their responsibilities. Yes, there may be delays, adaptations and adjustments, but the objective of empowering individuals cannot be called into question, especially when students demand it.

Opening the gates to get out... and back in again

Almost everyone who crossed the border after the fall of the Wall came back of their own accord, free to cross again whenever they felt the need or desire.

When we hear civil servants, teachers, school principals or even ministers defending their immobility or appealing to traditional teaching methods, not to pedagogy but to the spirit of directed and controlled teaching, we hear above all the justifications for maintaining a system of domination.

Like the guards left to their own devices with a laconic order on the evening of November 9, 1989, "...citizens will be able to cross the border from... now", they too can decide to open the educational gates; there's no order preventing them from doing so. Almost all governments are in favor of the educational development of their populations, and most of them express this explicitly and frequently.

The authorities want it, the students want it, what are we waiting for? We can accommodate more than one educational regime.

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