FROM INFORMATION TO KNOWLEDGE

“We are living in a Knowledge society, in which connectivity allows us to access all kind of information at unprecedented speed and in multiple format” (Michelle Selinger – Executive Advisor Education – Cisco Systems)
Connectivity is our present and our future: young people know that and are used to living in a digital, web-based world in which they are constantly in contact with other people and communicating via emails, SMS text messaging, chats, etc. They are also naturally multitasking and able to write an email while watching TV, listening to music, etc.

However, the way we get information raises several issues concerning its quantity and quality.

We are being overloaded with an incredible amount of information, from which it seems difficult to select what we are looking for. Besides, not always can we immediately assess the value of the information we get. Young people in particular tend to move from one screen to another, whether it is a TV screen to a PC screen, without making great distinction between them: at the same time the differences between virtual reality and non-virtual reality seem to be less definite, the boundaries between fiction or game and reality are less clear, so that it may become nearly impossible to separate them.

In this scenario the main task of school is to teach learners to:

• locate relevant information and judge the credibility of sources,
• become experts learners,
• learn how to think critically.

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Educate your tribe to help them see things in ways they never imagined. Use simple concepts to help them understand complicated ones. Break things down and explain what is under the hood. They’ll be forever grateful someone took the time to do this for them!

“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots; the other wings”

- Hodding Carter

Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is a successful teaching strategy in which small teams or tribes, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each member of a team or tribe is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus creating an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the assignment until all group or tribe members successfully understand and complete it.

Cooperative efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit so that all group or tribe members:

• gain from each other’s efforts. (Your success benefits me and my success benefits you.)

• recognize that all group or tribe members share a common fate. (We all sink or swim together here.)

• know that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s team or tribe members. (We can not do it without you.)

• feel proud and jointly celebrate when a group or tribe member is recognized for achievement. (We all congratulate you on your accomplishment!).

“We must become the change we want to see in the world

-Mohandas Gandhi.

Fluid social change can only materialize if two circumstances are met. One, the human value system, which consists of our understandings and beliefs, must be updated and changed through education and thoughtful introspection. Two, the environment surrounding that value system must change to support the new world view. The interaction between a person’s value system and their environment is what influences human behavior.

For example, in our culture, “ethics” is really is a matter of degree, for our social system promotes and rewards competition and self-interest. This perspective doesn’t just “lead” to aberrant behavior… it creates it directly. Corruption is the norm in our society and most people do not see this, for since the society supports this behavior, it is considered right and normal… or as a matter of degree.

Given this understanding, there is a fallacy that has emerged where certain groups are deemed “corrupt” and everyone else is “good“. This is the age old “us and them” world view which has no basis empirically, for it is, again, all a matter of degree.

For example, there is a large movement of people who constantly talk about “The New World Order” and this notion that there is an elite group of people who have been trying to take over the world for a long time and have manipulated society in various ways to further their goals.

This, of course, is true to a certain extent.

BUT, the failure of awareness is that this “group” is not a group at all. It is a tendency.

If you took out all the people at the top who are engaged in global hegemonic rule, it would simply be a matter of time before another group stepped in to seek the same ambition. Therefore, it isn’t the individual people or groups that are the problem. It is actually the conditions upon which those people have been accustomed and indoctrinated by. Of course, many argue against this view with the escapist notion that it is “human nature” that causes this competition and need for dominance. This is unsupported by the facts. In reality, we are nearly clean slates when we are born and it is our environment that shapes who we are and how we behave.

Therefore, in order for TRUE change to occur, we must spend less time battling the products of this sick social structure and more time trying to change the root causes. As difficult and daunting as it may be to think this way, it is the only way our world will change for the better.

We can continue to stomp on the ants coming out from under the refrigerator, but until we remove the spoiled food behind it, they are just going to keep coming.

The Zeitgeist Movie

©Limited Copyright 2008-2009 The Zeitgeist Movement

Jeff Pevzner with you… looking forward to connecting with you in the near future.

Stay tuned!