New Visions in Education
A large crowd, including many advocates of alternative and humanist schools, greeted David T. Hansen at Columbia University’s Teachers College recently where he spoke movingly about the purposes and possibilities in education. Taking a lesson from his new book Ethical Visions of Education, which includes the ideas and visions of ten of the most important educational philosophers of the twentieth century, he proposed “The Idea of a Cosmopolitan Education as a Response to a Changing World.” He describes a cosmopolitan education as one that “encourages people to learn from all contacts in life and not to recoil from what is different.” He has “images of human solidarity” and (following the ancient Greek model) “citizens of the world.” In addition to these basic values, essential components of a cosmopolitan philosophy are a “moral compass” and “an engine of ideas.” Morality is reflected in how we live our lives and how we regard and treat others. Ideas are generated when all subject matter is considered worthy of study and curricula “expand over space and time.”
Conditions for a cosmopolitan outlook include “a sense of stability through change” and regard for “the unfathomability of life.” Hansen maintains that “life is change…nothing is permanent…all come and go.” Yet he realizes that loss of stability is “a highly unsettling fact,” so much so that “in our time efforts to freeze stability” are sought, as in fundamentalism. He proposes that stability and instability be seen not as opposites but rather as opportunities to discover another space based on “the permanence of impermanence.” A goal of a cosmopolitan education is recognition that “the way of the world is change,” an “inviting rather than threatening” truth. The unfathomability of life, the endless cycles of joy and pain, should be embraced for the diversity they represent. Cosmopolitans recognize there is as much diversity within a person and within a community as between persons and between communities. Cosmopolitans do not look for homogenization but, rather, for the endless possibilities given to us. Education does not offer “fixed prescriptives” on how to get on with life; it looks for purpose and meaning. Cosmopolitanism is an approach. In the classroom it helps take us from the local to the global and helps transcend differences.
David Hansen’s talk and book were sponsored by the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century (BRC), an international peace group. Executive director Virginia Benson explains, “We need a lot more peace education in the United States…Peace is not just the absence of war, but a culture of caring…An ethical education and character formation for peace will produce people who create this culture for the sake of the human future.” David T. Hansen is professor and director of the philosophy and education program at Teachers College.#