Resource Paper

Education for the 21st Century in Asia

Prof. Kim Yong-Bock
Chancellor
Advanced Institute for the Study of Life

Education is a kind of cultural action for the sharing of life-wisdom in community. In the Asian traditions, this sharing of wisdom about life was passed down through the generations in households, religious communities and societies. Following the commercial and colonial penetration by the Western power, however, Western education has become dominant among the Asian people: now modern (Western) education is not only an integral part of the modern state, but it occupies all the public space for education in schools and societies. Moreover, in recent years the high-tech mass media has taken a prominent role in cultural inter-action, which is a new form of cultural action. Traditionally, education has served the ruling classes. In modern times it has also served the nation states. The dominant elites have dictated the system of education for the people.

In the context of globalization, education has been transformed to serve the global market, whereas previously it served the ruling powers of Asian nations. That is, education has become Westernized and globalized according to the dictates of the "principalities and powers" (transnational corporations, banks, nation states, the World Trade Organization, IMF, World Bank) of the market.

In the context of Korea, the Buddhist religious communities, the Confucian Sowon, and other religious communities served the powers-that-be throughout history. All of us probably can tell similar stories from our own countries in Asia. In modern times the nation states played an active, even dominating, role in shaping education through the state educational system and the public media. Nowadays, however, not only is education serving the global market; but the market is making education into a commodity in the global market.

For us, the most important point is that education as cultural action must be a primary act by the people as the subject. From their parents, the young learn how to love life as well as how to survive. The learner is the subject of education, not the teacher. Wisdom and knowledge are the gifts of God to the people as God's partners for life in history and the universe. Leaders such as Moses and Elijah are teachers who mediate the God-given wisdom and knowledge to the people of God. Jesus is the greatest teacher (Rabbi), who mediated God's wisdom and knowledge for the full and eternal life of all living beings. The ultimate objective of these teachers is to serve the people so that they may become the subject of wisdom and knowledge for life. From this Biblical perspective the learning people are the primary subject of education-the sharing of wisdom and knowledge.

The next important point for us is that the people live with wisdom and knowledge, creatively responding to their life-situation. Wisdom and knowledge are not static objects, but creative and cumulative cultural action to be shared dynamically in community and throughout history. When wisdom and knowledge were transmitted orally by memory, they were dynamic and creative. But now they are carried by symbols, and they need to be interpreted according to the situation. Education is cultural action and cultural action is a creative act. Freire has pointed out that knowledge is not an object to be deposited as in banking. Learning is an action, a creative action to create wisdom and knowledge out of the experiences of actual life.

The third important point for us is that a cultural action (education) rejects the modern dichotomy between scientific and technological knowledge, and wisdom for life. This fragmentation has been detrimental to the life of people and all living beings. All life is interconnected and therefore all wisdom for life is inter-related among all parts and dimensions. Modern states have placed too much emphasis on modern science and technology, which in fact destroy the wholeness of life. Human rationality by means of scientific and technological actions dissects life and manipulates it, dominates and even destroys it for the sake of human greed and power. Education as cultural action is a wholistic action of life in community on earth.

Education as cultural action is a value-creating and value-sharing act for life, in contrast to the domination and manipulation of life. Creation of religious, moral-ethical, cultural and aesthetic values is the height of education, making life abundant. These values are to be created and shared dynamically among the peoples and communities throughout history and the cosmos. Values creation in education cannot be regarded as secondary to scientific and technological knowledge. It is primary: scientific and technological knowledge must be integrated into values of life in a wholistic way.

The most serious danger for education in Asia and the world lies in the fact that it is subjugated to the powers of the global market. Those powers have secured cultural hegemony over all peoples in the world and thereby over the whole of cosmic life. The cultural life of all people-their minds, hearts and senses--is for all practical purposes dominated by the modernist school systems and hi-tech mass media, and colonized by the market forces. Total consciousness as well as conscience is being dictated by the cultural actions of the principalities and powers in the global market.

For us the priority of education (cultural action) is to resist the cultural hegemony of the powers-that-be in the market and to overcome its colonial influence, and to creatively share wisdom for life among all living beings in the universe.

The false education of the globalization process teaches what life is and how it is to be lived by all living beings, according to the dynamics of the global market, which is its driving force. In their push for domination and hegemony, the powers and principalities of the global market cause radical and total reorganization of the peoples and nations of the world.

I would like to focus on seven major problems and alternative "signposts" as a paradigm for life and education.

1. Geo-politically speaking, the US-led military powers are seeking total hegemony over the world. Since the ending of the Cold War with the disintegration of the Soviet-led socialist bloc, the world has become a mono-polar military and political power structure centered in the United States. The questions of peace and war are determined within this geo-political framework, which involves cultural and economic as well as political and military hegemony.
   
   This world imposes upon the people a geo-political worldview that is mono-polar, monolithic and militaristic. This imperial worldview is constructed by the scientific/technological and cybernetic geopolitics (space and time) of domination. In this context peace means military domination, and domination must be total; therefore wars must be total wars.
   
   Our educational agenda is real peace in this world: peace as a people-centered agenda with the people as peacemakers. We are to enjoy peace and to create wisdom for peace to be shared among all peoples and communities.

2. Globalization is driven by global capital, which has integrated the whole world into one big market place, notably through the WTO regime. The global financial powers, backed by the IMF and World Bank, dictate the major financial transactions and turn the market into one big casino for financial speculation, resulting in the sacrifice of nations and peoples.
   
   As its essential component for industrial, technetronic and cybernetic production and marketing, the global market uses the powerful science-technology process. This process is driven by the transnational technocracy of the TNCs, in collusion with governments and universities, functioning as what some call the "industrial-political (-military)-university complex." The goal is maximization of profit and absolute domination over the world, supported by global military hegemony.
   
   Through the global market, the glorification of its economic values is imposed upon the people: mammonism, consumerism, materialism, hedonism and the culture of greed and money power are directly and indirectly inculcated in people and communities. Schools are regarded as an educational market that is supposed to produce educational products of value to the market. At the pinnacle of the values hierarchy are capitalism and modernism.
   
   For us, however, the economy is the oikonomia: the management of the household of life, stewardship of life, sharing and cultivating for life, distributing and producing for justice, and enjoying the feast and celebration of life. The economy is life-enhancing activities and services. Our education in Asia requires a radical alternative with regard to life and to the household of life. Asian religious wisdoms, which have provided alternative visions of economic life in the past, can become precious sources of imagination and vision for new economic life today. The Confucian economy, Hindu economy (as illustrated by Gandhian economics), Buddhist economy, Islamic economy and Christian Jubilee economy, along with many other cultural, religious and philosophical traditions, are reservoirs of vision, wisdom and knowledge for life.

3. Globalization challenges the sovereignty of the people and their nation states. The global market has penetrated all the nation states, undermining the economic, social, political and cultural boundaries that safeguard the autonomous life of the people. Every corner of human community and every location of life are invaded by the powers of the market, suppressing the selfhood and sovereignty of people and their nations, and radically undermining people's participation. National sovereignty in many countries is being eroded by global military hegemony, global economic regimentation, and globalized communications, transportation, satellite operations and cybernetic processes.
   
   Globalization has created a process of cultural and political hegemony that turns living beings into passive objects without selfhood. It colonizes human consciousness, senses, perceptions, conscience, soul and spirit. It rejects national identity as a political question, as shown in the notion of "ethnic state." The political aspirations of ethnic groups and communities are ignored and suppressed, as are their basic human rights. Nation states, as political institutions of the peoples' sovereignty, are weakened and eroded in the globalization process. While education takes seriously the building of democratic and participatory political consciousness among the people, the emerging consciousness of citizens through civic actions and national NGO solidarity building, is viewed negatively.
   
   The educational task of the peoples in Asia is to build cultural action in which the people are political subjects; thus, participation is the political order, and global solidarity is the way to overcome the ongoing subjugation of selfhood and sovereignty. Nation states must be the instruments of the people's sovereignty and rights.

4. Globalization and the global market have created a social vortex of new contradictions and conflicts in the life of the world. The market promotes limitless competition in the name of efficiency. Classical contradictions such as conflicts due to social status, economic class, gender, caste, race, religion and ethnic community have been intensified in violence, expanded and internationalized, in an infinitely complicated way, threatening basic justice and peace, social security, and security of life as a whole. This change is a result of the market process and its teaching of the new social Darwinism, which makes competition the supreme social value: only the fittest survive, and the strongest become the ultimate victors through absolute, limitless competition. This is the market social value, which is necessary for maximum profit.
   
   For us, the educational goal is a community of justice, peace, cooperation and reconciliation. Recognizing our school systems and mass media as not only victims but also the promoters of the process of globalization, we must adopt a new kind of education for justice, peace and life.

5. The globalization process and its market have turned life cultures and cultural activities into commodities for profit. Schools have become markets. Public media have become markets. Information, knowledge, cultural creation, education and training, religious and spiritual programs are all turned into commodities in the market for profit. The market has created a consumerist culture among people throughout the world, through the economic propaganda of global hi-tech media and its commercial advertising. Consequently the cultural identities of peoples are corroded, and their perceptual sensitivity and sense of beauty are distorted. People's genuine cultural creativity for life is suppressed by, and subjugated to, the market.
   
   Modern hi-tech communications and cybernetics, moreover, have not only commodified information, data, knowledge and culture but also have turned them into instruments of power over the people, colonizing them and their consciousness. The corrosive process engendered by the market destroys even the peoples' spirit as the subject of life, totally distorting the nature of wisdom, knowledge, creativity and spirituality to the detriment of healthy and sound, beautiful and worthwhile life.
   
   For us, culture is life-wisdom to be shared. It is at the same time the flower of the people's creativity and the space that allows them to create, enjoy and share their own identity and beauty. Education is cultural action. We Asian peoples are rich and diverse in our cultural traditions, identities and creativity. Asian cultural wisdom must be liberated for fullness of life among all the people in the world. We must reject the Western modernist devaluation and destruction of the cultural wisdoms of our peoples in Asia.

6. Market-dominated and modernist education has devalued life in nature over against human life. Industrial production is based upon the modern anthropocentric worldview that humans are to dominate and exploit nature. Industrial production, accelerated and intensified by the market process, and expanded through modern science and technology in the global market, has created a critical situation in the whole ecosphere, bringing ecological crises and destruction. Modernity and the global industrial market economy have become the very center of the education system.
   
   Western culture and education, dominated by the modern mind, have now come to dominate the formal education system in Asia as well.
   
   We need to restore the wholistic view of the world in which all living beings flourish in convivial solidarity. There can be no separation between humans and culture. There can be no conflict between culture and nature. Nature is an integral part of culture and vice versa. The universe is the womb of cultural and natural life. Our cultural action is an interaction with nature.

7. Modern scientific and technological education, dictated by the market, has devastated the spirit of life. Modernity does not allow any room for religions, unless religions subjugate their faith and truth to the norms of modern rationality. The modern mind has relegated religious convictions to irrationality, superstition and magic.
   
   Educational systems in the modern world do not allow a place for the spiritual unless it is subsumed under the rational criteria determined by modern science and technology. Even when religion is allowed in schools and the public arena, it is regarded as secondary. This has brought about a spiritual depletion in our community.
   
   We need to restore the spiritual foundation of life, which gives the basis for justice, peace and creativity. Education in Asia must be based upon the religious and philosophical convictions of our people.

I have presented these seven signposts as a paradigm for life as well as educational activities. I hope that the Asian people can overcome the situation of globalization and the global market.

Concluding remarks:

I believe that educational philosophy or theory should have the following fundamental elements, which have been transmitted to us from Asian history.

1. The people are subjects of cultural action. Cultural action means that the people are rising as the conscious subjects of their life and they are appropriating and creating the wisdom and beauty of life out of their experiences in the universe. This kind of cultural action is opposed to any domination of the minds and hearts of the people through cultural suppression or control. The awakening of the people as subjects of their life is their conscientisation. Education and cultural action mean conscientization.

2. Cultural action involves resistance against the powers and principalities of the market. Cultural action is an ideological criticism. It exposes money and power in terms of their ideological claims, whether these are expressed through commercial advertising or political propaganda. Cultural action liberates people and life from the silence and suppression imposed by the ideologies of the market powers.

3. Cultural action is the search for a vision of life that is beautiful and full. This means that education is the realization of a vision of life with creativity and imagination. Therefore, creative alternatives should be found to liberate education from its oppressive and dominating institutions through their radical transformation. It is also important to find open and creative space for creative cultural action and education. Religious communities and other public spaces should be opened to such creativity.

4. Faith(s)-based cultural actions are a special privilege of the Asian peoples. We have a rich historical reservoir of wisdom for life, through our peoples' experiences. While the universe is the womb of life, peoples' experiences are the womb of the wisdom of life.