Humanism instead of Notionism

OPEN-HEARTED REFLECTIONS ON THE MESSAGE OF A LITTLE-KNOWN WORK BY RAINER MARIA RILKE, FOR A MORE HUMANE SCHOOL WITH THE STUDENT AT ITS HEART

A few years ago, in a small second-hand bookshop in Freiburg, Germany, I happened to buy a small book with some little-known writings by Rainer Maria Rilke; it was a very limited edition.

Among the writings I found there was one that particularly caught my attention, it was a series of remarks Rilke made about school and the educational methods of his time. I found them enlightening and very close to the way I saw and felt about school. This was the main reason why I decided to translate it into Italian.

For those who know German or Italian, the following link will take you to the original German text, which is not very well known even in Germany, with my Italian translation on the opposite page:

I think the message that Rilke wants to convey to us in this text is very clear and, unfortunately, still relevant today. The school needs to be transformed, because the school, by following programmes, is always one or more steps behind the present.

School curricula should be projected into the future, not structured around the past and tradition. History, literature, physics and mathematics may all be fine and good things, but they should not be peddled, to quote Rilke, as 'gruel'.

The Nuremberg funnel no longer works for the new generations. The key messages that the school needs to get across to new pupils, if they are to be received, need to be concise, without too many frills and straight to the point.

The new generations are literally digital. Children as young as a few months old intuitively understand how a smartphone's touchscreen works before they learn to speak; they are more fascinated by technology than the thousands of plastic toys that surround them.

Alongside ministerial syllabuses, which should be regularly updated, a new, highly secure and fast school network should be created, modelled on the networks young people use every day, and all school tests should take place on this platform. Notebooks and pens should be joined by handhelds and given equal status.

Intuitive intelligence, which is a feature of the brain present in different ways in each of us, and which is the first to manifest itself in infants, is not taken into account at all in traditional schools.

Although intuition is always the result of our mental processing, it is not rational. This is perhaps the underlying problem of why schools reject the intuitive approach and lateral thinking, which could instead be of fundamental importance in helping those who are gifted with it to learn how to manage and understand its potential and be a new resource for everyone else.

I believe that by adopting such a strategy, by creating a shared and protected school network, many children, girls and boys with dyslexia or other learning 'disorders' would experience school in a much more fulfilling way and the stigma against them would, in time, also disappear from the minds of teachers.

I write from personal experience because I know that living with and adapting to the 'normality' of school as a dyslexic is not easy and requires a tremendous amount of effort that 'normals' will never, ever be able to understand.

When we interact with a machine, our affective filters are lowered and our performance is higher. In particular, children whose brains operate on a different operating system to most other children find it more difficult to use software designed for the operating system of 'normal' students. The hardware and operating system cannot be changed, but with a little common sense and good will, the programmes can certainly be adapted to work on other types of brains.

EMPATHY is what is completely missing in the school, they talk about it all the time but nobody knows how it works or what it is really for, all that counts is to follow the curriculum.

Where and when the majority of the class is at any given time is of little concern to any teacher, all that matters is that Jim and Jane have understood everything and, as usual, have produced an impeccable test, at which point the rest of the class does not count, the teacher's 'conscience' is clear, he has done his 'duty' as a teacher: ASSESSING the students' knowledge on a seemingly neutral scale of numbers or letters.

EMPATHY is definitely the keyword ?? on which all relationships within the school should be based, between teachers and students, between classmates, but also and above all between colleagues, because those who educate should be the first to set a good example.

Even heavy industry is abandoning the Fordist assembly line system because it is seen as outdated and alienating, but it seems to me that the structure of our school is entirely based on the assembly line factory model. When I look at my son's school timetable, it is really frightening.

I would never want to go back to school, especially as a student. I think that the much-vaunted interdisciplinarity of schools does not exist and has never existed, at least in Italy where I studied and in the two school systems where I worked (Germany and Slovenia).

All that is done is to add a little more 'mush' now and then, a new subject, a new atom in the universe of notionism. Subjects do not communicate with each other; they are mere atoms that remain distinct and separate in the minds of students.

The Fordist system can no longer work, even in schools, which should abandon the assembly-line model of the knowledge factory and adopt a new one inspired by the great thinkers of the past, such as Rousseau and our own Rilke.

This school, and I am speaking now as a teacher, should be a bit like a "Botanical Garden", a protected place where the little seedlings, different in nature and origin and all unique, entrusted to us with trust, can grow to their best.

If we do not take into account the needs and feelings of our young learners, what kind of people are we? Certainly not 'educators', as we often call ourselves!

The metaphor of the "Botanical Garden" may seem bizarre, but it is undoubtedly a very apt image, referring directly to Rilke's thought, but also to our increasingly heterogeneous and multiethnic society of today.

Einstein, probably following the Socratic maieutics, said these exact words: Most teachers waste time asking questions aimed at discovering what the pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning is aimed at discovering what the pupil knows and is capable of knowing.

It is precisely the individual's abilities and intelligence that are assessed by the school according to two to a maximum of three of the 9, 10 intelligences that Gardner identified and proposed in his theory of multiple intelligences.

By chasing programmes and structuring itself hierarchically into first- second- and third-class subjects, the school loses credibility and an enormous potential of young minds with aptitudes that are simply different from those that the school stubbornly overestimates and pursues.

Having been educated in Italy and having worked for the last 30 years in two different school systems, in Germany and Slovenia, I think I can afford to stand by what I have said.

Over the years, I have known excellent teachers who always put the pupil first, at the centre, as would be normal. But unfortunately, wherever I have worked, the vast majority of colleagues have seen the class as a group of individuals in which two or three at most stand out, and on these few, and only on these few, they have decided to concentrate and work, leaving the rest of the pupils to graze like a flock in the pasture of notionism.

The chosen few will certainly not be Einsteins in life simply because they were selected by their teachers at school, but simply because of their innate personal aptitude. Conversely, it is very likely that there was someone in the flock who, if taken by the hand and encouraged, would have a greater opportunity to grow and reach higher goals in life.

What the school lacks is the will to change, but unfortunately also the ability to adapt. School is a static structure. Most pupils of past and present generations, apart from that insignificant number of 'model pupils', did not find in school a safe place where they felt protected, but rather, if they did not fit the canon of the 'model pupil', they were never offered an ounce of consideration and respect.

When a person decides to dedicate his or her life to teaching, he or she should be aware of the importance of the role he or she plays in society. Teaching is not just a profession, it is first and foremost a vocation.

It is also true that self-esteem certainly plays a role in our materialistic world. It is true that the best functioning school systems are those in which teachers are paid decently and in relation to the fundamental task they perform in society. But this, which is a fact, should not be a motive.

When a doctor takes the Hippocratic oath before starting to practise, he solemnly swears to treat all his patients without distinction of age, sex, social status, ethnicity, creed... and if he fails to do so, he should theoretically be struck off the register. The same should happen at school.

Teachers at all levels, from nursery school teachers to university lecturers, should take an oath at the beginning of their careers, like doctors, and commit themselves to helping all their pupils, without distinction, to realise their potential in school to the best of their ability. If they fail, they should have the good sense to change careers and pass on the baton.

If you have been patient enough to read to the end, I can add that I am fully aware of everything I have written. I know that I may have been a little disrespectful to the school and that I may have suggested solutions that are, to say the least, utopian, but that is just my point of view, the point of view of a dyslexic teacher who has worked incognito in the school for more than twenty years, from primary to university, without anyone ever noticing. I hope, however, that this outburst of mine will give at least some people food for thought.