Why Education Needs Jedi Skills

"A growing number of students write poorly," shared the Dutch AOb 's Education Magazine with us a few months ago. Students are paying less attention to handwriting, and this negatively affects their academic performance. Because, as the saying goes, writing is learning. From my experience, I know that students often justify their lack of writing skills with the excuse that "in the future, we'll do everything on devices" And why not hand over all our work to technological tools if they can do it much faster and more efficiently?

Handing over education to Big Tech is criminal

Such funnel thinking is understandable from students. However, it is deeply concerning when self-proclaimed education experts and tech gurus endorse such reasoning. Don't get me wrong: I am not a Luddite, and I see the benefits of technology, even in education. But always as a supplement and never as a replacement. Always as a tool and never as the goal.

In education, however, technology is taking on a different character. This increasing technologization is largely a symptom of the profound consumerism in education. Mirjam de Rijk reminded us in an article in Dutch magazine De Groene Amsterdammer that many schools are rolling out the red carpet for companies like 谷歌 and 微软 , allowing 'Big Tech' to gain more and more control over our education. As adults, we have the responsibility to resist this. Why? Because, paraphrasing Rey from Star Wars, children need someone to show them their place in the world. Leaving this to 'Big Tech' and companies that relegate 'Don't Be Evil' to a footnote is criminal.

Karl Marx described humans as homo faber, or the working human. He did not have repetitive work in mind, such as constantly tapping answer options on an iPad, but expressing a natural urge for labor and creativity. More importantly, creating and producing to shape the world. This can be quite literal, by building a shelter or a dam. But also figuratively, by writing a humorous poem to cheer people up. In education, however, we see almost exclusively the so-called homo economicus, where students provide training data for algorithms and consume information (but mostly dopamine shots) on the metaphorical assembly line of 'Big Tech,' hardly learning to internalize knowledge effectively, let alone produce something themselves.

Remove screens from the classroom as much as possible

This is a troubling development. Digitization is almost unstoppable, if only because the economy demands it. In European countries, education is one of the last strongholds where the public sector still manages to remain standing, and where we can resist the grasping claws of 'Big Tech.' The 'colonization of the lifeworld,' to borrow from Jürgen Habermas, where the system world (think of the market and bureaucracy) engulfs the lifeworld (think of the public sector), is happening here too. We have a duty to our children to resist this as much as possible. Starting by keeping all unnecessary screens out of the classroom because, as Qui-Gon Jinn, another character from the Star Wars universe, said: 'Your focus determines your reality.' And as soon as students have the chance, they find themselves in the sparkling and flickering reality outside the classroom.

Therefore, this plea for Jedi Skills in early education, to stick to the Star Wars analogy. The importance of this is also demonstrated by the rise and, especially, misuse of generative artificial intelligence. Students submit AI-generated material as their own work, thinking they are fooling the teacher. In reality, they are only fooling themselves.

The idea that we can let technology do all the work is not always true, as Luke Skywalker quickly realizes on Dagobah. On this inhospitable planet, where he meets Yoda, he relies on (developing) his Jedi skills, and technology can do little for him. There, he truly confronts who and what he is—and who and what he is not. For this reason, we must realize that there is ultimately only one reasonable role for technology. What is it? That of R2D2, the 'astromechdroid' that supports Luke through thick and thin with (sensory) information and digital adjustments but cannot take all the work out of the hands of the Jedi. And we haven't even talked about the moments when technology simply fails altogether.

Make children resilient and resourceful

What are these Jedi skills then? The (more cognitive) basic skills we associate with school are obvious: reading comprehension (on paper), handwriting, and mental arithmetic. At the same time, and related to this, we should also make every young person aware of the undeniable interdependence with (their) nature and how important it is to take care of it—and then let them take good care of it. Finally, (mental) resilience and resourcefulness are essential to withstand the challenges of a changing world, especially now that our dependence on technology is increasing. If technology fails us due to an accident or if a malicious power pulls the plug, we are left to fend for ourselves in all our helplessness. And the risk of that happening is clear with the current geopolitical situation. Who, apart from a handful of veterans and Doomsday preppers, would have thought fifteen years ago that advocating survival skills in our elementary education would not be a crazy idea but a bitter necessity? And no, the weekly hours of physical education in their current form do not prepare us for sustaining ourselves in the wild outdoors.

In this regard, we stand at a crossroads. Artifical Intelligence fanboys cheer when artificial intelligence makes 'us' speak a language we don't know in a video. But what good are 'Keynote Speakers' when 'the shit hits the fan'? Excuse my French. Ceci n'est pas une personne polyglotte, we might say freely paraphrasing René Magritte. Let's hope that we can make children Jedi enough to master 'The Force' adequately before non-English speaking highschool kids are unable to even translate what 'May the force be with you' means again.

(This article was originally written in Dutch: Waarom het onderwijs Jedi-skills nodig heeft .)