On #Adiwidia, a (Brief) Letter to Sir Ken Robinson

Sir Ken Robinson,

I am writing after having downloaded and viewed your TED talk on education. I agree with you and would like to take it a step further.

I think that for humanity to improve and the world to become a better place, educational reform is key. Under the framework of this reform schools have to produce one thing and one thing only: people capable of thinking and questioning everything.

How is that to be accomplished? I don't know. Perhaps the education system should be modeled as such that students (from junior high on) are free to pick out classes they would like to attend according to interest and aptitude.

But the outcome should always be: people capable of thinking and questioning everything.

Today's education system is rooted in the idea that we should indulge our propensities to either amass wealth, hold power, or gain knowledge as an end in themselves rather than as a means to an end.

This is where I encourage you to read my open letter to W. Axl Rose and to watch the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day (1993).

Yes. Really.

The reason education needs to produce people capable of thinking and questioning everything is because it must facilitate the process of people transforming themselves from the egoistic man into the altruistic man: everything else is but a means to this end. Systems of learning should become places of 'adiwidia', an Indonesian word borrowed from Sanskrit meaning 'the highest knowledge' or 'superior knowledge' (and a word I feel to be too obscure in the Indonesian vocabulary considering its meaning).

I live in Indonesia and I'm trying to run a very modest publishing project. Also, I'm disillusioned with the education system here.

Thank you for your time and take care.

Sincerely,
Laurens Sipahelut

This letter was published earlier as a tweet.