Karlshochschule International University

Alvin Toffler: Shut down the public education system

Autor: Prof. Dr. Lutz Becker am 7.05.2010

This morning I was quite impressed reading an article tweeted by Vera Birkenbihl. It’s an interview with the American writer and philosopher Alvin Toffler. In this conversation Toffler claims that the educational system has to be redesigned from the scratch:

We should be thinking from the ground up. That’s different from changing everything. However, we first have to understand how we got the education system that we now have. Teachers are wonderful, and there are hundreds of thousands of them who are creative and terrific, but they are operating in a system that is completely out of time. It is a system designed to produce industrial workers.

Toffler criticizes the public education system in the US. Nevertheless most of his ideas and critics can be applied to the German educational system too. His ideas may sound quite radical, nevertheless between the lines you may find a blueprint of Karlshochschule’s educational concept.

PS: I do not think the public education system should be shut down. Nevertheless there is a need for alternatives.
PPS: For sure there are differences between the German and American education philosophies. But also here Humboldt’s ideals are only half of the story.