Replying to LO28066 --
Dear Organlearners,
Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> writes:
>In Europe some strange things happen at universities.
>One of the most serious changes is that some 6 or 700
>years of tradition has thrown away. The old tradition
>will be transformed to the Anglo-Saxon system of
>Bachelors and Masters degrees and here in the
>Netherlands the Master course will be given in the
>English language. Can you imagine - a Dutch professor
>lecturing to a majority of Dutch students in English?
Greetings dear Leo,
No wonder that you have quited. According to your masterpiece "Learning
from Organisations " and with in your mind the beautiful mineral rich mica
being devoured by the plasmoidal crystal as is shown in
< http://www.learning-org.com/graphics/LO28063_fig5.jpg >
I would have quit too.
This addiction of too many universities to produce and consume information
which "exists outside" a person rather than to cultivate with care
knowledge which "lives inside" a person is destroying our universities at
a faster rate than drug addiction is destroying our youth. In fact, I
firmly believe that our youth take to drugs because of what is going on in
schools -- making them information junkies. It is time for us to act.
>One month ago I left this organisation. Why? There
>are many reasons but the main reason is that perhaps
>only 10 % of the personel has still some feeling with
>the library's commodity: (printed) information. How
>could one work in an organisation where you can't
>love (feeling, smelling, tasting, touching) the raw
>material?
Thank you Leo for saying it. The smell of an old book and the smell of
fertile soil are two of the nicest smells to me.
Should some of you fellow learners live near a paper recycle factory, I
urge you to monitor regularly what comes in for recycling. Sometimes it is
non-fiction books coming from a library, truckloads of them. It is
horrible since it tells what is becoming in the minds of those who run a
library and those who use it.
I have seen invaluable books much older than me going into the shredder --
telling how this information addiction cuts precious knowledge into
strips. Obviously, the books are information too, but to grow in knowledge
the eating of information in these old books is most nutritious. What is
happening now is as worse as the burning of the irreplaceble Biblioteca of
the School of Alexandria.
Let me tell what is happening in our university's library. Students by the
hundreds occupy every table, glaring over copies of notes, trying to stuff
their minds with it. So I have to stand in the corridors between the
shelves of books to do my reading. I know exactly what goes on in these
corridors. Nothing! No student walks in them for hours on end. A few times
I made an experiment. I spanned early in the morning a cotton thread
accros a corridor, using a book on both sides to keep it in place. Late
that afternoon the thread would still be intact. The following morning it
would be gone -- ghosts operating at night?
No wonder truck loads of books are moved to paper recycle factories. No
wonder that professor Xerox of rote teaching works the hardest on
university.
>Maybe I am too old fashioned for such type
>of world, but I jumped out the boiling water,
>hopefully just in time.
No, you are not old fashioned. You have kept your sanity.
>Yes, the main attention is given to research,
>education comes on the second place.
Yes, just find a group of peers with a nice information producing recipe
and churn out self papers like a sausage machine. Since almost every one
in some way connected to the university is addicted to information, who
will notice how that the education in that university is declining to a
level less than in a primary school? Perhaps some universities have
deteriorated to the level of Unlearning Organisations.
Here in South Africa we have now entered the critical phase that all
teachers by law have to be trained at universities. The last college of
education (famous for educating teachers for primary education) has hit
the dust. Standing in front of a class of would- be-teachers of kids is
now a professor (specialising in some state of the art training)
brainwashing these would-be-teachers with a monologue.
>But there is also a modern retarding element.
>The interpersonal contacts become less and less.
>Communication between neighbours is already
>through e-mail.
That is why I made already more than a dozen years ago the firm commitment
not to use e-mail or the telephone to communicate with another person on
our university. I get up and walk to that person to talk face to face.
>And I am afraid that this tendency might very
>well be the most important enemy of a LO.
I am afraid you are right. One look at the body language tell more than a
thousand words can do. Information mongers have that Dracula stare in the
eyes.
>But it is also that on this list e-mail work so
>well. And many of us feel this list as a LO.
>How comes this strange difference?
Because our focus is on learning, the magical elexir of the spirit.
Since we have a passion for learning, we have compassion for each other's
learning. We do not issue certificates with a "pass" or a "fail" on it.
Such certificates have only value in rote learning where compassion is
almost extinct.
We do not train creativity by enforcing rote learning.
Slowly but surely we are regaining our sanity in a world which has become
addicted to information. Our children and their children need sane
prophets to caution them about the course which the world of learning is
taking. They need sane kings who can set examples to them. They need sane
priests who can tell of glorius examples from the past.
It is because of learning that humankind has become the world's most
infertile mammal. The unaborted conception rate among humans are about 5%
whereas among other mammals it is over 95%. In other words, 95% of the
fertilised human eggs get aborted within a week so that the
would-be-mother is not even aware of it. By learning we care for other
humans who in an animal world without humans would never stayed alive.
These Unlearning Organisations are turning this process around. The animal
in the human is already destroying humankind at a shocking scale. Billions
of people live in hunger, poverty and diseases. As their deaths increases,
the world will become overloaded by deadly pathogens which nobody will be
able to avoid, not even the CEOs who stuff tens of millions of $$ in their
pockets.
Care to listen? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, ....
But do not worry. The following list tells of enough species to
take over the job of humankind somewhere in the distant future.
Phyllum Known species Estimated number
Bacteria 10,000 400,000-3 million
Fungi 70,000 1-1.5 million
Protozoa 40,000 >200,000
Algae 40,000 200,000 -10 million
Plants 270,000 300,000 -500,000
Roundworms 15,000 500,000 -1 million
Molluscs 70,000 200,000
Crustaceans 40,000 150,000
Spiders, mites 75,000 750,000 -1 million
Insects 950,000 8 - 10 million
Vertebrates 45,000 50,000 (of which H sapiens is one)
Modern dinosaurs? Seek them in the Unlearning Organisations where they
play the information tune. Beware of these pied pipers who lead you to
spiritual extinction.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.
