The following excerpt describes the subject and its key and strategic importance:
"The relationship between life and method of study
Driving schools summarily teach what a vehicle is, how to control it, what does signage means, and how to drive on the streets, among other vehicles, pedestrians, etc. In other words, even though they could teach much more and much better, however driving schools teach how to drive.
What would you say if you entered a driving school saying, “Good morning, I’m here to learn how to drive”, and they answered you, “Good, these are the car keys, and this is the list of addresses where to go; good luck”?
If you had knowledge of what teaching how to drive means, you might even say, “But what the …, don’t you teach me how to drive before sending me around?” And after storming off, you would look critically at the infernal circle-like state the road traffic would be in, because you would realise that that condition is not normal, but it is caused by this gap.
But if you had not knowledge of that, you would take the keys, get in the car, and contribute to that infernal circle; and in the meantime you would think that it is all normal: both the way they teach how to drive and the infernal circle on the roads.
This tells you at least two things:
The first: the importance of knowledge.
When we examine what exists, to evaluate it we need something to compare it to: the ideal. The ideal is our idea of how it ought to be. If we do anything about what exists, it is to improve it, which means bringing it closer to the ideal.
The fact is that we are like balloons in a room: our limit is the ceiling. Our limit are our ideals: we will never seek anything that is above the ideals we have.
Therefore we must continuously pay the utmost attention to our ideals to find out whether they can be improved, because they are our main and most insidious limit.
And our ideals are built with what we know. It is definitely difficult to want something if you don’t know that It exists.
As knowledge results from learning, this gives you an idea of the importance of study, and consequently of the importance of method of study, too.
The second: how the gap in education is immense but incredible.
Almost the entire education system, that in addition to any school also includes anyone of us when trying to transmit something to someone, is in the condition of a driving school that in order to teach you how to drive gives you the car key, the list of destinations, and wishes you good luck.
And that afterwards thinks that the consequences – the whole world, not only the roads, reduced to an infernal circle – are normal, and thinks that the cause is the fact that people have limits.
We’re back to the importance of knowledge: if you don’t know the real cause of a problem, you can blame it to wrong causes that cannot solve it, as a consequence convince yourself that it cannot be solved, and therefore end up considering it normal and acceptable. And condemn the victims as guilty.
The fact that the education system ignores even the existence of that which is its first step is so immense a gap that is incredible. And therefore difficult to see and to admit.
I would like you to reflect on compulsory education in light of this: each of us comes into the world knowing nothing, and if we are able to survive in the world today, it is because we have learned a great deal. We have done so because we want to survive in the world, we have realised that we must learn, and consequently we want to learn. So why do we find ourselves having to force someone to do something that they realise is necessary and that they want to do? Because there are mistakes involved. Mistakes big enough to cause this absurdity.
And the consequences of problems of school dropout, intelligence and ability are not limited to personal destinies and individual acts of vandalism: the sum of personal destinies is the destiny of society; the sum of acts of vandalism is the state of civilisation.
Let us consider, for example, the phenomenon we call “adolescent rebellion”, which we consider “normal”: [...] if the mission to pass on to the next generation what has been achieved fails, the result is, at best, wasting time rediscovering hot water and hoping to reinvent the wheel, and at worst, digging one's own grave instead of rediscovering hot water and reinventing the wheel. To what extent is so-called “adolescent rebellion” nothing more than this failure?
Once you realise that study methods exist and how important they are, you can embark on the task of using them and discover to what extent there is no need to force people to do what they already want to do, to what extent “adolescent rebellion” is not “normal” but caused by errors in study methods and is therefore remediable, and other such things, and you can try to get an idea of the extent to which remedying these things can improve the fate of humanity.
Just as every proper driving school teaches how to drive, any education system must teach how to study first. Methods may be better or worse, and they can be improved, but this must be the first point. Where this is not the case, ask yourself why and then answer.
Finally, when you know that it is possible to make no mistakes in education, your only acceptable standard becomes: no mistakes. When you know that it is possible to have a study method that works, then the only acceptable standard becomes 100%. Given the importance of education in life and society, and given that it is possible to educate completely, to transmit everything there is to transmit, nothing less can be tolerated: 100% is no longer the maximum hope, but the minimum acceptable."
Luca Esculapio, Socioeconomic Plan, part 0: Study
Establishing methods of study as foundation means two things:
- That every individual, community, and all institutions and areas which carry out formally recognised educational activities, such as a mere example all schools, recognise that methods of study are a key, strategic and basic factor for education and therefore for the destiny of the individual and society, and manage them accordingly in their activity.
- That methods of study are managed with all the freedom, honesty and common sense essential to the scientific approach, so that they can freely, honestly and constructively compare, cooperate and converge towards the development and dissemination of increasingly effective methods of study.
