The Future of Education

When we consider the future of education, we must ask ourselves what it is we mean to discuss. Is there an implicit belief hidden in our concept of the future that makes us feel, as the blind prophet Tiresias says in Oedipus Rex, that "the future will come of itself, whether we know it or not. Is there not still a temptation in us, after nearly two thousand years of Christianity, to hang on to dark mists of fatalism: to an inexorable fate disguised as the working out of "trends" or forces of instability that, once set in motion, will grow automatically into what we like today to call "explosions." . . . The popularity of the ecology movement lies in such an appeal. We secretly somehow enjoy the conception of ourselves as being swept along by forces beyond our control.