An Analogy (through a personal story)
During the academic year 1997/98, I was a visiting scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. I did not have an income and my wife’s salary was not enough for us to live on. The only way to survive was to change certain aspects in our ways of living and consuming. One element which was crucial during that period (especially for me) was eating dandelion which was abundant everywhere. [For those who don’t know, dandelion is a wild plant, which is very rich in nutrients, and of which every part is edible: the leaves, the flowers, and the roots, and it grows wildly in most countries and most and under all kinds of weather.] I started eating it on a daily basis (of course, as long as the weather was not too cold for it to grow).
There were two ways in which my wife, Carmen, entered the story. As a good American, she used to dig and uproot, this “most undesirable weed” that grows everywhere and ruins everything (which usually means ruining the grass in the landscape)! I had to plead with my wife in order not to dig it. The second way in which my wife entered the story was through noticing me picking leaves and eating them directly from the ground (especially after it had been raining). She said, “Don’t let any of the neighbors see you. They will think you are weird.” The image that immediately jumped into my head and which helped formulate my response was seeing neighbors eating potato chips, out of strange shiny little bags. I said, “I see them opening shiny bags and eat something that is artificial and looks weird. Who should be embarrassed: I who eats something which is natural, healthy, organic, and abundant, or those who eat something very artificial, which they claim to be food but really is not?!” Since then, Carmen and I have been thinking of writing a small book that revolves around that story, because it embodies two totally different worlds of living. We haven’t done it yet but some day we will.
In this paper, I am going to choose the theme “scarcity vs. abundance” to discuss the difference between the two worlds symbolized by PC and DL: a world governed by the perspective of scarcity and a world lived through the perspective of abundance, and how this difference is manifested in two worlds of education. Although now, when I look back at what I have done in education since 1971, I see that I have been thinking and working within the perspective of abundance. I never articulated it in these terms until I read Illich in 2000 (at the recommendation of my friend Gustavo Esteva), who makes it clear how current institutions have been built around the scarcity perspective. In other words, scarcity is basic in the establishment and functioning of institutions and professionals. It is basic in a world that is governed by the values of control, winning, and profit.
Before I move on to discuss education within the two perspectives or worlds, I would like to elaborate a little more on the analogy of dandelion (DL) vs. potato chips (PC). For DL to grow, all what is needed is the workings of nature, the workings of the miracle of life. In contrast, PC needs institutions and professionals and artificial ingredients for its manufacturing. To be sure, in the case of DL, institutions and professionals are needed, but only in order to kill the plant, not to help it grow. They are needed, for example, in order to produce chemicals that would be effective in killing dandelions; they are needed to transport such chemicals, to sell them, and to get rid of the containers in which they were stored. Moreover, official bodies are needed in order to test the quality of the chemicals, give licenses etc. In addition, special institutions are needed to certify those professionals who are qualified to produce, transport, sell, etc. Companies would compete as to which one is more effective in killing dandelions, and that their ways in killing the plant are more permanent! Even worse, some department may be created for the specific role of conducting contests and giving awards to those who prove to be better killers.
Education within the scarcity perspective vs. within the abundance perspective
Education, in its present dominant form, is built around the perspective of scarcity. Institutions and professionals are needed at every step in order to do what can be done naturally within the perspective of abundance, which is learning. Learning and knowledge become commodities that need institutions and professionals in order to control every step along the way. What I would like to present here is how education may look like within the perspective of abundance. Probably, there is a need to clarify my position here. When I speak of an alternative to education, I do not mean one that would fit all, and I do not mean that we should abolish all schools. Believing in an alternative that is universal, or advocating abolishing all schools, would be falling into the trap of the dominant logic. Universal thinking, i.e. believing in a single, undifferentiated path for progress, is the problem, rather than believing in a particular way. Advocating compulsory un-schooling would embody the same logic as advocating compulsory education. My position, in this regard, is to let schools be for those who want them and benefit from them. What I am advocating here is ending the hegemony of one form of teaching and learning, and allowing various ways to grow and flourish. This is a pre-requisite for a real and sincere movement towards education for all in the sense of providing spaces, facilities, and means where everyone can learn … Education for all is possible and meaningful only if we build on abundance, which means if we allow diversity in the ways through which people learn, which in turn means having diversity in budgeting (people, for example, using their money to provide facilities instead of paying to a central ….) Education for all is impossible within the concept of scarcity.
Teaching and learning within the abundance perspective necessarily require a shift in our perception of ourselves as human beings and our place in the world, and our relationship to it. Just like a seed or a root is uniquely complete (this is a phrase which I heard from Satish and Shilpa in India), a person, within the abundance perspective, is looked at as uniquely complete. All what a seed needs is an appropriate environment (soil, nutrients, water, sun, temperature, and loving care) in order for it to grow. The internal ingredients are complete and unique in that seed. [Genetic engineering would make sense in the scarcity perspective.] Similarly, what a person needs to grow healthily is a healthy environment. Every person is uniquely complete, which means, among other things, that comparing and measuring are unnatural, even harmful to that uniqueness and completeness.
I will first mention some of what I have been involved in establishing since 1971, which embodies the abundance perspective, and then what we can do along this perspective now (as an extension of the ideas embedded in the various projects).
Within the scarcity perspective, the stress is on needs and what people lack as starting points. Within the abundance perspective, the stress and the starting point are on what people, society, and culture have.
Abundance is related to:
Pluralism, not universal thinking
Cyclic, not linear thinking
Examples from my experience:
The math and science clubs in schools
Probably the most crucial aspect in our conception and perception of ourselves within the abundance perspective is considering every human being a source of meaning and understanding; i.e., looking at people as co-authors of meanings and understandings and knowledge, and consequently as co-partners in building reality. This was my conviction in the 1970s when I encouraged Palestinian students and teachers to start/ form math and science clubs in the schools of the West Bank in Palestine. They used to ask what they could do or discuss in these clubs and my answer was always that science starts with questions that people ask, and which they would like to investigate and follow up with. I used to tell them, “Come with at least one question that you are interested in. Together, you form the club.” Questions are abundant.
Another example: I used to go around and ask children about the meaning of words such as point and equality; questions such as “what is a point?” and “what does it mean to say 1=1?” Investigate meanings independently and then share them with one another. Another example of an abundant idea. This independent investigation of meaning is central in Islam. Every person has the right and duty to investigate the meaning of words, sentences, expressions, etc in light of his/her experiences, readings, discussions, inner convictions…
I also used to challenge teachers to point to a child who is not logical. Believing that there are only few people who are logical, and that they can be logical only if they study logic at some university with certified professionals, is an example of the scarcity paradigm. Believing that every person is logical, and that people develop their logic through interaction with life, is an example of the abundance “paradigm.” A very important distinction between the two is clear: the scarcity paradigm embodies the belief in “universals” while the abundance paradigm embodies the belief in pluralism.
During the first Intifada when Israel closed all schools, I started a reading and writing campaign. Again, an abundant idea.
Then, the QU project, in which any group can start its magazine… is another example of building on abundance. The AEF is a forum for all who are ready to reflect on what they do and express and share it with others. Every one is invited; the decision to get in is totally theirs. Qeematu
Concepts like educating, training, empowering, … all fall within the scarcity perspective.
Like in the case of DL vs. PC, education within the scarcity perspective requires institutions and professionals in order to do the various tasks.
Measuring and counting create scarcity…
One last remark: the irony in western thinking is that it deals with what is abundant as scarce (such as knowledge, expressions, meanings…) while it deals with what is scarce as if it were abundant (such as land and water). The level of consumption of water and the use of land reflects an assumption that they are abundant. So far, it has worked because the Europeans extended themselves into several continents, clearing their populations and taking their lands and resources (such as what happened especially in North America and Australia, and to a slightly lesser extent in Central and South America). A settler from the US comes to the West Bank or Gaza Strip and takes land from its indigenous Palestinian owners and uses their water at the rate of 40 times as much as the Palestinian. Part of the collapse, which we see in the world today, is due to the fact that there are no more continents to conquer, and no more resources to steal.
In this sense, the way into the future has to take these two facts into consideration and build upon them: that knowledge and learning are abundant and that natural resources are scarce.
Whereas DL is abundant, PC is not, in the sense that it is not naturally abundant. [It is possible of course that in some regions it is another kind of plant, which carries the same qualities, that is abundant.] Killing DL, on the other hand, is unnatural and scarce, in the sense that it requires a whole set of institutions and professionals in order for it …
It embodies the spirit of the modern way of living …
Universal thinking has been a major factor in destroying diversity, distorting pluralism, forcing learning to move along narrow paths, equating understanding to acquiring information and technical skills and knowledge, and pushing wisdom aside. The logic embedded in universal thinking naturally leads to the belief that one person/ people/ nation/ country/ religion/ culture can be absolutely better than another (according to some supposedly universal measure!) and, thus, can impose their ideas and ways on the world at large. The belief that one’s ideas and ways are the best is not new. What is new (and exclusively characteristic of western civilization) is the successful diffusion/ dissemination, through “universal” tools (softly or coercively), certain beliefs and practices as universal. The most effective tool has been education as it has been conceived and practiced at least during the past 300 years – through a curriculum taught to all students, and through standards measures, concepts and meanings that are assumed to be universal. Mathematics and the sciences with their claims to universal truths, and technology with its magical impact on people, have been part of this triumphant march of universal thinking and the belief in a linear path for progress. Ignoring wisdom and pushing it outside people’s consciousness seemed necessary for science and technology to develop at an amazing rate. However, they have been, at the same time, a main cause for the catastrophic situation and trends, which we witness today around us. A civilization (even life) cannot hold together for too long without wisdom.
Munir Fasheh
Director, Arab Education Forum