In the Grip of the Past

With natural systems being exploited at an unsustainable rate, with technologies displacing the need for workers and now even professors, with print-based technologies undermining the intergenerational achievements in the areas of civil liberties and the cultural commons, it is now time for educational reformers to question the idea that students must be educated to become change agents. The industrial culture, now driven by digital technologies, is transforming cultures on a global scale. And they are being transformed in ways that serve the interests of environmentally destructive and profit-oriented corporations. The essays in this collection highlight reforms that teachers can introduce in classrooms--reforms that will enable students to become aware of the traditions within their own cultures that must be renewed in ways that ensure the prospects of future generations. Students must also be challenged to consider the traditions that need to be changed. The tensions between what needs to be conserved and what needs to be changed are the critical issues that will not be raised by the experts working to create a seamless world of digital communication and thought. For reasons explained in the book's essays, this is the mindset that it habituated to constant change--a mindset with no sense of what is being lost that are sources of community self-sufficiency and empowerment.