Vivid digitalization
Author: Raphael Pohland
There are numerous philosophical, scientific, and religious approaches to defining life. One approach is to view life as an organized spatial structure that exists on the boundary between inanimate chaos. The biologist and Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, in his book What is Life, suggests, among other things, that life forms are closed physical structures, separated from their surroundings but in communication with them. Of course, other factors, such as the presence of cells and genes, the ability to evolve, and the occurrence of chemical and physical processes, are essential components of living matter.
Interestingly, according to Nurse, an integral part of living beings is information processing. He speaks of “machines” that are coordinated and regulated by processing information to operate as a purposeful whole.
This means that life can only arise through the coordination of processes and the development of loose elements into structured and complex connections. Immediately, one might think of a traditionally Christian image: Michelangelo’s fresco The Creation of Adam, in which God gives life to Adam. This certainly conveys a valid concept: Life is made possible through the transmission of information, by whomever or whatever.
Life can only take place within confined structures, known as biological compartments. In these reaction spaces, in the basic structures of all organisms — the cells — all processes can occur. This clear distinction between the unstructured outside and the coordinated inside lies on the boundary between chaos and order.
There are many protagonists in biological processes and life. Elementary particles assemble into molecules, which develop into even more complex molecular structures. From this coordinated interplay emerge cell structures, which form organs and ultimately complex living beings.
Each level is important for constructing the next higher one. Although they build upon one another, it is unpredictable how the subsequent layer will affect the whole. This is called emergence, when new properties arise as a result of the interaction of individual elements, and the effects of the newly emerging qualities cannot be predicted. Or, more simply put: The result is more than the sum of its parts.
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If the interplay of information units, transport, capture, processing, and resulting reactions is a fundamental condition for a functioning living intracellular process, let us take a leap in thought and examine how the transmission of information works in education, one of the most socially significant areas of information dissemination.
What does education look like in schools today?
Future challenges will only be met through changing knowledge transfer and new ways of processing problems.
Today’s education means reproducing existing knowledge. Knowledge is cloned through unreflected transmission. To attend school means memorizing book knowledge defined by curricula in a one-way manner and consuming already solved problems. Schools do not help in gaining new insights and building unknown, living information compartments, but are focused on producing followers without their own problem-solving strategies, who cannot act creatively. To use the language of biology: School does not create new levels of information that can emerge into higher qualities. School is only a one-directional transmitter with a built-in query function.
Of course, one could argue that today’s form of knowledge transmission is the foundation for independent learning and intellectual socialization. But: solutions to self-developed problems must be learned. And the impulse for this or the spark for ordering information must be taught and learned. This is not achieved by merely following pre-digested curricula.
School education should be reconsidered and reimagined.
The foundation of education should be based on a culture that embraces mistakes. The possibility to experiment, learn from errors, and grow from them. For this, teaching would need to be more experimental and human — without fear and educational pressure.
Individual curiosity should be awakened and nurtured, so that problems can be addressed and solution strategies developed in teams. The evaluation of individual information-processing intelligence should also be assessed differently. The application competence of stoically writing down memorized knowledge should not be considered the highest measure of insight, but creative reorganization and problem-solving should take center stage.
Can digitalization help us?
Old patterns of thinking and teaching will not automatically be replaced by digitalization. Simply exchanging books for digital devices and hoping that something will change will not work. It requires new pedagogical concepts and the political will to bring about change in everyday school life.
Only through external pressure can changes occur. Today, there is an opportunity to rethink education, as the revolution of digitalization and the willingness for change can break through the encrusted structures of educational policy. The technical possibilities and the willingness of those in charge are visible in their early stages. One can only hope that the flow of knowledge is no longer directed by classic one-way frontal teaching, but that interaction between teachers and students enables forward-looking learning structures. The chances for the beginning of a new evolutionary “learning life form” are better than ever. The germ cell is called digitalization.
