New Perspective on Education

When the education philosophies for Future University Hakodate (FUN) were originally designed, it was discussed what it means for human beings to learn. As one result, it was decided to conceive of education from an unconventional perspective. What follows is a brief explanation of FUN’s innovative and progressive educational philosophies.

During the course of the development of the natural sciences up until the 20th century, the knowledge structures that human beings busily accumulated can be construed of as the on-going formations of “logical epistemic systems”. Following from such a way of understanding the world of objects, data and ideas, we can hypothesize that the kinds of knowledge found in mathematics discourses for example are neatly organized and packed in the conventional mathematics text book like so much canned food.

Predominantly, knowledge has been construed at schools from such a conventional point of view. Knowledge exists in textbooks and is expressed appropriately in the closed world called a ‘textbook’. The small world of knowledge is created within a student’s brain through experiences in class. Such knowledge is testable because it can be described within the closed world of the conventional ‘textbook’ paradigm.

Granted that it is important to systematize knowledge and that it would be impossible for us to have today’s scientific technological society without such systemization, we must also recognize that within the context of a complex contemporary society that human behaviors do not occur in closed environments.

Accordingly, we consider learning as: being aware of what is important for us in a rapidly changing society, and the acquisition of those kinds of abilities for solving problems by ourselves.

People live as members of dynamic and complex societies. Learning means the ability to sense how we are positioned in that context, how we interact with and relate to other members, store knowledge to change such relationships in favorable ways, and to possess the wisdom necessary to use such knowledge effectively.