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The bold and intelligent young woman said: You tell us, Doctor, that education, media and culture are the most important pillars of building conscience, and that the family, school and society are responsible for what we see of violence, harassment and corruption.
I said: You are absolutely right, my daughter.
She said: Let’s start with education. What is the situation from your point of view?
I said: The child and young man spend about eighteen years of age in the educational institutions for which the state is responsible. Hence the importance of reaching the vision and message of the community leaders regarding the rights of citizenship and belonging to Egypt, pride and pride in them, and respecting women and their rights cumulatively, directly and indirectly, for our children and youth. There is no place where all citizens gather for 14 years at school and 4 years at university in a framework that has walls, limited in time and place, like educational institutions.
And we have to admit that if a single-minded, fanatical, intolerant of pluralism, violent or extremist and harassing youth graduates from these educational institutions, then we must be doing something wrong.
The young woman said: With all due respect, I doubt that the responsible generations have an agreed-upon vision and a cumulative strategy. We, with all our mistakes, are the result of your lack of clarity in your vision and the confusion of your thoughts.
I said, “Give everything you have.”
She said: You are a generation with those who preceded you. You have confused political, social and cultural concepts. Are we a modern civil state, as some of you say and as we believe, or a religious, Salafist state… Things are mixed before us. Does society respect freedom of opinion, respect women, believe in pluralism, and have tolerance that accepts those who differ from it? I doubt that your generation is stable on its orientations. You have been in conflict over concepts since the beginning of the twentieth century, and you blame us for what happened in our hearts.
I said: In order not to get into an argument instead of a dialogue, I agree with you, but I am looking for solutions.
She said: We are going back to education.
I said: In the book of Dr. Taha Hussein, the famous “The Future of Culture in Egypt,” was talking about illiteracy. He said wisely, that literacy does not mean learning to read and write, but it is the literacy of reading, writing and understanding, because if we eradicate illiteracy of reading and writing without understanding, one who reads and does not understand becomes vulnerable to being controlled by Think. The issue is not reading and writing, but rather a matter that includes a depth of understanding, the ability to choose, make decisions, and distinguish between right and wrong.
The challenge of education is a cross-border issue, as there is no such thing as Egyptian or foreign education. Education is one, because it is based on one foundation and development is proceeding in the same way, but in the last 10 years something happened that did not exist before and the Covid 19 pandemic came and explained the depth of the crisis.
In the last 10 years, technology has become a major imposition in life, and education is changing comprehensively in its means and means of delivering knowledge to students. Knowledge has become available to everyone at no cost, so the role of education has changed from simply transferring knowledge to the minds of students to coexisting with students in school and university, which means that the issue has become digital education and humanization, not a changing curriculum, but a model for coexistence within the framework of the education institution in a digital and human framework at the same time.
We are now talking about education after Corona, distance education and new methods and how to use them. But I am aware that it is possible that we can succeed in developing education and use the means of development to an extreme, but we may also unintentionally leave the innovator, the scientist, the creative and the genius, but at the same time, the extremist in thought, the violent and the harasser. The issue is not about introducing a human rights curriculum to prevent violence or issuing instructions to prevent harassment and respect the different, but it is a way of life within the educational institution from which this young man/woman emerges, able to distinguish between right and wrong and to live in a framework that respects the rights of others without the excessive violence that exists in modern societies. The making of conscience takes place in educational institutions, in the family, in the media, in the atmosphere of general culture and the arts. New things such as toys, electronics, the use of the Internet, access to unlimited knowledge, YouTube and others interfere in education.
All this technology is available to children and young people without any control on our part, and whoever tries to stand in the way of its use, his efforts are doomed to failure.
Is this an ordeal or an opportunity?
If we learn how to use the tools of the age to create a conscience that allows tolerance, acceptance of pluralism, acceptance and respect of the other, and peace with ourselves and with others, we have an opportunity to jump over challenges built over the years. And if we wait for the solution to come through prayer and hope, the society will slip further and plunge into contradictions imposed on our generation and those who preceded us as a result of ignorance, between modernity and Salafism, between enlightenment and ignorance, between science and knowledge and myths of the past and beliefs created in people’s conscience at a time when knowledge was few and the methodology of science was absent.
Wisdom and experience says:
First: There is no educational system that rises above the level of its teachers. If we are talking about a curriculum that is taught and an awareness of rights that is taught to modern generations, creating a future, and a personal industry, then our goal must be focused on those in charge of the educational process, such as teachers and administrators, because they facilitate the student’s access to knowledge in the institution. We must define our goal to raise the level of the teacher and the level of education together.
The second wisdom says, that to improve the level of education, the environment must be created for the learner. If the environment for education is ugly and lacking in beauty, do not expect the learner to love beauty or to be clear. Also, if the climate is full of lies and dishonesty, we should not wait for education to rise to a higher level that we think will exist. lonliness.
The third wisdom reminds us of what separates man from other creatures, and what has God placed in man that distinguishes him from them? .. The answer is imagination, dream, accumulation of knowledge and free will in making his decisions.
Children are the most imaginative of us and have the widest dream, even if we consider the violence that we present to our children in games, movies, and movies
Som animation to realize the extent of the emotional transmission that we inject in them and shape their dreams. The other broadcast comes from the claimant of religiosity with myths that have no basis in our sound and beautiful religion to complete an emotional system that has nothing to do with modernity and science.
My respect for Al-Azhar is taught far and wide, but this does not prevent me from wondering how to influence the conscience of a student who spends fourteen years of study in schools and then four years at a university in Azhar education, and no Christian sits next to him and no girl sits next to him – to accept that he is These citizens with him have the same rights.
If there are policies, then they must be applied to everyone, because there should not be a path that allows for oneness of thought, and another path that allows for a plurality of thought. The message must change, as I have not yet encountered a message that combines the two approaches. We want more creativity in integrating ideas and removing confusion.
In my opinion, this is the responsibility of governments and community leaders, and we must show real seriousness in dealing with this matter. Without knowing these human concepts and incorporating them into new technologies, it is very difficult to expect a new generation that is more creative, more genius, more tolerant and less extremist at the same time.
Yes, my daughter, you have a right, and our generation should strive with you and with you to get out of this predicament, overcome confusion in concepts, and impose a path without contradiction between what we say and what we do.
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