On eagles wings: Our recovery from Coronavirus (IX) On-line education in times of moral chaos
Hi everyone. Today is my last post in relation to online education. We have tried to be brief, and I don´t want to demerit all the efforts of those who have invented the new digital tools with the promise to change the old traditional model. I took this week to write about the education paradigm because it seems to me that Corona Times want to be utilized by some to create anarchy at the places where our humanity is taught. It seems to me that the tech sector, as strong as they are right now, wish to create a new economic model that will put the technology not as the side dish, but as the main meal. And that is irrationally confusing. In the middle of uncertainty (as the Corona Pandemic), what makes our civilization morally worthy is not the Internet, neither the tech entrepreneurs. It is the ethics of our values, solidarity, and bold unselfish attitudes toward helping others in the middle of despair.
“Twit twit twit” A petit aquarelle painted yesterday. Handmade with love in Watercolor paper Fabriano 5. Size: 5 inches x 7 inches. If you wish to buy it go https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/eleonora-escalante
Let´s begin with the ninth disadvantage of online education:
9. Physical and Biological effects on our health. Mental and Interaction capacities are swayed with the on-line model: Memorization, lack of social skills, online anxiety close to despair, disrespect to others who are different than you, mental fatigue, daily insomnia, the murder of spontaneity, and the disappearance of closed contact humankind is abundant. I would like to ask to those who are exposed all the time to be in front of a computer for teaching or for receiving instruction: Aren´t you feeling completely tired, overwhelmed after 8 to 12 hours of remaining as such? Generation X will be the first generation in the world to show the consequences of such a type of life. Maybe in 30 years from now, we will end up with sicknesses that our ancestors never had… now, think about the millennials or the generation Z?
10. Ethical disasters may happen in our brain development if NAIQI technologies are used as the core methodology in the formative years. It is difficult for students to learn to draw boundaries to others isolated. We are watching how difficult it is to keep our moral philosophy alive in the middle of the internet chaos. Moral philosophy is what we today call ethics. Before the Internet appearance, we had a moral crisis of our values in place, that the Internet has exposed and expanded virtually through all its platforms and inherent technologies. During these last 20 years, I have seen how the new generations are less attracted to practice the word of God. If we support technological tools that demerit the presence of God in the Universe, nothing would be immoral any longer, and everything will be permitted, transgressive, and remissive. With the usage of excessive technologies (without knowing) our societies are becoming more like robots, leaving the anger, envy, the avarice, the gluttony, the lust, the pride, and the sloth to take over the beatitudes that make us humans at the core. We share what we are. Social media is the mirror of our civilization. It is hard to see people sharing mercy, humility, selflessness, refusal to do harm to others, or the desire for peacemaking. Everyone is sharing “things” (fashion, make-up, wealthy objects, fame or money”… meanwhile hunger and thirst continue to grow. Righteousness, mercy to share with others even to the undeserving is fatally ignored. We observe fewer and fewer role models with a full-time dedication to helping those who are persecuted or are deprived of basic necessities. The internet lacks the purity of the heart much needed in times of chaos.
11. The growth of the automated brain under a bubble makes us selfish. The mentality of myself and only me matters is created. Seclude a person under a bubble where he or she is safe, and we will end up creating pupils with a high sense of self-interest, caring only for the personal advantages or personal interests of their own. Our societies can´t afford generation without solidarity feelings. Not now. The digital NAIQI technologies are being utilized without any type of regulation since years ago, following the premise that disruptive technologies were born to help us to be richer at the expense of leaving the old ways behind. Social psychologists believe that the major influence over our behavior is the social situation in which it occurs. Each social interaction that we have since we are petit enfants has an impact or effect on our personalities, no matter what our values or beliefs may be. Just the mere presence of others can powerfully influence our behavior. Rules, Roles, and Norms are three social ways that come from our social interactions with our peers. We learn to be unselfish by relating to others in the classrooms. We all learn rules through our activities with others. We learn to obey or rebel against these rules sizing up the situation with others and we adjust our behavior accordingly. The roles available to us are determined by where and how we live, study, and work. It is in our interaction with others that we learn our roles, and by observation and copycat of others´role models. Norms come from social membership and building expectations with others. When students are removed from daily social interaction, the isolation bubble destroys the sense of belonging and the process of learning to respect rules, roles, and norms. 
- Compassion for others vanishes in those who have not felt the traditional education model. Compassion is a “deep awareness of the suffering of another, united with the wish to do something to relieve it”. Compassion is more than a sympathetic feeling, it is a conscious state of mind, that triggers an action. Feelings are sensed when we grow up sharing moments with others. Classrooms with excellent educators are the place where we learn to feel and tame our feelings in social interactions. Compassion is born only when we are consciously affected by the unlucky or pity or suffering situation of someone else, and we immediately decide to do something about it.
All I wished since I was a petit little girl was to marry and have my babies. I have no other greatest dream than that. I pray every day, endlessly for that to happen.
Compassion comes from experience in real life. Because the online model isolates us from the rest of people: by “definition” puts us under a protective dome(at home) where we don´t get used to interacting with others. Even if internet educators make all the efforts to teach it virtually, the most “autocratic, disrespectful and dangerous people” in the world are those who don´t have compassion for anyone else, but only search for their own good without caring for the rest.
These twelve disadvantages of on-line education are evident and tangible. Of course, I wouldn´t advise returning to the “stone-age” either. But 20 years of Internet experience with education are only 0.5% of 4,000 years of human evolution. Do not sacrifice the traditional education model simply because of a Coronavirus pandemic event. Please. I beg you. We need to reform the content of each and all the programs, to make our students a caring generation for others, a caring age for our fauna and flora, a compassionate crop of leaders who attend for those who have nothing. We need to create more humanized generations, not robots or digital tech-preneurs who only care about themselves. We need to change all the business “maximize shareholder value” for an “integral value” proposition in which we really care for everyone around us. That is what we need to. At the rhythm of our age, digital on-line education will destroy 4,’000 years of our human kindness history, and later, maybe in 100 years from now, those who will evidently realize it, will ask themselves, why did we permit it?
Blessings have a beautiful weekend.
Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated
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