Exactly for the sake of what is new and revolutionary in every child, education must be conservative; it must preserve this newness and introduce it as a new thing into an old world.
Interpretation
Education should balance preserving new ideas in children while integrating them into traditional systems.
Hannah Arendt emphasizes that the essence of education lies in valuing the fresh perspectives and revolutionary ideas that children bring. Rather than merely conforming to outdated methods, education should aim to conserve and nurture this innovative spirit, seamlessly merging it with established knowledge to enrich the world around us.
In practice
In a discussion on educational reform, this quote can highlight the need for innovative approaches.
A life spent entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes, as we would say, shallow. While it retains its visibility, it loses its quality of rising into sight from some darker ground which must remain hidden if it is not to lose its depth in a very real, non-subjective sense.
Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.
We are wont to see friendship solely as a phenomenon of intimacy in which the friends open their hearts to each other unmolested by the world and its demands...Thus it is hard for us to understand the political relevance of friendship...But for the Greeks the essence of friendship consisted in discourse...The converse (in contrast to the intimate talk in which individuals speak about themselves), permeated though it may be by pleasure in the friend’s presence, is concerned with the common world.
Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx.
Even though we have lost yardsticks by which to measure, and rules under which to subsume the particular, a being whose essence is a beginning may have enough of origin within himself to understand without preconceived categories and to judge without the set of customary rules which is morality.
It is the nature of beginning that something new is started which cannot be expected from whatever may have happened before. This character of startling unexpectedness is inherent in all beginnings.
If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport.
We need to tell young people that America was built by men and women of all colors and that the future of this country is dependent on the participation of all of our citizens.
In India, knowledge has always been considered more valuable than power, fame or riches. In our tradition, educational institutions are respected as temples of learning.
I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.
Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself.
I think I am more determined than ever in my future plans, and I have quite made up my mind that nothing must be suffered to interfere with them. I intend to make such arrangements in town as will secure me a couple of hours daily (with very few exceptions) for my studies.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.