Response

Prof. Marlene Scardamalia
Winner of the 2006 José Vasconcelos World Award of Education

Ideas represent an invaluable natural resource; they are renewable, everyone can produce them. In the Knowledge Age this resource might well serve as a great equalizer, contributing to the health and wealth of all citizens, all nations.

José Vasconcelos and Albert Einstein gave us ideas--gems of the highest order. To date, education has done a fairly good job of disseminating the ideas of such great minds. It has been considerably less successful in enabling future citizens to create ideas of value to society. Vasconcelos would be among the first to appreciate the need to make this shift-- to enable every citizen to work creatively with ideas and to provide the social supports required to increase the value of these ideas to society.

José Vasconcelos saw education as a means of emancipation, and set out to eradicate illiteracy. His vision included a cosmic race with unique qualities for the creation of a new world of education. He stated “it was not so much my reasoning that made me philosophize, but my desire for integrity in all things; thought, emotion and action.” He has been referred to as a “constructive revolutionary,” and it will surely take a constructive revolution to bring about needed changes in education.

As knowledge and knowledge creation become more important so is the need to enable all citizens to work creatively with ideas and to gain the multiple literacies required by new knowledge media. In singling out work in this area, the World Cultural Council gives new hope that needed changes will take place. It is especially important that the Council’s membership spans five continents, suggesting that we will know “integrity in all things” as we tackle this global challenge. If we are to avoid the digital divide that is already in evidence, we will need all the courage and imagination for cultural and educational revolutions that Vasconcelos stood for. On behalf of students whose ideas represent the future in this new Knowledge Age, I thank you.

I am privileged to direct the international Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology that hosts the Knowledge Society Network. In classrooms around the world, students are demonstrating that they have an affinity for creative work with ideas and can take collective responsibility for continual improvement of those ideas. They use new knowledge media to accomplish that, with multiple literacies as an important by-product. Through its use of the names Da Vinci, Einstein, and Vasconcelos in its awards, the Council has demonstrated its deep respect for creative work with ideas; moreover, the Council’s overall mission embodies the hope that all people shall be able to play a part in the forward march of ideas. I sincerely thank the Council for this great honour and hope my work will contribute to its goals and the enrichment of society’s cultural heritage that is sure to follow.