Traditional education vs. progressive education

If you follow the Undercommons, this isn't radical enough.

But it's a start. From my experience with economic and even philosophy courses at Erasmus university this is already quite radical.

Short study on Clowning:

- Take inspiration from Clowning: Art of failure
- Source: https://clownschoolinternational.eu/about-us/ & https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/how-i-learned-to-fail-at-clown-school-1.3952405

"Try approach to clowning
A basic principle of clowning is that the clown lives and exists in the ‘here and now’. The grandiosity of Nothing is the beginning of the magic. The presence of the clown is not-knowing anything, yet feeling at ease with that. I see many similarities between nature and the clown. Nature is of course always here and now.

The clown says ‘yes’ to every situation. He finds his way even when there is no way. He is honest and transparent. A clown is not funny by definition. Situations are always new, you are constantly exploring"



It’s uncomfortable

"Clowning, they tell me, is kind of similar to psychotherapy. Both peel back layers of the self.
Toto nods thoughtfully, and grins. He tells us we are here to play. That we will feel a lot. That we are here to learn how to lose. The cherry on top, he says, is that we will actually feel lucky to lose.When someone inevitably makes a mistake, Toto stops the exercise and faces the culprit, who stands completely still. His palm turned towards us with fingers outstretched, Toto coos, “that’s right. That’s it.”
I’m not entirely sure what “it” is, and blame my lack of understanding on my lack of clowning experience.
“That’s right. Feel the sh*t. Relax into the sh*t,” he says in the same soothing tone. This becomes a recurring mantra, one I come to love.
Failure, it turns out, is an integral part of clowning. Of course, I remember many a clown routine as a kid that involved a literal stumble, rumble and a tumble into a cream pie.
But the failure we become accustomed to in the workshop was different. It is the unintentional kind of failure, akin to the “let-the-ground-swallow-me-up-where-I-stand” variety.
Sitting in that moment, Toto says, you disarm yourself when you realise you’ve failed. When you feel the sh*t, “you become much more human”.

Feel the failure.

Play

"One night, before class, I sit with Toto and ask him a few questions about the art of clowning. For a good part of our conversation, I try to unpack why failure is so integral to it. “Because if you don’t accept your failure, you close the door of play,” he says. After two nights of feeling the sh*t and surviving it, that makes a whole lot of sense to me."

Studying is messy, like playing.