In the category 'grandpa tells' I remember that I first became a newspaper deliverer at the age of fifteen. It was a free neighborhood newspaper that I put in the postbox once a week at one hundred and sixty addresses. I have no idea how much I earned with it, but I do remember dreaming of a tape recorder that was in the window at Radio Schuurman and that I now expected to have saved up within three years. Three years!
I don't know exactly what those three years did to my desire. In those years I regularly stood in front of the window of Radio Schuurman, and eventually bought a more expensive model than I was saving for. There is progress. For example, I am now happy that NPO Start exists, so that I can watch a new series in one weekend. Because of course I no longer have the patience to have to wait a week for the next episode. A week!
"Before you know it, the time has come..." I recently wrote on LinkedIn, because I would be retiring in six – now only five – months. It's going so fast! In this respect, it is incomprehensible that we have known since 1972 that there are limits to growth, but that we nevertheless continue to pretend that growth and progress will never end. And that while everyone knows that it is already five to twelve. What am I saying? We have already reached the one and a half degrees of warming. It is rather one to twelve. One minute!
But then the rebound gives me something recalcitrant and I resist that agitated rush that we talk into each other. Because this is also true, right? If we are silent for two minutes, it is suddenly one minute after midnight and then a long, empty, new day lies ahead of us. A future with unsuspected possibilities. After all, the earth continues to rotate. It doesn’t need our clock. It will continue to orbit the sun for at least three billion years. Three billion years!
Why then our rush? How did it come about that efficiency and effectiveness have become our most important values? How is it possible that these values continue to distort our education? Because if you need one thing in education, it's time. Time to daydream, time to explore wrong paths, time to practice, to try out, to put your thoughts in order, to start over, to reflect on your question – especially in academic education, where it pays to endlessly wonder whether the question you have sunk your teeth into is the right question, whether you have formulated it correctly. That is why it is so important to dedicate time to philosophy in every curriculum. Time!
Therefore, as researchers, let us oppose a society that no longer has the patience to wait for answers. And as teachers, let's resist students who seem to have the same lack of patience. Let's celebrate together the time between question and answer, the time when it's about our curiosity, about our inquisitive mind, about understanding our desire. Let's maximise that time. Let's focus on lifelong learning. For a lifetime!