Definition of Education and Meta-Design of Educational Systems

Abstract

In this paper a systemic definition of education will be presented and, as an outgrowth, some educational systems meta-design guidelines will be given. In order to avoid separating “the intellectual meaning of education from the implementation of the idea in practice” [19], we will try to make a pragmatic-teleological [18] definition by means of working out a conceptual definition, and, as an outgrowth, an operational one. Aristotle’s notion of causality will be used as a conceptual structure for organizing different definitions of education made through history. The definition achieved in this way harmonizes with Banathy’s perspective on educational systems [8, 9] This conceptual definition, made according to Singer-Ackoff ’s [2] first phase of the defining process, will be made operational, as stressed by Ackoff [2] and Churchman [17].

Drawing relations with the concept of information, education will be seen as a negentropy generator and educational systems as a meta-negentropy phenomenon, i.e., a spatial and a temporal ordering of the educative process, a designing negentropy of the educative negentropy.

Both educational negentropy and meta-negentropy have a collective source. Consequently, both the educative process and its respective designing process should be not just participatory, but also anticipatory. Based on these macro-requirements and on the systemic definition of education derived as outlined above, we try to work out some educational systems meta-design guidelines.