Folk Culture and politics as a founding philosophical principle of the University of the Mountains

Written in plain words, this brief text is addressed to our academic teachers, aiming to cast light to the findings of their work. Recent years have seen a rising interest in the demand for a University that, next to its other qualities and activities, would be lively and dialectic; it would be close to the global but it would also support the local. Yet, while we easily formulate and become recipients of many a theory, one wonders: How can we support and help the University in its transformation to such a creative contribution to society?

For an external observer, teaching is considered a complex task; a duty so heavy and with so many responsibilities, that is neither easy nor feasible for the Teachers to rely only on their personal experiences so as to find all they need. The less scientific knowledge is reflected on society, the more difficult this task gets.

This last observation is triggered by two motives, since, when we consent to the University being functional and happy, we agree to move forward to the necessary systematization of the teaching/learning experience, with the aim to fulfill all of our expectations.

To be more specific, my observation was first triggered by my overflow with sorrow and disappointment, when I observed the impact of university studies on the behavior of students and graduates, whom I observe as fellow-citizens in our social gatherings. What a considerable amount of power and intellectuality is vainly wasted in expressions iII-organized and systematized; expressions useless, silly and sometimes harmful! or all those that take a look around them, it becomes apparent that scientific training has not lead to the rise of popular culture and has not produced a vocabulary of political thought.My second motive is of scientific nature, given the fact that experientialism is a recognized method of education, projected by the Science of Education as a critical factor, which must triumphantly be introduced into the mentality of the modem pedagogic school. School progress leads to University studies, yet the University as a system, fortified in its expertise, resists the way specialized knowledge is being offered. As a result, the University has its own share of responsibility in producing model societies and citizens, those that comprise the Society we currently live in, and with which we are not satisfied and we would like to change.

We aspire to unwritten rules and principles, derived by the positive aspects delivered to us by the popular culture of our home country and combined with the know-how of clear political eyesight, while leaning towards the supervision of the aforementioned points. My thesis here I submit as a component for the creation of a cognitive subject of experiential nature, thesis to be incorporated in the philosophy that runs through the allegorical expression 'University of the Mountains'.

Author: Varvara Terzaki, Communication Consultant