The eighth edition of the UNIV Forum opened on 18 October at UIC Barcelona with a lecture by Conrad Vilanou, the philosopher, teacher and professor from the Department of Theory and History of Education within the Faculty of Education at the University of Barcelona, who spoke on "The end of yesterday's world: education in a changing world".
"A world in movement" is the slogan offered to students at this year's UNIV Forum, a topic that is analysed and studied through the presentations made. In his own presentation, Vilanou reviewed the evolution of the education system throughout the 20th century, mentioning a number of literary works. He asserted that we live in a post-ideological world that has become technical, post-organic, post-conventional and post-humanist. Our lot is to live in a "post-literary era; it is not that no-one reads, but just that they read very little. On-site education is already in decline and becoming increasingly virtual. My position in the world has also changed: there is now a tension between educating and performing."
He pointed out to the audience that we used to live in a world of work, effort and a desire to learn. "Now we are obliged to motivate students. We have moved on from the desire to learn in favour of skills. Much more productivity is demanded of us," he said.
Nevertheless, Vilanou encouraged the students attending the event by telling them that "life makes sense and we have an obligation to be happy; and we teachers also have the obligation to be happy." To underline the point, he referred them to the book "Letters to a Young Poet" written by Rilke in 1929.
UNIV is a cross-cutting Forum for permanent dialogue that takes place in different universities all over the world. For the last eight years, UIC Barcelona has hosted the local Catalan stage in preparation for the international meeting which will take place in Rome over next Easter.
