{"id":26849,"date":"2025-04-08T09:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T07:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/?p=26849"},"modified":"2025-04-08T09:13:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T07:13:19","slug":"eco-or-the-art-of-forming-by-informing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/en\/eco-or-the-art-of-forming-by-informing\/","title":{"rendered":"Eco or the Art of Forming by Informing"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Eco or the Art of Forming by Informing<\/h1>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26854\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26854\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26854\" src=\"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Umberto_Eco_in_his_house.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"669\" srcset=\"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Umberto_Eco_in_his_house.jpg 900w, https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Umberto_Eco_in_his_house-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Umberto_Eco_in_his_house-768x571.jpg 768w, https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Umberto_Eco_in_his_house-444x330.jpg 444w, https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Umberto_Eco_in_his_house-242x180.jpg 242w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26854\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umberto Eco\u00a0interviewed by\u00a0<a title=\"User:Aubrey\" href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Aubrey\">Aubrey<\/a>\u00a0in his Milan apartment for\u00a0<a class=\"extiw\" title=\"n:it:Wikinotizie:Wiki@Home\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikinews.org\/wiki\/it:Wikinotizie:Wiki@Home\">Wiki@Home<\/a>. Here&#8217;s the\u00a0<a class=\"extiw\" title=\"n:it:Intervista a Umberto Eco\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikinews.org\/wiki\/it:Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco\">interview<\/a>\u00a0(in italian).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a style=\"display: inline-block;\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/deed.en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license noopener noreferrer\">License Creative Commons <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: 22px!important; margin-left: 3px; vertical-align: text-bottom;\" src=\"https:\/\/mirrors.creativecommons.org\/presskit\/icons\/by.svg?ref=chooser-v1\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: 22px!important; margin-left: 3px; vertical-align: text-bottom;\" src=\"https:\/\/mirrors.creativecommons.org\/presskit\/icons\/nc.svg?ref=chooser-v1\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"height: 22px!important; margin-left: 3px; vertical-align: text-bottom;\" src=\"https:\/\/mirrors.creativecommons.org\/presskit\/icons\/nd.svg?ref=chooser-v1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-26619\" src=\"https:\/\/educationalevidence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Albert_200-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"70\" height=\"70\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Albert P\u00e9rez Bea<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the future, the aim of education will be to learn the art of filtering. There is no longer any need to teach where Kathmandu is or who the first king of France was, because such information is now readily available everywhere. Instead, we should ask students to analyse fifteen sources and decide which one they consider the most reliable. We must teach them the technique of comparison\u201d. So declared <strong>Umberto Eco<\/strong> in one of his final interviews.<\/p>\n<p>Those who believe that the semiotician has left us are mistaken. The professor lives on \u2014 still among us. Prophetic and provocative in equal measure, he was, above all, a teacher of teachers. He lives not only through the texts he wrote, but also in the tens of thousands of former students who once crowded into his lectures \u2014 often sitting on the floor, or on the steps, wherever there was space.<\/p>\n<p>Ranked among the ten most influential writers of the second half of the twentieth century, Eco <strong>taught in the old-fashioned way<\/strong>, though always from a defiantly contemporary standpoint, standing in opposition to those who favoured a simplified model of education and an uncritical embrace of technology in the classroom. His defence was always rooted in the <strong>classics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>To Eco, a classic was, in essence, something we were forced to read in school, so that \u201cwhen we hear mention of a classic, we instinctively take a defensive stance&#8230; Yet\u201d, he added, \u201cif we go by Bloom\u2019s canon, a classic is simply a book that has endured\u201d. He believed that the <strong>exercise of memory<\/strong> through the classics, through schoolwork \u2014 even through that dreaded word, \u201chomework\u201d \u2014 contributed to longevity. He was one of the architects of the idea of the \u201cuniversal library\u201d: a vast, unreachable ideal, yet one that made knowledge more democratic, enabling access to new spheres of thought.<\/p>\n<p>For the wise Piedmontese scholar, the student often had a point \u2014 especially when challenging him after having done their own research. \u201cBecause above all\u201d, he said, \u201ca <strong>teacher must not only inform, but form<\/strong>\u201d. What makes a lesson truly worthwhile is not the accumulation of data, but the creation of dialogue \u2014 the confrontation of ideas, the friction between what is taught in school and what comes from beyond its walls.<\/p>\n<p>Eco never shunned the rise of the internet or the digital media. One need only revisit his <em>Apocalypse Postponed<\/em>, a 1964 book based on essays from the 1950s that remains remarkably relevant today. At the time, the <strong>divide between the \u201capocalyptic\u201d and the \u201cintegrated\u201d<\/strong> described how intellectuals viewed not only the mass media (particularly television), but mass culture as a whole: from comic books to pulp fiction, from celebrity tabloids to popular music. So how can a book written in 1964 help us understand Eco\u2019s position on the internet and digital technologies fifty years later?<\/p>\n<p>In brief, the apocalyptic thinkers claimed that the mass media, in attempting to appeal to a vast and heterogeneous audience, had to dilute and standardise their content \u2014 thereby losing originality and promoting a conformist vision of society, politics, consumption, and life itself, all while fostering passive, uncritical behaviour. The integrated, on the other hand, argued that the mass media made information available to a vast audience \u2014something unimaginable before television\u2014whereas previously, such knowledge had been accessible only to an elite. They viewed mass culture as a fundamentally positive development \u2014 even in its most homogenising aspects \u2014 for its ability to introduce new languages, styles, and perspectives.<\/p>\n<p>When the internet arrived, Eco approached it with passion, critique, and constructiveness. He was never uncritical \u2014 but neither was he dogmatic. He belonged to no camp. He was never wholly for or wholly against; on the contrary, he was always both \u2014 and neither. To the apocalyptic question \u201cWhere are we heading?\u201d, Eco replied that we should simply continue along the path we are already on. Papyrus allowed knowledge to be taken out of the temples; medieval copyists preserved and disseminated it; the printing press ushered in the Enlightenment. <strong>The internet, he argued, was no different from these earlier revolutions<\/strong>. \u201cWhat matters is the content, not the container\u201d, he often insisted.<\/p>\n<p>His relationship to almost everything was marked by ambivalence \u2014 the hallmark of a true scholastic. Both in academic circles (his 1964 book has been reprinted and translated countless times) and in the mass media themselves, the opposition between apocalyptic and integrated thinkers has become so ingrained that it is now a slogan, used uncritically by many who neither know its origin nor have read the book. \u201cWith six billion people on the planet\u201d, Eco once remarked, \u201cwe cannot expect to have six billion intellectuals. We must be a little aristocratic in this regard\u201d. It is worth noting that in the two decades since he uttered these words, we have already passed the eight-billion mark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe great challenge for today\u2019s school\u201d, Eco argued, \u201cis how to teach students <strong>to filter the information they find online<\/strong>. This is something no teacher does, because they themselves are novices in using this tool. It is one of the great dramas of our time\u201d. He proposed that newspapers devote two pages to the critical analysis of websites. \u201cIf social media are the press\u2019s greatest threat, then rather than imitating the internet, newspapers should engage in a critique of it \u2014 highlighting what is false and what is not\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>His second proposal concerned the classroom. \u201cTeachers should boldly say to their students: \u2018Here is your topic. Feel free to copy from the internet \u2014 copying can be a virtue \u2014 but <strong>you must consult at least ten different sites<\/strong>\u2019\u201d. This, he explained, would compel students to compare sources, uncover contradictions, and confront the issue critically. \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t a teacher take on that role?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>E se non \u00e8 vero, \u00e8 ben trovato.<\/em> Even if it were not strictly true, if Eco said it, there must be a reason \u2014 one forged through tens of thousands of hours of lectures, conferences, talks and interviews. It was he who hammered home the ultimate purpose of education: <strong><em>to teach how to think \u2014 not what to think<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Source:\u00a0<strong>educational EVIDENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rights:\u00a0<strong>Creative Commons<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn the future, the aim of education will be to learn the art of filtering. There is no longer any need to teach where Kathmandu is or who the first king of France was, because such information is now readily available everywhere. Instead, we should ask students to analyse fifteen sources and decide which one they consider the most reliable. We must teach them the technique of comparison\u201d. So declared Umberto Eco in one of his final interviews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"1","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[1023,2869],"class_list":["post-26849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-en","tag-classics","tag-umberto-eco"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Eco or the Art of Forming by Informing - Educational Evidence<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cIn the future, the aim of education will be to learn the art of filtering. 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