Começo transcrevendo uma passagem do último capítulo livro Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, de Russell L. Ackoff e Daniel Greenberg [(Kindle Locations 2524-2546). Pearson Education (US). Kindle Edition.]
“Taking ‘Retire’ Out of Retirement
The industrial era wreaked havoc on both ends of the age range. Just as children were excluded from active participation in the life of the community, so too, older people were shunted aside, out of the mainstream of society. Where age had been revered as a repository of accumulated wisdom, it now came to be regarded as a symbol of obsolescence contributing little of worth to a society or its culture.
The post-industrial milieu has rendered moot all the reasons put forth for this unfortunate treatment of what we now call ‘senior citizens.’ Because of continually increasing life expectancy, there is no longer any upper limit to the age at which a person can participate fully in the intellectual and productive life of the community. This is true due to two significant developments.
The first of these is the spectacular increase in the speed and accessibility of information exchange and retrieval. This has made it feasible in principle for people everywhere to tie into limitless opportunities for learning, human interaction, and personal growth. All the educational modes we discussed in Chapter 15, ‘Education and the Working Life’, apply not only to people in the workplace, but also to people of any age after they have completed their formal schooling. In fact, nothing we said there is characterized by any upper age limit.
The second development has to do with the changing nature of the modern economic scene. With each passing year, there are fewer barriers to the creation of new niches in the economy, which enable people to be productive, to meet newly identified desires and needs, and to generate income. In addition, businesses, schools, universities, professional groups, the trades, research institutions, and nonprofit charitable organizations are finding that the experience of older citizens is an invaluable resource, and that it is highly worthwhile for them to tap into this resource.
There is no longer any need to ‘retire’ when you reach what is commonly referred to as ‘retirement age’. Indeed, it is likely that the concept of retirement age, which did not exist for most all of human history, will become a relic of a quaint era, looked at by future generations as an oddity that existed for a few hundred years in so-called developed economies.
Lifelong learning is the key to this welcome advance in the human condition—or, perhaps more properly stated, this welcome return to an age-old practice of treasuring old age! By making no age distinctions in the availability of educational opportunities, there no longer have to be age distinctions in the degree of incorporation of people into the social fabric.”
o O o
Anteontem, sexta-feira, 12 de Outubro, tivemos o privilégio (Paloma Epprecht Machado Campos Chaves, Denise Machado Leme, nossa prima, e eu) de passarmos algumas horas na Sudbury Valley School (SVS), em Framingham, MA, pertinho de Boston. O privilégio se tornou mais precioso pelo tempo em que desfrutamos da companhia de Daniel Greenberg (coautor do livro do qual saiu a citação acima) e Mimsy Sadofsky, dois dos fundadores da SVS, que este ano, em Setembro, celebrou 50 anos de vida, pois começou a funcionar em Setembro de 1968, já no local em que ainda está até hoje.
Dan é um grande amigo. Em 2003 tive o privilégio de leva-lo ao Brasil para participar de um Congresso sobre Educação, Mudança e Inovação, organizado pelo Instituto Ayrton Senna (Adriana Martinelli foi a “focal person”), patrocinado pela Microsoft Educação (Marcia Teixeira foi a “focal person”), e coordenado tecnicamente por mim.
Naquela ocasião, numa sala lotada, participaram de uma Mesa Redonda sobre Escolas Inovadoras coordenada por mim as seguintes pessoas: Daniel Greenberg (pela Sudbury), José Pacheco (pela Escola da Ponte), e Ricardo Semler / Helena Singer (pela Lumiar). Foi uma ocasião memorável.
Desde então nutri o desejo de visitar a Sudbury e a Escola da Ponte. A Ponte a Paloma e eu visitamos há uns sete anos, em Portugal, mas o José Pacheco já não estava mais lá (dirigia a escola então Ana Moreira). E só agora tivemos a oportunidade de visitar a Sudbury — e de felizmente reencontrar o Dan firme e forte — e ainda entusiasmado e motivado! Foi um prazer também encontrar pessoalmente Mimsy Sadofsky, autora de vários livros sobre Sudbury, e que está lá desde o momento inicial. São livros seus (de Mimsy), como autora ou coautora:
Legacy of Trust
Kingdom of Childhood
Starting a Sudbury School
The Pursuit of Happiness.
Outros livros de autoria de Daniel Greenberg são:
1973, Announcing a New School: A Personal Account of the Beginnings of the Sudbury Valley School, ISBN 1-888947-11-X
1974, Outline of a New Philosophy, ISBN 1-888947-17-9
1987, Child Rearing, ISBN 1-888947-06-3
1988, Early Lessons: Some Recollections of my Youth and What it Taught me, ISBN 1-888947-09-8
1991, Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School, ISBN 1-888947-00-4
1992, The Sudbury Valley School Experience with Hanna Greenberg, Michael Greenberg, Laura Ransom, Mimsy Sadofsky and Alan White, ISBN 1-888947-01-2
1992, Legacy of Trust, Life After the Sudbury Valley School Experience with Mimsy Sadofsky, ISBN 1-888947-04-7
1992, A New Look at Schools, ISBN 1-888947-03-9
1992, Education in America: A View from Sudbury Valley, ISBN 1-888947-07-1
1994, Worlds in Creation, ISBN 1-888947-10-1
1994, Kingdom of Childhood, Growing Up At Sudbury Valley School with Mimsy Sadofsky and Hanna Greenberg, ISBN 1-888-94702-0
1995, Sudbury Valley School Handbook, ISBN 1-888947-14-4
1998, Starting a Sudbury School: A Summary of the Experiences of Fifteen Start-Up Groups with Mimsy Sadofsky, ISBN 1-888947-19-5
1999, Reflections on the Sudbury School Concept with Mimsy Sadofsky, ISBN 1-888947-20-9
2000, A Clearer View: New Insights into the Sudbury School Model, ISBN 1-888947-22-5
2004, The Pursuit of Happiness: The Lives of Sudbury Valley Alumni with Mimsy Sadofsky and Jason Lempka, ISBN 1-888947-25-X
2008, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track with Russell L. Ackoff, ISBN 0-13-234649-4. [Este é o livro do qual foi retirada a citação acima].
2016, A Place to Grow: The Culture of Sudbury Valley School, ISBN 1-888947-26-8.
Em uma lista que elaborei há algum tempo sobre as pessoas que mais me influenciaram na área da educação listei os seguintes sete (dos quais DANIEL GREENBERG é o único vivo — com os três últimos tive a ventura de ter bastante contato pessoal):
NA ÁREA DA EDUCAÇÃO (7)
* Socrates
* Jean-Jacques Rousseau
* Leon Tolstoy
* John Dewey
* Daniel Greenberg
* Rubem Alves
* Antonio Carlos Gomes da Costa
Daniel Greenberg nasceu em 1934, e, portanto, tem 84 anos; Mimsy Sadofsky nasceu em 1940 e, assim, tem 78 anos. Ambos ainda trabalham ativa e diariamente na escola que criaram e, portanto, são exemplos vivos da tese defendida no trecho citado acima, de que é preciso aposentar a noção de aposentadoria…
Em Harvard, MA, 14 de Outubro de 2018
Chaves Space 
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