Consciousness, Design, and Management of Self: A Radical Constructivist Approach to the Education of Integral Engineers Carlos Vignolo 2012 World Engineering Forum Buenos Aires, October 2010

THE CHALLENGE Innovation is not an easy task, particularly in conservative organizations as is the case with universities. Much more difficult when innovations challenge “scientific” paradigms. Few institutions are so conservative as the universities about their own affairs while their members are so liberal about the affairs of others” Clark Kerr

THE PROYECT Twenty-five years ago, a process of pedagogical revolution was started in the Industrial Engineering Program at the University of Chile, based on Biology of Cognition and Radical Constructivism.

The main innovation introduced in compulsory and elective courses was and obsessive focus on student’s self design and management of the learning process…and of their lives! Awareness of the role of moods, paradigms and focus of attention in the learning process and in the invention of the self are central part of this pedagogical approach.

Objectives of this presentation -PROVOKE YOU! -Make a modest contribution to expand consciousness about the urgent need to make a paradigm revolution in engineering education -Motivate you to read the paper!

PROVOCATION 1 Innovation is not an option but just…Innovation is not an option but just… ¡ Evolution in the Human Space of Self Consciousness! Revolution is Human Innovation in periods of deep and rapid changes like the ones that we live today.Revolution is Human Innovation in periods of deep and rapid changes like the ones that we live today. ¡Today we need revolutions in our institutions and in our lives! ¡Today we need revolutions in our institutions and in our lives!

PROVOCATION 2 Globalization, Digitalization, Biologization, Easternization and other profound changes are making Western Traditional Paradigms obsolete.Globalization, Digitalization, Biologization, Easternization and other profound changes are making Western Traditional Paradigms obsolete. We are living a Paradigm Revolution: The Third (and final !) Great Crisis of Western Civilization.We are living a Paradigm Revolution: The Third (and final !) Great Crisis of Western Civilization.

PROVOCATION 3 Aristotelian Essencialism, Cartesian Racionalism, Friedmanian Individualism Are structural obstacles to built societies and educational systems that allow human beings to be free and creative, to live their Passion and sense of Mission. They hamper ENTREPRENEURSHIP and INNOVATION. They made ACCEPTANCE, RESPECT and LOVE an impossible dream.

PROVOCATION 4 A Radical Constructivist Approach is a good philosophical platform to establish a new Human Paradigm: It allows us to set love and peace and all the eternal values of humanity in the center of life “Let's establish love as a supporting point and we will move mankind towards humanization”

PROVOCATION 5 Human Beings are Socially Produced! That is the reason why Engineering of Education, Human Engineering, Social Engineering and Engineering of Love will be the most relevant engineering in the Third Millennium

The Tree of Knowledge H.Maturana y F. Varela

PROPOSITION 6 “Eastern Cultures are ancestrally constructivist” “The essence of innovation is to re-create the world according to a particular ideal or vision. To create new knowledge means quite literally to recreate the company and EVERYONE in it in an ongoing process of PERSONAL and organizational self renewal” The Knowledge Creating Company Nonaka, I., Takeuchi, H. 1995

PROPOSITION 7 “Western Management is going into a Humanistic Revolution” Let’s learn from that process! “The term “breakthrough leadership”, as we define it, is multivalent – it points in several directions at once. Certainly, it involves breaking through old habits of thinking to uncover fresh solutions to perennial problems “From the Editor”,Harvard Business Review, Special Edition, Dec. 2001,

“It also means breaking through the interpersonal barriers that we all erect against genuine human contact” “It´s leadership that breaks through the cynicism that many people feel about their jobs and helps them find meaning and purpose in what they do” “And it breaks through the limits imposed by our doubts and fears to achieve more than we believed possible” “From the editor”,Harvard Business Review, Special Edition, Dec. 2001

THE DOUBLE RADICAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL (DRC) Human beings cannot know how things really are. They can only know how they interpret them. Ideals, principles and values play a key role in the social construction of reality. Moods, emotions, paradigms, practices and interests play a key role in the individual construction of reality. Each human being invent him/herself in the process of inventing reality.

THE DOUBLE RADICAL CONSTRUCTIVIST MODEL (DRC) The fundamental way in which human beings interact, construct realities and build up themselves is through conversation, understood as a process of transformation in the interaction with other human beings, where linguistics, emotional, corporal, and spiritual domains are all involved. Science does not consist in discovering truths and permanent laws of universal validity, but rather in generating interpretations regarding the perceptive recurrences that humans share but not by their veracity, universality, and permanence.

ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS OF THE DRC MODEL FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION An increasing number of scientific and philosophical leaders ate taking a radical constructivist stance. An increasing number of scientific and philosophical leaders ate taking a radical constructivist stance. It brings western and eastern cultures closer. It brings western and eastern cultures closer. It helps generating moods of acceptance of the diverse. It helps generating moods of acceptance of the diverse. It facilitates people to evolve adapting to a changing environment It facilitates people to evolve adapting to a changing environment

IMPLICATIONS OF THE DRC MODEL FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION In DRC Model, In DRC Model, there is literally no teaching — understood in the traditional sense of a transfer of knowledge— but only learning. Learning appears as an engineering challenge of the self, which makes it especially attractive for those who want to become engineers

INVITATION I invite you to read the paper...and to actively participate in the Paradigm Revolution on Engineering Education we urgently require to produce engineers for the New Era.

Consciousness, Design, and Management of Self: A Radical Constructivist Approach to the Education of Integral Engineers Carlos Vignolo 2012 World Engineering Forum Buenos Aires, October 2010