Paper short abstract:

Darwin's theory, Zeami's artistic understanding of 'hana', Ishikawa's method for total quality control, the educational approaches of J. Dewey, L, Vigotskiy and A. Makarenko, and the zen-Buddhist practices come together to suggest a new path to think on the nature of education in 21st century.

Paper long abstract:

How to educate answering the challenges of 21st century? How has the nature of education changed in recent years and how to be more effective in educating oneself or others. The paper presents an attempt to form a theory, called Conscious Education. The research belongs to the field of philosophy of education and rethinks the aims and methods to educate. It emphasizes on the involvement of all participants in the education process, and of the society where education is conducted and is based on the development of self- and environment-awareness in those. The theory relies on several well-known theories and approaches from various fields - Darwin's evolutionary theory, Kaoru Ishikawa's economy and management theory for Total Quality Control, Abraham Maslow's needs theory, Motokiyo Zeami's understanding of 'hana' as seen in Noh Theatre performance, the philosophy of educators like John Dewey, Lev Vigotskiy and Anton Makarenko, and the Buddhist understanding of smrti and samprajanya, as well as zen principles and practices. The theory is inspired by Japanese Studies development in Bulgaria, which has been thoroughly studied in the last 25 years and these form the concrete illustrations for class examples. Yet Conscious Education addresses a more fundamental question of how to educate in 21st century and what is education in the first place. How to make the individuals more aware of themselves and of the environment they live in, how to teach them to interact with other members in society and to be more effective in their efforts to excel. The Japanese intellectual thought is seen as a major resource-well thanks to the various approaches suggested by artisans, philosophers, educators, managers and alike through the centuries. These theories are applied to shake up the conventional understanding of education and to think holistically on the nature of education, the nature of educators and the nature of each learning human.