"Where is Wisdom we have Lost in Knowledge?"

“Nothing seems to be more prominent about human life than its wanting to understand all and put everything together.”
(R. Buckminster-Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, p79)

Many years ago in 1966, American economist, Kenneth Boulding, published, what was to become his most famous essay ‘The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’ and in 1969 Buckminster-Fuller wrote Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Drawing on the Apollo 8 mission, both authors were convinced that there had to be a paradigm shift in how we thought about our planet, from ‘cowboy economy’ to ‘spaceship economy’.

Essentially, both authors predicted a shift from the ‘cowboy’ economy of individualism, independence, autocracy, humanity against nature, intercultural and religious intolerance to a ‘spaceship’ culture of community, interdependency, democracy, humanity as part of nature, gender equality, and cultural and religious tolerance. It’s not that we deliberately set out to change our way of thinking, but like in many instances, our perspective on ‘life as we know it’ was transformed in the blink of an eye by one historic event.

The stark image of earth taken from space on Apollo 8 was one such turning point. Like the opening scenes of the brilliant 1968 movie by Stanley Kubrick, 2010: A Space Odyssey, we were changed forever by the images we saw; they were inspirational and transforming. I remember one of the astronauts marvelling at the view from space and making the comment that there are no borders on earth from space.

“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth." --Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud and astronaut, Muhammad Ahmad Faris:
"From space I saw Earth -- indescribably beautiful and with the scars of national boundaries gone."

Over the last fifty years there has been a definite shift in the way we think about our place on earth, in particular, the shift to a global perspective, from that of a local almost introspective national perspective. The concept of a global village has become a reality as satellites, the internet, increasing fast and easy world travel and instant messaging, have ‘shrunk’ our world. The speed at which information is now transmitted is breathtaking and it has transformed the way we think about the world – our paradigm has altered forever. Our sons and daughters are growing up in this world; this is their norm.

Innovation comes about by changing the way we think about what we do, how we do it and why we do things a certain way. Peter Ellyard, author of ‘Ideas for the New Millennium’, argues that innovation requires innovative people. Innovation, he believes, will only come about if we have two key elements in play: creativity and enterprise.(p77) Equipping our children with essential skills of life-long learning; giving our young people the skills and the wherewithal to be use initiative, drive, knowledge, wisdom and hunger to create, innovate and succeed is critical for their future success and the future of our world.


Teachers and students work together to discover new ways, new thinking and new paradigms. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi put it this way:

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Our students will amaze you with what they have achieved. Just a few recent examples:

• Transformed stories from Year 4 buddies and create animated digital stories
• Created their own website on environmental matters and learned the power of writing and receiving over $500 and a water tank in Years 3 and 4
• Developed virtual travel itineraries in Year 1
• Skyped a student from their Year 4 class to London to help a young boy who has left the school
• Year 9 students are creating a digital game (using KODU) for Year 2 students
• Year 10 students are creating a Vodcast to assist in subject selection for Year 11
• Created a sophisticated, professional design of an object using Inventor in Year 12 Graphics and a mobile device in Year 9 Graphics
• Year 12 ITS have just completed developing House websites using Dreamweaver

Teachers too have created some exciting ways of inspiring our students, like the now famous CCPS “Captain Energy” on YouTube, which is the brainchild of a certain Year 2 teacher.

In this world of "instant information", it's timely to remember the words of famous poet, T S Eliot:

"Where is wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Schools must meet the needs of the future generations leading this planet. The students need skills in problem solving, metacognition, innovative and creative thinking as well as good knowledge and depth of understanding that goes far beyond the surface. Our students need to be thinking globally, as well as acting locally. Good teachers can make the world of difference to our students achievements, and to their future aspirations for themselves and their generation - especially the teachers at Caloundra City Private School.

Karon Graham

Principal