The concept

Out of this lecture, the concept of a 'garden of knowledge' was born. Katarina was the one that introduced the metaphor of the garden. She imagined the garden of knowledge as a kind of computer game - where one would start out in an old and neglected garden and try to restore it to its past glory of knowledge and wisdom - with the help of the all-wise mystic and mathematician Pythagoras.

I have had many different working names for this kind of project before. Mathematical Planetarium, Information-Art-Show, Brain-Train and Knowledge-Smogasbord - to name a few. But the concept of a 'garden of knowledge' gave the metaphors a number of new and exiting dimensions. The teacher as a gardener, i.e. as a cultivator and a pruner of the knowledge which is gradually evolving out of the ever more complicated mosaik of information - this metaphor was coherent with the idea of the teacher as an exformator - i.e. the teacher as a support for the focusing on the relevant structure and the disregarding (= weeding out) of all the rest of the information.

In short, a garden of knowledge seemed to be the natural environment in which to serve up an interesting smorgasbord of knowledge, adapted to the inevitable change - away from duty-oriented and towards interest-oriented learning - that is beginning to permeate the educational systems of today. To individualize the educational process by adapting the various corriculae to the individual - instead of the other way around - is a practiced both within academia as well as within 'commercial education' (in the form of tailored courses for employees).