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There is and will always be in our educational system a "before studies" and an "after studies". This brutal and sudden "cut" or change, common to all countries, is rarely criticized today, for the simple reason that people neither have the opportunity to choose among several educational systems nor to compare with other ones. Thanks to historical records, we know, by the most basic comparative study between past educational systems and our modern one, that:

• Our educational system has made tremendous progress in the informational part, especially in the field of technical knowledge.
• On the opposite, our educational system has progressively lost the integrative and the formational (or rather trans-formational) part that is essential in any type of education.
• This brutal change from "student life" to "employee life" solely belongs to our epoch.
• There is a relation of cause and effect between the three aforementioned points.

What is meant by integration? Integration is the part of education that should take place right after the "absorption" of knowledge (information): when knowledge ceases to be an external or a foreign fact and is integrated by a student as part of his own self.

At that stage, the essential process of experience starts, knowledge leads to action which helps to build more knowledge, etc, creating a "healthy cycle". In the end, as many traditions stressed it, Action and Knowledge should be considered and lived as the very same thing.

What is meant by transformation? It is when the integrated knowledge, by its voluntary implementation and by the continuous experience of it, transforms entirely a person: the person evolves, she or he is not the same as one year or six months before. It was considered in the past as the final aim of education, its most fundamental purpose: helping human beings to transform themselves and always become better and better.

When transposed to our modern education, we can see the contrast: today, since there almost only exists the first step of education ("absorbing information"), there is no real evolution of the individuals: life becomes a horizontal motion that we do not master at all. We study to get a job, we work to get money and here "ends the story".

This is perhaps where the first "knot" in education lies: we do not dare to take seriously and firmly in our hands the reins of our life. Passivity has never been the landmarks of great men, and even if there are many hard conditions (in education as we said) that somehow forces us to "follow the current", we should remember that old wise saying of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.): Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear (excerpted from his "Soliloquies").