“We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace”: : Friedrich Merz’s statement captures with clarity the moment we are living through. It is not only a geopolitical observation, but the end of an illusion that has deeply influenced the way we educate: the idea that peace was a given, a natural and irreversible condition, almost automatically guaranteed by the progress of history. But reality has shown us otherwise.
And if peace can no longer be taken for granted, then education cannot remain what it was either.
For years, entire generations have grown up within a competitive model, presented as neutral and even virtuous: coming first, surpassing others, winning. Schools, universities, and even the world of work have ended up absorbing this “knife between the teeth” paradigm, where competition was mistaken for realism, and collaboration for naivety.
Only now do we realize that this model was not only ethically fragile, but also strategically short-sighted. In an increasingly unstable and divided world, where conflicts are often asymmetric and technological, educating only for competition means leaving our societies culturally disarmed.
If peace is no longer a starting point, then it must become a conscious objective. But building peace requires skills different from those we have celebrated until now: the ability to collaborate, to read complexity, and to learn to act together with others, not against them. This is where education plays a central role, not as an optional extra, but as a true infrastructure of democracy.
For some time, we have been talking about lifelong learning, because it is undeniable that studying to prepare for the challenges of change is no longer enough: we must do it continuously. We must prepare ourselves to keep preparing.
What is now needed, however, is also a shift in perspective toward what, since the publication of Erostudente, I have defined as life largelearning: a form of learning that does not merely accompany life, but expands it, connects it with others, and breaks the individualistic logic of personal improvement pursued only for competitive purposes. This is not a utopia.
In Italy too, there are universities that are rethinking the educational model, designing themselves as educational ecosystems capable of influencing people’s human and civic growth.
The much-discussed digital transformation represents a real crossroads. It can become a multiplier of inequalities, or a concrete lever for genuinely changing the way we educate. If technology is used only to distribute content and reduce teachers to simple providers, we will have a faster school, yes, but not necessarily a better one.
We must accelerate the transformation of every teacher from a drone of content into a designer of inspiration, as suggested by Jeffrey Schnapp, Harvard’s “humanist-innovator.” If teachers become designers of motivation, then technology can free up time and resources to be devoted to what truly matters: the educational relationship, personalized support, and the construction of meaning.
In 2014, during a meeting at Luiss with then President Emma Marcegaglia, Mark Zuckerberg spoke of “personalized learning” as the future direction of education. This was long before the boom of artificial intelligence, but the trajectory already seemed clear to us: personalization not as the exaltation of the individual, but as the recognition and development of differences and personal talents.
Mass education systems, standardized and designed for a stable world, can no longer withstand the impact of a constantly changing reality.
There is also a precious lesson that comes from an unexpected place. Stefano Mancuso often reminds us that trees, although immobile, have survived for hundreds of millions of years thanks to a precise strategy: cooperation. They have created underground networks, exchanges, and relationships of mutual support. No race for domination, but systemic collaboration.
It is a powerful image for our societies: resilience does not come from the strength of the individual, but from the quality of the bonds that hold us together. Only by learning to collaborate and build solutions together can we develop the strength and concrete capacity to confront a common enemy, as the recent and dramatic experience of the global pandemic taught us all just a few years ago.
This is why adults, educators, and public decision-makers today bear an enormous responsibility. We cannot limit ourselves to containing the conflicts of the present. We must transform education in order to offer our children and grandchildren real tools with which to build genuine bridges of peace. Not slogans, but cognitive, cultural, and relational connections.
Education is the weapon of peace, and peace is the condition of good education
Maria Montessori
If history no longer guarantees peace for us, then we must learn to design it. And every serious project, as we know, starts with education. Ignoring this today is no longer merely a mistake, but a fault of our generation.
