UTA Online Academy
Our vision
Our passion is to accompany people who are setting out on their journey. We see ourselves as companions to each individual on their individual journey. This raises the question: What is education? We get to the bottom of it. Each individual point is like a mosaic stone and has its own color and luminosity. Taken as a whole, they form a painting that should be looked at with both the head and the heart. We were inspired by a keynote speech given by Dr. Peter Bieri, professor of contemporary philosophy, at the PH Bern in 2005.
We understand education as the will to learn.
It is the willingness to learn more about oneself, about others and about the world as a whole. On the one hand, this includes knowledge, but also the willingness to engage in experiences that go beyond previous "knowledge". This leads to new insights and appropriate action.
Education asks the question: What do I really know and understand? It critically questions what has been heard and accepted so far, examines sources and evidence of convictions and judgments.
Tolerance describes not only the toleration of the foreign, but represents genuine and self-evident respect for the freedom of the other to think and feel differently. In the same sense, however, tolerance also describes one's own freedom to go beyond one's "fate-given" view of the world.
Self-knowledge means that I do not simply believe, wish and feel certain things, but investigate what they are based on. The answers I find open up a space in which I face the questions of who I really am and what I really want.
Self-determination: To the extent that I detach myself from fixed self-images, I realize that thoughts, feelings and desires are in constant flux. I learn to distinguish what alienates me from myself, what brings me closer to myself, and what renews me: the old is discarded, the present always creates the new. This is education in the truest sense of the word - a flowing, living process. It requires the allowing of "not knowing." Welcoming the uncertainty and vulnerability that comes with it means real courage.
Education of the heart: observing constant change casts back on your own being and leads to humility. It lets yourself and the other person be where he or she is right now, and thus leads to empathy and genuine respect: he or she is a mirror.
Passion and quality of life: Education in the aforementioned sense carries the value in itself - equal to love - and leads to expansion and growth. It awakens and has an immediate sense of what serves it. It strengthens the courage to be alone and yet remain connected. It means quality of life and a happiness that remains and grows with us.