A Dialogue on Educating the Self-Regulated Student: A Dialogue with Saeed Ghapanvari, Distinguished Scholar

Chahardoli:
In today's world, where the pace of change in knowledge and technology is dizzying, relying on accumulated knowledge is no longer sufficient. The primary task of modern education is to equip the student with a compass that can guide them to the shores of success in any storm; this compass is none other than the skill of self-regulated learning and the cultivation of learner autonomy. Self-regulated learning, as the driving engine of a student's intellectual and practical independence, goes far beyond merely memorising content or completing assignments; it is a metacognitive skill that enables the individual to manage their own learning process from beginning to end.

Focusing on educating the autonomous student is tantamount to providing them with long-term intellectual and livelihood security, because a self-regulated individual is capable of demonstrating resilience in the face of challenges and the rapid changes of professional and social environments, and can chart their own path of progress without relying on external structures. This independence directly counteracts motivational erosion, because agency and control are the greatest reinforcers of intrinsic motivation. When a student feels that their successes are the result of their own planning and purposeful effort, their reliance on grades or external validation decreases, and their inner passion and enthusiasm for confronting intellectual and scientific challenges multiply—thereby laying the foundation for a committed and thoughtful citizen.

Ghapanvari:
Knowledge is dynamic and forward-moving; stasis drags the repetition of defective cycles, combined with a veneer of transcendence, toward a half-death. The presence of design and projection redeems the world of knowledge from particular, reified determinations. Being at one's own disposal must, sun-like, open up apertures of knowing and accelerate this possibility to the extent that one can even transform this very being-at-one's-own-disposal. Such an education organises difference in the shadow of acceptance, critique, and both consonant and dissonant discourses. Possibilities transcend inertia, and in a wave-like fluidity, carry newness to the very frontiers of the classroom and learning. Orientation in education is misguided and fruitless; it must, on a transcendent horizon, offer an opening to individuality and yet a synthesis in consensus, bestowing upon this generation cultivated individuals for whom the transcendence of clichés in all horizons integrates progressive insights into education.

Chahardoli:
Within the current educational system, shaped under the shadow of the discourses of rapid modernity and polyphonic postmodernity, the emphasis on self-regulated learning can be interpreted as a transition from essentialist epistemological paradigms toward constructivist and post-structuralist approaches. In this transition, knowledge is understood not as a static, accumulative entity, but as a fluid, ever-becoming process that elevates the learning subject from the passive position of a receiver of pre-determined meanings to that of an active agent and the ontological author of their own self. This self-agency, rooted in the concepts of existential philosophy and the Enlightenment ideal, liberates the individual from the bonds of "particular, reified determinations" and guides them toward a realm of epistemological "redemption." Such education, by cultivating metacognitive and critical capabilities, provides a ground in which the individual is not only not passive before the dominant discourses of academic socialisation, but is also able to redefine their position and engage in the continuous re-creation of the self within a field of "consonant and dissonant discourses." This process itself constitutes the foundation of a biopolitics of resistance that stands against the homogenising mechanisms of power within the institution of education.

Ghapanvari:
Polyphony brings with it an ontological state, and this category disseminates a transformation into an interpretative voice within a kind of difference. Always existing within structure can consolidate a kind of intrinsic meaning-production within mentalities, and precisely the escape from this challenge must be accompanied by a rupture. Education that is confined within limits, leading to the concealment of transcendence, demands a new beginning. Classroom-centredness is a departure from structural and transcendental meaning, and an entry into dissenting voices. The fervour of teaching is rewritten, and this time through the path of question-formation. Here, as Derrida would say, the conscious element between listener and speaker fades, and everything unfolds in an unconscious process. The departure from fixed meaning invites the classroom into actual beingness and worlds beyond worlds—a process that founds cognition and, in Heidegger's words, an opening to a Being that becomes replete with acceptance, interpretation, and shifts in the equation into possibility. Passivity, which is reification and the emptying of the meaning of action, will vanish from this domain and be consigned to the grave.

Chahardoli:
As someone analysing this dialogue, it is clear to me that we are facing an unavoidable necessity: today's world, with its dizzying changes, no longer leaves any room for passive education based on the mere accumulation of information. From my perspective, the primary task of my colleagues and me in the field of education is, instead of storing data in students' minds, to give them a compass called self-regulated learning—a metacognitive skill that will become the driving engine of their intellectual independence and enable them to direct their own learning process from start to finish.

I believe that focusing on educating such an autonomous student is, in fact, providing them with long-term security. Because in my experience, I have seen that a self-regulated individual withstands complex social and professional challenges and constructs their own path of progress without dependence on external structures. This independence, by affording a sense of agency and control, directly combats demotivation. I have witnessed that when a student considers their success to be the result of their own planning and effort, their inner passion for learning multiplies several times over.

From a more philosophical standpoint, I view this transformation as a necessary transition from an essentialist view of knowledge toward a constructivist and fluid approach. In my view, knowledge is not a fixed object but a process that is constantly in the state of becoming. My role as an educator is to free the learner from the bonds of pre-determined determinations and help them to "be at their own disposal." I want to break the classroom free from the monopoly of a single imposed meaning and turn it into an arena for polyphonic dialogue, questioning, and even the redefinition of the concepts themselves. For me, this is where the traditional teacher-student relationship fades, and we engage in a collaborative, unconscious process to discover new concepts.

My ultimate goal in this kind of education is not to cultivate people who merely repeat memorised answers, but to nurture thoughtful, critical, and committed citizens who have the ability to transcend clichés and who can, in a complex and rapidly changing world, create their own progressive and personal insights. This, in my view, is precisely the "opening to Being" of which they speak.