Wednesday
Social Justice, Sustainable Education, Teaching and LearningWhere are we going?
Last Tuesday the Warner School hosted a screening of Schooling the World, with a fantastic panel discussion afterward. The film covers a lot of ground, from economic globalization and neocolonial ideology to sustainable farming and the Buddhist aspects of Ladakh culture. It attempts, successfully in my opinion, to disrupt simple conceptions of schooling, progress, development, wealth, culture and what it means to help through charitable action. Although the film presents a somewhat simplified story of how compulsory schooling and its well-intentioned supporters change indigenous cultures, it does challenge the audience to think about how this interaction occurs in the globalized world.
Both panelists and audience members alike struggled to understand the power dynamics at play when a narrow conception of “help” is imposed on another culture. Do they even want our help? Who are we to help them anyway? What do they need? What do we want? The film makes the point that we (of cultural privilege and power) need to be aware of how our actions impact those in the world around us. Personally, not a day goes by anymore in this doctoral program that I claim to know, or even understand, the totality of any situation or concept. The world is so complicated and irreducible. The film and discussion showed me how quick we sometimes are to swoop in and claim that we have all the answers. I definitely do not, and Schooling the World reminded me that it is equally important to be present in the listening aspect of conversation. I think this starts with a temperament rooted in humility and doubt; something often missing from the hyper-partisan and vitriolic rhetoric that sadly characterizes much of our modern political discourse.
The film also makes a strong environmental claim, and one that I happen to agree with (probably the reason I was drawn to the film in the first place). The director, leveraging the work of Wade Davis, makes the claim that modern schooling perpetuates a way of thinking that simply cannot be sustained by the ecosystems that support life on Earth. We see images of students taken from their more traditional social learning patterns and placed in compulsory schooling, where they then learn about nature as an abstraction, disconnected from their own sensory experiences in the world. I have seen this over and over again in my own career as an educator, and it’s a trend that I find deeply troubling.
As I write this blog a major winter snowstorm is bearing down on the Rochester community. Ask yourself this question: are you, and your community, really capable of sustaining existence in the face of natural shocks? Or, are you utterly reliant on the whims of fragile economic and environmental systems? As a sustainability educator, this is something I am concerned about in my own practice. As a result much of what I do involves conserving wisdom from prior generations: cultivating sustainable farming practices, fixing materials when they break instead of instantly purchasing a replacement, knowing how to read natural patterns and building local, resilient and durable systems of neighbors. These are all things that are often neglected in our increasingly narrow and technocratic educational system. Schooling the World rightly points out this troubling trend and questions whether we should be sharing it with the rest of the planet.
We have a dominant narrative in this country that progress is often necessary and valuable. But what kind of progress are we talking about? Is it the type of global economic progress that works to destroy local communities? Is it a technologic progress that is ultimately based on a system of cheap labor, cheap energy and rare earth metals? Schooling the World asks us to pause for a minute when facing these notions of progress and the powerful interests that often support them. It is in this pause that we can begin to think about what we are gaining and what we are losing. The video of the Vanuatu chief embedded in this post reminds me that my own education has provided numerous opportunities to live a comfortable lifestyle, including the ability to sit here and write this blog post from the warmth of my home, but it has also distanced me from the wisdom of my ancestors. Is that progress? Yes. And no.
If you were unable to see Schooling the World the other day, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. While is has its flaws, it will prompt you to rethink what you mean when you say someone is well-educated. In the spirit of the film, I’ll leave you with a quote from the Shakyamuni Buddha, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.” What is that world?
Post Tags: international education, Schooling the World
Feb 2, 2011
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But let’s suffice it to say that our (mainly western) notions of progress fails to consider the first and second laws of thermodynamics. There is this thought that we can engineer ourselves out of any problem. But think. We have created all of these “labor saving” devices so we can do the same stuff in less time, however, in reality we are spending even more time and doing even more stuff. Where is the progress in that? My gut tells me that we may “progress” to a more energy efficient future, but again we will not take the position that we can now use half the energy, but can now do TWICE the stuff using the same fuel. That solves no problem at all. At the end of every presidential speech I hear, “and God bless America.” I just think, “we are 5% of the world’s population using about 25% of the world’s natural resources. Don’t we think it is time for God to go bless someone else?”
Feb 2, 2011
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The part that disturbs me the most is that there is already a shortage of people in the world that feel a deep connection with the environment, and by bringing western schooling into areas full of people that respect nature and teaching their next generation to see it as “we” do, as an “abstraction,” we are effectively eliminating any chance we have of reducing global consumption to a level our planet can sustain. “We” should be learning from “them.”
Feb 2, 2011
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I’m no fan of Western imperialism, but I’ll be the fly in the ointment here: the clips I saw of the film were highly, dare I say irresponsibly, polemic. Reminded me of Waiting for Superman in terms of visual manipulation. Any thoughts on that, Joe?
Also, I would question the “Western model” of the schools I saw (again, in clips, so I could be wrong here). They reminded me strongly of how Korean schools were run where I taught– huge pools of uniformed children marching in formation, etc etc. While such forms of schooling are clearly not indigenous, I think you’d be hard pressed to make the argument that they are superlatively representative of Western schools, either– the varied depth and breadth of which are enormous.
What I observed in Korea seemed to be more like someone’s mad interpretation of Western schools, passed through the further fun-house mirror of making them “appropriate” for aboriginal children. What results? An arguably damaging mess. But *Western*? I’m not so sure.
Feb 2, 2011
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Dina, check out the movie. You raise points that the panel also focused on regarding the oversimplification of paradigms/models. I definitely agree that the term “Western” is opaque and should be critiqued, but that’s our job, isn’t it? As an artist, the director has a different job, right?
Feb 2, 2011
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I don’t think truth-telling oversimplifies. I don’t think good art, does, either.
Feb 2, 2011
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US schools were developed for a particular purpose, to produce workers for the factories. That model has not changed since its inception. It is governed by a structure that caters to the middleclass and white. If you do not come with the approproiate background “rules” your success at the game will be limited. The question is, what is our role, if any, for those who live a primitive (speaking as a doctoral student with his feet pretty firmly in the middle class) life? My education as well has been a difficult and at times tumultuous experience. I have begun to question concepts like “natural.” What does that mean? Why distinguish between natural and man-made? Are humans not natural? Isn’t everything we do natural for us? So, is it natural to go and “help” those we think need it? Do we take agency away form the “primitive ones” by thinking that we could save them by not polluting their culture with our ideals? Can’t they make their own decisions? Are we being just as arrogant saying they need our help as we are by saying we don’t want to ruin their culture? These are not easy question to answer. Is a life of ignorance to “modern” culture better than life in modern culture. Is it better to be exposed and then decide which is better for yourself? How does that decision take place? What are the influences there? Western culture has such a huge impact on the trends in other societies. The chinese endure bone lengthening surgeries to make themselves talleer and also have plastic surgery to make their eyelids visible because that is the sign of (western) beauty. Black women risk severe chemical burns “relaxing” their hair by pouring sodium hydroxide on their hair, or paying thousands of dollars for straight hair extensions in the name of (western) beauty. Our own daughters are binging and puking or just plain starving themselves to achieve the “perfect” (western) beauty. Who decides what is beautiful? How is it that we have become the focal point of what it means to be human on this earth? If we could decide to take a different course (say something a bit more sustainable) would the rest of the world follow? Is that, then our responsibility? I’ve got no answers. I’m only asking the questions. Sorry.
Feb 5, 2011
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This post reminds me of just how reliant we all are on the environmental and economic systems’ capacity to sustain us through natural catastrophes.
Feb 8, 2011
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Joe, thank you for both organizing the screening and providing a post in the blog regarding the documentary. I wish I could have been at the screening to hear what others had to say about it, and I appreciate the people’s comments left here on the blog. I had a chance to view the film and I thought that it provided a perspective that will give people an opportunity to be more reflexive in our practices as educators. During the movie, I couldn’t help but to think about this phenomenon as something that doesn’t just happen across international boarders and in far away places, but that this kind of “value imposition of what people need to know to be successful” happens right here in our own communities. It is often the people in power who decide what is important, what is valuable, and set the standards to which everyone should fit (YES! Did you think I wasn’t going to have a comment that didn’t cite PB? Always citing Bourdieu, 1984), but we become so socialized and desensitized to these in our daily lives that we stop noticing. If we are thinking about education as empowerment, I wonder what we really mean by empowerment. Grateful for folks to disrupt the notions.