Schooling the World

Director : Carol Black

YouTube Link

Year : 2010

• 0:00-4:14. The documentary starts by offering the idea that schooling in many parts of the world started as a means to change the behaviour and thinking of colonised people. From then, till date, this has been treated as if the burden lies upon the educators. In practice, those being educated often struggle far more to receive this education. And now we are made to ponder whether it is truly in their interest.
• 4:15-8:40. Traditional schooling approaches focused on different ideas, most of which were locally and culturally centred, and more fundamentally about how the individual should behave. Modern schooling is a far more single-minded, with a focus on success and wealth creation. Any approach to schooling which is focused on different outcomes is often thought of as subpar.
• 8:41-11:15. All ecosystems are delicate and complex. Any sudden change has a cascading effect. Presumably, the shift in style of education in India has had a similar effect, which we are still experiencing.
• 11:16-12:43. It is important to remember that ‘our’ culture is only one model of humanity. Each other culture is just as legitimate a form of education and upbringing. By openly studying more of them, we can appreciate that there aren’t absolute answers to “what education should be”.
• 12:44-16:00. Traditional education seems to at least do better on sustainability, and teaching people how to survive in their natural environment. Whereas modern education is focused on urban consumer culture. Different kinds of schooling can create very different people, with different world views, from the exact same situation.
• 16:01-17:16. Since all different forms of education are legitimate for their own purposes, we should be concerned about the absolute uniformity of education, as if it is just a means of discipline.
• 17:17-20:35. Modern education is not developed to create well equipped human beings. But rather to develop humans who fit in well in the industrialised world.
• 20:36-24:10. Education for everyone basically serves to bring everyone into the global economy. We should pause to think about whether this is in every individual’s interest. Are there other, greater objectives that education should serve? And therefore what sort of education does each person actually require? The new missionaries (businesses driving and defining education) hold the answer to why education is this excessively uniform.
• 24:11-26:10. This uniform education serves to replace a variety of cultures and traditions with one ‘modern’ culture. Is this what we want? And is this a good enough culture for the world?
• 26:11-29:20. Modern education carries some propaganda against tradition, and creates a sense of inferiority.
• 29:21-33:06. While we are told that education is the route out of poverty. It is colonialism which has created the kind of poverty that we have today, which is worse than the kind of poverty that we have in the past. A lot of people are investing in education and are ending up no better off (worse because of lost investment). Furthermore, a lot of the people who are failing out of education could be using their talents well elsewhere, but are branded as failures instead.
• 33:07-39:31. Forcing an education which doesn’t fit into someone’s livelihood only wastes their childhood years, without preparing them for their actual livelihood. A lot of the aide and support provided on the front of education is also thus misdirected.
• 39:32-44:58. There is a filtering out and loss of cultures and language.
• 44:59-55:00. Summary and recap of all of the past ideas. Centred around the idea that just because it works for the west, doesn’t mean that it works for the world at large.
• 55:01-59:12. It’s important to connect different parts of the world (developed and developing). But it’s important not to use a one-size fits all solution.
• 59:13-End. Even good intentions behind our education system can have not so great outcomes.