I s sue No . 1 , Vo l . No . 2Rs

. 45EDucate!

A Quarterly on Education & Development

Understanding &Transforming our

Schools

Cover Story Page 7

Looking at the World Through an“Unschooled” Perspective

Fatima Suraiya Bajia

Page 12

ReconceptualizingGood Schools

Page 28

Dr. Shahid Siddiqui

UNDERSTANDING&

TRANSFORMINGOUR SCHOOLS

AMBREENA AZIZ

Page 19

Peter McLarenAn Interview for

EDucate!

MASHHOOD RIZVI

UR On...

Looking at the WorldThrough an

“Unschooled” Perspective

Fatima Suraiya Bajia

Modern EducationIncreasing knowledge or ignorance 16Helena Norberg-Hodge

Education in PakistanFrom numbers to learning 24Wasif Rizvi

Reconceptualizing Good Schools 28Shahid Siddiqui

Rethinking Education

Page 12

Page 7

C o v e r S t o r y

Neoliberalism, Global Capitalism& Educational Change 42Dave Hill

Teachers as Transformatory Intellectuals 46Henry Giroux

Critical Educators

Noam Chomsky on Schooling 31Noam Chomsky

How Factory Schools are Like Big Dams? 34Shilpa Jain

In Passing

Books for a Better Worldn Deschooling Society - Ivan Illich 53n Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo Freire 55

Websites for a Better Worldwww.infed.org 57

Societal Learning

What is Sustainable Development? 38Ted Trainer

Rethinking DevelopmentAZIZ KABANI & AMBREENA AZIZ

This pioneering magazine has been created to challenge ethically,morally and intellectually the inequalities in the existing

paradigms of education and development in order to liberatepeople’s thoughts and actions.

CHAIRPERSONProf. Anita Ghulam Ali

EDITOR–IN–CHIEFMashhood Rizvi

EDITORAmbreena Aziz

EDITORIAL SUPPORTMrs. Nafisa Jah

ASSISTANT EDITORSAziz Kabani, Naureen Butt

CONTRIBUTORSRobert McChesney, Shilpa Jain, Wasif Rizvi,Henry Giroux, Shahid Siddiqui, Ted Trainer,

Aziz Choudry, Helena Norberg-Hodge,Dave Hill.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANCEShakeel Ahmed, Naeem Nizamani

DESIGNERZulfiqar Ali Zulfi

ILLUSTRATION/PHOTO CREDITNaeem Nizamani, Shakeel Ahmed,

Shukri Rehmanwww.shareint.org, zmag.org/photo3.htm

CORRESPONDENCE MANAGERSomaiya Ayoob

CIRCULATION MANAGERShukri Rehman

We welcome your questions, suggestions, support and contributions.Letters to the editor should not exceed 500 words. Essays and articlesshould not exceed more than 3000 words. Previously published articlesand essays should be supported with references and permissions toreprint. The editor reserves the right to edit submissions prior topublication.

C O N T R I B U T I O N S

EDucate! is published quarterly by the Sindh Education Foundation.The opinions reflected in the various contributions and articles do notnecessarily reflect the views of the Sindh Education Foundation.

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Some of the InstrumentsMight be New… 35Aziz Choudry

Rethinking Globalization

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OPEN LETTERS 4

EDITOR’S NOTE 6

WAKEUP CALLS 41INSPIRATIONS & REFLECTIONS 41

VOICE OF THE VOICELESS 50Muhammad Khan Zada

DEVELOPMENT DAIRY 52KT

FINAL ANALYSIS 58

Regular Features

Power, force and insight…I am really impressed with the quality of themagazine; the layout, the themes, design, and, ofcourse, and most especially the content. This is amagazine with power, force, and insight behind it– wi th a nob le purpose . I t i s rea l l y qu i tesomething. It will make a strong impact for justice,I am sure of that!

Dr. Peter McLaren,University of California,

USA

Outstanding job…Once again, it looks great. You people are reallydoing an outstanding job. Congratulations to realcultural workers.

Henry Giroux,Penn State University,

USA

Challenging norms and taboosThe tragedy of education in Pakistan is that itcomes very low on the priority order of thedecision makers. A large number of initiatives focuson the quantitative expansion. Be it the numberof schools or number of ‘trained teachers’. Thereis least attention given to the qualitative aspect ofeducation. Aren’t we just producing students to fillout the empty slots of society and become ‘goodcitizens’? What we need to strive for is aneducational system that focuses on emancipatingour students by thinking critically. We need toproduce students who should not just fit into theslots of society but who could challenge some ofits norms and taboos. I am glad EDucate! isfocusing on this important function of education.

Dr. Shahid Siddiqui,Islamabad,

Pakistan

Good learning experienceWe have great value and respect for the effortsand endeavors the Sindh Education Foundation isengaged in. The experiences and achievements ofthe Foundation serve as a good learning experiencefor the development professionals.

Liaquat Thaheem

Feeling at homeI am a teachar at Bahria College, Karsaz. I findEDucate! very informative and it makes one feelat home since the experiences of the writers areof our own context.

Shahina,Karachi

Compete with the Times - No!I must confess now that the Renaissance is on inPakistan. I was very impressed with the physicaloutlook of the magazine and also the website isquite remarkable, although it needs to get an edge,but hopefully with the passage of time its going tocompete with ‘The Times’ and I am lookingforward to that.

Raja Adnan Razzaq,Rawalpindi

Inspires fresh thinkingThanks for sending me EDucate! Pakistan’s FirstMagazine on Education and Development. I amimpressed with the contents and the titles inspirefresh thinking. It gives the reader confidence toknow that others also think as rational individualsin a conservative society.

Dr. Khalid Aftab,Principal, Govt. College,

Lahore

Source of liberationCongratulations for initiating the thought-provokingmagazine EDucate! This time it is more eyeopening as it problamatises the role of media withprofound intellectual rationale. The dialogue of thecontemporary media critics on the prevailing roleof media is opening new windows of thinking inthe existing epoch of fragmentation and dogmatism.It needs to decentral ize the lessons of thecontemporary dissents at community level, so thata sustainable change could be posed in thespectrum of the prevai l ing global real it ies .May EDucate! becomes a source of liberation forthe restless majority from the prosperous few.

Barkat Shah Kakar,IDSP-Pakistan,

Quetta

OPEN letters

4

We welcome your comments, critique and suggestions.Fax: 92-21-9251652

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Include your full name, address, e-mail, and daytime phone number. We may edit letters for brevityand clarity, and use them in all print and electronic media.

Reflections from a ReaderEDucate! is a wonderful magazine that allows incisive insights into education and development issues.After reading the four issues I have some first impressions.

1. I agree that a radical approach to solving education problems is required. We need an overhaulof the system, to turn around this specialty producer of brown sahibs and clerks designed to churnout a cadre of locals, ill-equipped to question, analyze, and rise, just trained to serve the British rajin its administration of the Colony. The overhauling is not just about better public management andpolicy. It’s a very tricky political process, which should empower the proverbial PTV ‘common man’(that is atleast the intention of education reform) and disinherit the feudal power structure amongother power-wielders. The contribution of your magazine and website is to generate an awarenessabout the need for radical overhaul. My humble suggestion: the target audience is probably awareof this need for reform (though not of how to question the curriculum) but to reach a critical massof awareness you have to reach the non-English reading audience. The fact that the magazine is inEnglish limits its proliferation. Perhaps an Urdu version of the magazine carrying translations of asummary of Iqbal’s ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ or Ali Shariati or Syed Qutb’s ideaswould be a better mechanism. An English collection of radical essays are important to convert a fewof the Anglicized graduates from KGS or St. Patrick’s (that’s a generalization but for effect). But whatwe need is critical mass and that would come largely from a segment that doesn’t read English.

2. Unfortunately, I am a realist and crave for specific issues. Yes, the magazine has debates on‘overarching paradigms’ on what ‘education should do’ but I haven’t read a piece that outlines aproblem in schooling in Pakistan AND suggests a solution to overcome it. Perhaps policy / solutionoriented debates on more specific issues would be a greater contribution.

3. I am particularly delighted to see pieces on Iqbal and a remembrance of Shariati. It indicates thatthere is some emphasis by your team on drawing on the pool of ideas that philosophers in Islam haveaccumulated in their quest to reform Muslim societies. I hope to see greater emphasis on learningfrom models based on our societies and religion than on transplanting Western paradigms of education.

As a policy analyst concerned about education reform in Pakistan, I applaud your effort to highlightthe critical significance of education on development. My concern is that an emphasis on progressiveslogans/critiques of education may inhibit your ability to bring change due to opposition from theEstablishment. What is required is a delicate balance between quiet practical change/reform and aloud dissemination of ideas. It’s a tricky balance, but that’s the fun part!!

Hope my comments are taken as a posit ive, constructive contr ibution to the process .

Regards,Mohammed Rehan Malik,

RGS Doctoral Fellow,RAND Graduate School, USA.

5

“School is a place where tests are failed and passed, where amusing things happen, where new insights aretumbled upon, and skills acquired. But it is also a place in which people sit, and listen, and wait and raisetheir hands, and pass out paper, and stand in line, and sharpen pencils. School is where we encounter bothfriends and foes, where imagination is unleashed and misunderstandings brought to ground. But it is also a placein which yawns are stifled and initials scratched on desktops, where milk money is collected and recess linesare formed. Both aspects of school life, the celebrated and the unnoticed, are familiar to all of us, but thelatter, if only because of its characteristic neglect, seems to deserve more attention that it has received to datefrom those who are interested in education.”

(The Daily Grind, Philip Jackson)

hether we like it or not, schools are places that propagate standardized learnings, ritualistic andcyclic classroom activities, curriculums oriented towards the western pattern of education, evaluative

mechanisms based on the much controversial IQ and meritocracy techniques to grade and classify students. Thegrading and classifying further induce stratification and inequality among children making them feel inadequateand uneasy with their own unique capabilities. Uniqueness is marred by the intention to homogenize not onlythe aims of education but also the tools to communicate it. The only rationale behind acquiring education isachieving an economically sound stature in society. The definition of education is sadly confused with thelaborious process of attending one schooling institution after another. All other forms of learning outside thephysical boundaries of a school/college/university are marginalized i f not completely wiped out.

To understand the institution of schooling in the historical context of colonialism, to analyze the social, culturaland moral impacts the school creates by promoting westernized forms of learning that have little or nothingto do with our indigenous culture and language and to appreciate the value and significance of alternativeeducational approaches, this issue of EDucate! aims at rethinking and reclaiming the meaning of education andschooling in our society. The content is a varied mix of articles and interviews on critical and transformatoryeducation, neo-liberalism and education, concept of schooling and the part schools play in society and role ofteachers. The present day education system of the country cannot be analyzed without referring to the colonialinfluence in the Subcontinent. The cover story ‘Understanding and Transforming Our Schools’ deals with thisissue and analyzes the schooling system in the light of colonial times. Wasif Rizvi’s article ‘Education in Pakistan:From Numbers to Learning’ is also a critique of the current education system of the country and outlinescorrective measures for its transformation. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui, a well-known name in the education circles ofPakistan, discusses the preconceived notions of schools in our society and redefines them in his article‘Reconeptualizing Good Schools’. Throughout this issue we have emphasized the notion that education shouldnot be restricted to mere schooling. A face-to-face with Fatima Suriya Bajia, a much-loved playwright and personfor all generations, supports this idea since her own education took place at home without any formal schooling.UR On… features Peter McLaren, one of the leading critical educators of the present times. In this interviewhe focuses on progressive and critical education, critical pedagogy, teachers as transformative intellectuals andthe role of schools in the struggle for social justice.

We hope this issue of EDucate! proves to be a powerful source of learning and understanding for teachers,p a r e n t s , s t u d e n t s a n d a l l t h o s e i n v o l v e d w i t h t h e p r o c e s s a n d i n s t i t u t i o n s o f e d u c a t i o n .I would like to sign off with a few lines of Ivan Illich: “Everyone learns how to live outside school. We learnto speak, to think, to love, to feel, to play, to curse, to politick, and to work without interference from ateacher. Even children who are under a teacher’s care day and night are no exception to the rule. Orphans,idiots, and schoolteachers’ sons learn most of what they learn outside the ‘educational’ process planned forthem.” Let’s not make schooling the end of the wonderful world of curiosity and perpetual discovery of truth.

Ambreena Aziz

Editor’sNote

6

W

What is the role of schoolsin our society? What doesthe paradigm of education

mean to us? Is theprevalent education systemmeeting our societal needs

or only impelling us forwardin the rat race for material

gains? How can educationbe used as a critical vehicle

for envisaging ademocratically vibrant

society?n the last fifty-five years, there has been aperpetual debate on the system of education

prevalent in the country and how it can contributeto the socio-economic welfare. Much has been said andwritten since then; an array of aims and objectivesbeing outlined customarily in the national-levelconventions deliberating the education agenda.We stand at a threshold where we are trawling formistaken solutions of obscure problems. The real

problem is not a depleted school building or a lowattendance rate, the real issue here is the collectivemindset towards the total concept of education; thelack of capacity to dismantle and unveil the nefariousgroundwork that underlie the institution of schooling.We are still not sure where to head and what topursue, we are still looking for that one guidepostwhich will rid us of all our economic, political, socialand moral ailments. For most of us, economic growth(translated a job voucher for a multinational) is theultimate, most sacred aim of education; there is nohigher goal beyond. Achieving maximum material gainoccupies the chief tier in the hierarchy of one’spersonal goals or for that matter collective aspirationof the society. It is a deep-rooted apathy, an heirloomof colonial times, a sad legacy we cannot get rid of.And we pass on the bequest to our youth; we givethem gifts of competition, envy and an utter sense ofinadequacy with their own caliber.

The Real i ty Under ly ing School ingSchooling ignores, negates, and demeans intelligences,knowledge systems, making-meaning systems, andlearning styles that do not fit within its parameters.For example, a number of multiple intelligences havebeen identified by cognitive scientists/psychologists.These include intrapersonal, interpersonal, logical,spatial, natural, verbal, musical, kinesthetic, spiritual,emotional, creative, etc. Yet, schooling denies theexistence of all of these intelligences in each and every

Understanding &Transforming our Schools

AMBREENA AZIZ

I

COVER STORY

7

1 Exposing the Illusion of the Campaign for Fundamental Right to Education, George. Selena & Jain. Shilpa, December 2000, Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for RethinkingEducation and Development.

one of us. Furthermore, its emphasis on superficial info-knowledge – cramming us full of rote facts andmindless trivia – makes a mockery of what it meansto be fully human. Nor is there any real space forcreativity, for local languages/expressions, nor forexploring a variety of relationships or other kinds ofsettings.1

For us education is synonymouswith schooling. There is no otherdefinition. All parameters, whichfulfil l the promise of a ‘ brightprosperous future’, come under theslogan of education. So immersedare we in the materialistic conquestthat we deem the institution of‘ school ing ’ a s be ing the so le ,unrivaled agency of producingcivilized, progressive individuals, who in reality areculturally illiterate, all out to join the bandwagon ofpower-status seekers.

Our schools suffer from numerous explicit and far toomany implicit problems. If this segregation is furtherclassified we can easily distinguish the elusive linebetween the two peripheries.

The Explicits: This is stating the obvious, whichwe have been doing repeatedly over the last fivedecades.

g Our schools lack the basic infrastructure: dearth ofproper buildings, classrooms, water, electricity andsanitation facilities.

g We don’t have well-trained and committedteachers: teachers need skills and motivation toimpart education.

g The textbooks belong to the preceding generations:we are being taught the same thing as our parentsand grand parents.

g Lack of financial resources: how can we improvethe schools when we don’t have money? Thechildren are poor and the State does not provideus with adequate funds.

g Lack of supervision and monitoring mechanisms:no system of accountability for implementation ofperformance enhancing measures.

g Lack of concerted ef forts on behalf of thegovernment to improve the state of education:despite sky-high claims, no substantial actions aretaken at the policy level.

It must be noted that the purpose of highlighting theabove-mentioned issues in this context is to draw aline between the too-obvious issues and the understatedones and not to project them as insignificant in anyway.

The Implicits: Seldom stated and never left tocritical public opinion, it is high time we becomereceptive to the real causes of the problem rather thanstray in the endless circle of symptoms. The wholeeducation phenomenon of our country rests onquantitative measures with qualitative outcomes playinga trivial role. We do not value the worth of shapinga long-term vision for the most important need of the

society. As a consequence, ourcourse of action determining everyaspect of the education system(curriculum, teachers, students) isdirected by a myopic vision for thefuture. Seldom the school hasintroduced a course teaching ushow to resist oppression or how tovalue our own history and cultureor for that matter how to work

collectively for the welfare of the humanity. These areimparted as intangible lessons always secondary tocourses rendering partial knowledge about a foreignhistory and language at the cost of undermining anddevaluing our own culture, history and language specificsubjects.

The underlying values of the current system ofeducation are geared towards a single pronged goal ofachieving accelerated economic growth by producing abreed of degree-holders (not scholars) to take thecountry full-throttle in achieving its dream of being a‘progressive’ ‘developed’ nation. By steadily multiplyingthe number of education institutions each year, wefalsely believe the realization of this dream could comethrough and yet it is not even remotely happening.Not only the literacy rate staggers low but also thestatus of employment opportunities, despite themushrooming schools, colleges and business institutionsall over.

The Colonial spill over: Our present dayschooling system is one of the many (but mostimportant in the order of destructive leftovers)remnants of our former British masters. It is imperativeto understand where our present day schooling has itsroots and why does it exist, as it does, in the presentshape and form? Leafing through the annals ofsubjugation in British India, we can trace the adventof Western forms of learning to 1834 when LordMacaulay stated in his famous Minute:

“The great objective of the British Government shouldbe the promotion of European literature and scienceamong the natives of India and that all the fundsappropriated for the purpose of education would bestb e e m p l o y e d o n E n g l i s h e d u c a t i o n a l o n e ” .This resolution laid the foundations to promote Westernthoughts and cultural practices among the Indians of

The whole educationphenomenon of our

country rests onquantitative measures with

qualitative outcomesplaying a trivial role.

8

COVER S T O R Y

the Subcontinent and so began thestill surviving tradition of demeaningour indigenous languages, cultureand the richest heritage in theworld.

In order to understand the colonialsystem of education, we must brieflydwell on the ideology, concept andimp l i ca t i ons o f co lon i za t i on :

The process of colonization involvesone nation or territory takingcont ro l o f another na t ion o rterritory either through the use of force or byacquisition. According to expert opinion and research,as a by-product of colonization, the colonizing nationimplements its own form of schooling within theircolonies. Two scholars on colonial education, Gail P.Kelly and Philip G. Altbach, help define the processas an attempt “to assist in the consolidation of foreignrule.” Often the implementation of a new educationsystem leaves those who are colonized with a lack ofidentity and a limited sense of their past. Theindigenous history and customs once practiced andobserved slowly slip away. The colonized becomehybrids of two vastly different cultural systems. Colonialeducation creates a blurring that makes it difficult todifferentiate between the new, enforced ideas of thecolonizers and the formerly accepted native practices.Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, author of Decolonising the Mind,believes that “education, far from giving people theconfidence in their ability and capacities to overcomeobstacles or to become masters of the laws governingexternal nature as human beings tends to make themfeel their inadequacies and their ability to do anythingabout the condition of their lives”.In short,I. Colonization existed to exploit abundant natural

resources in order to feed European and NorthAmerican consumerism.

II. In order for the colonizers to exploit for labor theyfirst needed to establish themselves as the authority.Because authority traditionally rested in the handsof community leaders or those well-versed withindigenous knowledge and wisdom, the colonizersneeded to begin dismantling cultural traditions. Themain tool for doing this was the colonial school.

III. The colonial school was set up to instill the valuesand practices of the colonizers on the indigenouspeople so that the indigenous people would openup the i r l and and the i r m inds t o marke teconomies. In order to establish control over theseeconomies, the colonizers had to first establishcontrol over the socialization of the people. As aresult, the colonial schools began socializing the

children in ways that conflictedwith their traditions. The studentswere taught to despise their ownlanguage. They were taught thateverything in their culture wasinferior to the colonial culture.Students were taught in school thattheir beliefs were primitive andsuperstitious. As a result, theybegan to lose faith and respect forthe elders as authority figures, andbegan to see the colonizers as theauthority.

If we analyze our schooling system in the light of theabove, we can easily draw similarities and concludethat we are still holding on to a system of education,which has nothing to do with our indigenous cultureand forms of learning.

g Our schools do not teach us to be a member ofour local community/society.

g We learn to read, write and speak things thatdon’t fit in our indigenous knowledge system/life.

g With the disappearance of traditional culture, theknowledge that once enabled us to be self-relianthas also gone.

g We are painfully dependent on the First Worldcountries to provide us with such everyday needsas food, clothing, and shelter.

g The system of rote learning (memorizing subjectsusually alien to inherent way of life) has replacedthe local participatory and age-old systems oflearning through the local environment (family-o r i e n t e d m e t h o d s p r a c t i c e d i n t h e p a s t )

Schools as institutions of career training:The culture of schooling drills into each child thatthere is only one definition of success — to make itto the top of the status-power-control ladder anddominate others. Of course, to get to the top, onemust compete. Pitching child against child, schoolingreinforces the notion that life is a huge race againstevery other individual and if one wants to win, theybetter be ready to fight against and crush everybodyelse.2

The purpose of education has been reduced to beingwell equipped to grab the best job opportunity fromthe very limited pool of available prospects. Higherlearning goals, learning to be a better human andworking towards the collective growth of the society,have been marginalized. The educational institutions ofour country follow an isolationist curriculum. If onewants to be a doctor, she/he will only study medicine

2 ibid

9

Students were taught inschool that their beliefs

were primitive andsuperstitious. We are stillholding on to a system of

education, which hasnothing to do with ourindigenous culture and

forms of learning.

COVER S T O R Y

and cannot pursue any social science/ humanities orarts course in the formal setting of the medicaluniversity. Imagine those who pursue the world’s noblestprofession are not taught the magnitude and values ofthe social responsibility they are about to undertake.Imagine a nascent nuclear scientist not being formallytaught the social consequences that his expertise couldwipe out the entire human race. The importance ofsubjects like philosophy, education, religion, andliterature is always undermined since they are not ‘indemand’, they do not ensure a swift hike on theladder of material success.

Learning for the sake of learning is alien to ourstudents. Shilpa Jain and Selena George elucidate thisfact in their paper ‘Exposing Illusions’, “…not only arejobs being eliminated due to government and corporatedown-sizing, but without a ‘jack’ or a ‘donation’ (i.e.,influence or a bribe), a job is largely unattainable. Andsince schooling has denied youth knowledge andpractice of traditional livelihoods — or has conditionedthem to believe that such activitieswere below them — they are leftwith few other options to sustaint h e m s e l v e s . T h u s , f o r m a n y,schooling has failed to deliver onthe promise of ‘better life chances.’In fact, the statistical and positiveco-relation between education ande m p l o y m e n t / e q u i t y / p o v e r t yalleviation/health/democracy isseriously questionable in the faceof grassroots realities. What isevident is that over the past 50years, growing levels of school enrollment/completionhave been accompanied by overall increases ininequality, unemployment, poverty, vulnerability (political,economic, social, physical).”

The content of the curriculum does notteach us about our own culture, historyor language: Helena Norberg-Hodge beautifullyexpresses this notion in the context of Ladakh whereshe has worked for many years: “Modern education notonly ignores local resources, but worse still makesLadakhi children think of themselves and their cultureas inferior. They are robbed of their self-esteem. Weneed to keep in mind that it is true everywhere. Justrecently I heard a Ladakhi teacher saying to herLadakhi students, ‘Our best poet is Wordsworth. Nowlets read some Somerest Maugham.’ The same thing ishappening in Bali, Africa, South America. The fact isthat Wordsworth is not their poet. The distancebetween this English poet and Ladakh or Bhutan orBali buries their own history and heritage. It’s making

their heritage and resources invisible. Everything thatthey represent – and this is particularly true of earth-based or indigenous culture – is seen as primitive andbackward. It inevitably is within this spectrum that wehave created of progress, meaning away from nature,away from spontaneity away from the uniqueness ofindividuals, of a particular culture and place. All thetime towards a type of monoculture standardizationwhich is inherently eurocentric.” As Helena said, it isthe same everywhere.

Corporatization of education: According toHenry Giroux, corporate values threaten the democraticpurposes of public education. He further elaborates,“Our youth are absorbing the most dangerous aspectsof the commercialization of everyday life. Withincorporate models of schooling, young people are nowsubject to the same processes of ‘corporatization’ thathave excluded all but the most profitable and mostefficient from the economic life of the nation. Nolonger representing a cornerstone of democracy, schools

within an ever-aggressive corporatec u l t u r e a r e r e d u c e d t o n e winvestment opportunities, just asstudents represent a captive marketand new opportunities for profits.And the stakes are high. Educationbecomes less a force for socialimprovement than a force forcommerc ia l inves tment . Sucheducation promises a high yield andsubstantive returns for those youngpeople privileged enough to havethe resources and the power to

make their choices matter — and it becomes a graveloss for those who lack the resources to participate inthis latest growth industry.

It can certainly not be concluded that the too-obviousproblems facing our education system are in any wayunderrated. The inherent reality is that these are somuch overestimated that the authentic origins of thereal problem never see limelight. As a result we, thetorchbearers of universal education, fail to understandthe full reality of their impact on our society. We areoblivious to the fact that these schools are the nativegrounds of promoting evils like inequality, oppressionand maintenance of status quo. Far from fulfilling thepromise of ‘building a free, just, and tolerant society’,schooling actually encourages inequality, injustice, andexploitation. It reinforces many of the oppressivestructural aspects of society. In fact, the least childrenlearn from school (irrespective of whether they go ornot) is that they are not as good as other childrenwho have more, in terms of money, power and status.

10

COVER S T O R Y

Schools within an ever-aggressive corporate

culture are reduced tonew investment

opportunities, just asstudents represent a

captive market and newopportunities for profits.

3 ibid

It is a vicious cycle. Access to theG a m e a n d m o v e m e n t u p t h epower-status-control ladder dependsupon one’s academic qualifications,which in turn depend upon thelevel of wealth and power one hasto obtain those qualifications. The‘head start’ is greatest for thosewho have paid the most for theiracademic degrees (i.e., those whoa t t e n d e l i t e s c h o o l s a n duniversities)3.

What can we do as Educators andCommunity?

Our present system of education (read schooling) canbe aptly understood in the light of Paulo Friere’s‘banking’ method of education in which passive learnersreceive deposits of pre-selected, ready-made knowledge.The learner’s mind is seen as an empty vault intowhich the riches of approved knowledge are placed.The ‘culture of silence’ which dominates our institutionsneed to be shattered through collective efforts at theindividual, social and political level. Dialogue andparticipation from all sections of the society is necessaryto bring about a sustained change in the learningmechanisms and institutions of our country. Not onlya transformation in the curriculum is needed but moreimportantly a critical shift in the collective attitudeand vision towards education is required. The decisionmakers must redefine the concept of education andrecreate a new set of values and objectives in harmonywith our own cultural context and heritage so that theculture of schooling can be transformed. This will notonly help us learn how to value our local resourcesand culture for self-sufficiency and progress (whichbenefits us as a people) but also facilitate us to workcollectively in the larger movement to transform theworld.

Some recommendations are outlined for the educatorsand society:g Children should not be merely taught abstract

pieces of knowledge to be memorized for exams,but instead knowledge that is necessary in everydaylife. This knowledge could extend into threepractical areas: social duties, social values, andspiritual beliefs. The process of learning shouldinstill in children values of unity and collectivenesswith the rest of the members so that they knowit is their duty to look out for the welfare of theirpeople.

g Parents, elders and care givers should be able toinfluence what is taught in the schools, and howit could be taught to be meaningful for life.

g Schools should make indigenous knowledge – local

knowledge of the environment andthe culture and history, and thesocial structure – the focus ofeducation.g School and the communityshould not be viewed as separateinstitutions of learning. Infact theyshould be a source of mutualinterdependence for the learner.g Stories, fables, and legends arecommonly used by indigenouspeoples a l l over the wor ld to

communicate and transmit knowledge systems fromone generation to the next. Because knowledgeabout the traditional institutions of customary law,land tenure systems, inheritance rights, and ritualsare preserved in local stories and legends, thelessons based on these stories can promote culturalidentity, as well being as a means for children tolearn to read and write.

Henry Giroux, one of the leading critical educators,suggests the following in his article ‘EducationIncorporated’:

g As educators, it is important to confront themarch of corporate power by resurrecting a nobletradition, in which education is affirmed as apolitical process that encourages people to identifythemselves as more than consumers, and democracyas more than a spectacle of market culture.

g Given the current assault on educators at all levelsof schooling, educators must also struggle againstthe ongoing trend to reduce teachers to the roleof technicians who simply implement prepackagedcurriculums and standardized tests as part of theefficiency-based relations of market democracy andconsumer pedagogy.

In the face of the growing corporatization of schools,educators should also organize to challenge commodifiedforms of learning in the public schools. This suggestsproducing and distributing resources that educateteachers and students to the dangers of a corporateethos that treats schools as extensions of themarketplace and students as potential consumers. Inaddition to raising critical questions about advertising,educators might also consider addressing the long-standing tension between corporate culture andnoncommercial values in order to contest the growingtendency to subordinate democratic values to marketvalues. At the level of policy, public schools shouldban advertising, merchandising, and commercial interests.And educators should establish a bill of rightsidentifying and outlining the range of noncommercialrelations that can be used to mediate between thepublic schools and the business world.

Not only a transformationin the curriculum isneeded but more

importantly a critical shiftin the collective attitude

and vision towardseducation is required.

COVER S T O R Y

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Bajia on her Education & ChildhoodI never attended a formal school. The elders of thefamily decided that all my education should take placeat home. The teacher lived in our home where wewere taught discipline along with our education. Myfamily was settled in Hyderabad Deccan, which wasthen a paramount cultural center in undivided India.Although there were a few prominent schools e.g. SaintJosephs School, although my grandfather could affordthe fee (which was Rs. 20), he still preferred toeducate us at home. These schools were primarilyattended by pampered girls from the elite families ofnawabs and jagirdars. From the beginning we weretaught self-sufficiency, although we employed 60 to 70servants, we were not allowed to ask anyone of themfor water. There was a huge difference between girlsof the elite families and us. My grandfather felt thatif we attended such schools, we would suffer from aninferiority complex, but since proper upbringing is notpossible without coaching, he decided to carry out oureducation at home. Nevertheless, we were taught allthe subjects that were taught in the formal Hyderabadschools with separate teachers for every subject e.g.calligraphy and maths. In those days there was noconcept of girls having careers. The only future forthem was to get married and take good care of theirfamily and home.

A child’s upbringing is greatly influenced by the family’sattitude. If the family members nurture jealousy andgrudge against each other, how can a child grow up

to be a normal human being? We were ten brothersand sisters and we never fought with each otherbecause we never saw any quarrels within the family.Our elders never used physical force to express theiranger or dissatisfaction. I remember when I was eight,the mathematics teacher hit me with a pencil. I startedcrying as I had neither been beaten nor shouted at.My grandparents learnt about the incident. Later mygrandfather called the teacher, thanked him profuselyfor teaching me, handed him his salary and told himthat it was not customary in our family to beat orfrighten children. Very discreetly the teacher was toldto leave. The point is that since I have neverexperienced beatings and shouting during my childhoodI would not beat my children. All this is part of one’supbringing including cleanliness and hygiene. Infact inIslam cleanliness is integral to faith. It is the duty ofparents and adults of the family to take care ofchildren’s nutrition and hygiene as all these factorsinfluence their personality. Parents should also makesure that their children are taught proper tablemanners. When eating with our parents and family,children were always told to put aside some food forother living beings. This is not a religious obligationbut our moral duty. Similarly, there are certain waysof extending material support to the less privileged. Weshould give away only those things, which we want forourselves. If I give away clothes that are torn andshabby that is not genuine generosity. I should giveaway clothes that I wear and like not some dirty, tornones. This is Islamic morality and was the tradition in

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Fatima Suraiya Bajia is a famous playwright who haswritten many endearing television serials. Her playsare as popular as she is throughout the country andpeople from all generations love, admire and respecther equally. Besides being a household name she is aneducator, a social worker and a person with a treasureof wisdom, indigenous knowledge and a wit to match.She has never attended a formal school, all her education took place at home. She graced the EDucate! teamin person and narrated her lifestory, her long association with Pakistan Television as a playwright and her powerfulv i e w s o n e d u c a t i o n a n d c u l t u r e , s o c i e t y a n d r o l e o f f a m i l y i n t h e u p b r i n g i n g o f c h i l d r e n .

Looking at the World Through an“Unschooled” PerspectiveTRANSLATED & EDITED BYAZIZ KABANI & AMBREENA AZIZ

Fatima Suraiya Bajia

our household. Our family was not wealthy but wewere never short of money.

Even though we lived in a huge mansion beforePartition (pre 1947) I was very familiar with the waythe poor lived. As children my grandfather made uslive in small mud huts in the backyard so we couldexperience how the poor people l ived in suchconditions. We even had to help the labourers inbuilding those huts. This experience came in handywhen we moved to a small house after Partition; itdid not make any difference to our lives. In myopinion upbringing is the most important part of one’slife.

Bajia on her CareerThe lack of a formal education has not been animpediment in my life or career because I always hadself-confidence which came from my upbringing and itmade all the difference. I don’t claim to be anextraordinary person; there are so many bajiyas in oursociety. I know so many mothers who earned moneyby sewing in order to provide an education for theirdaughters some of whom became doctors, engineers etc.I know so many widowers who have taken very goodcare of their children after the death of their wives.The society does not lack good people but these goodpeople are not given importance in the society anylonger. I give great importance to the dignity of work.If you trust your own abilities you will never feelinferior or undervalue any skill or work. I have hadmany different jobs throughout my life; I embroideredclothes and sold them, I sold sarees and was associatedwith the textile sector of the country for a long time.Then I became a playwright. I believe work itself is asource of dignity and respect. I am strongly against the

notion that just because I gained respect and popularitythrough television, everyone should salute me. I don’tlike people who expect that kind of acknowledgement.We should get rid of our egos and concentrate onwork.

Bajia on her television serials andmediaI have not written any TV play for the last 5 years.I feel my hands have been tied. Several people fromTV call me with love and respect, in fact, the newMD has even appointed me advisor of PTV but sincemy advice is ignored I am disheartened. It is alsodisheartening to see so many senseless plays beingtelevised nowadays. With the proliferation of privatechannels, money laundering and commercialization havebecome the name of the game in place of producingquality, meaningful programs that carry a social message.Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I am notpresently doing any work for television. What differencewould a sensible 50-minute drama make amongst theplethora of so many useless ones.

The print media has a similar problem. When youopen the newspaper, you find vulgarity and violence.You will not find a news item that says for examplethat SEF has done good work by conducting a sessionto raise awareness about social issues. Our media needsto highlight our strengths. They are responsible forplaying a constructive role in society. But why wouldthey do so? Why would they mention that a poor boystudying in a government school in Malir has secureda top position? I believe there is a serious need tocreate alternative media that would help move ustowards a cultural revival. Lack of education is one ofthe reasons for a lot of problems in our society.

Bajia on the role of education in societyMost people in our society believe that by getting anMBA degree one can secure a well-paid job in amulti-national etc. This system dominated by businessadministration or computer sciences, which areconsidered to be the signs of progress, should be basedon morality and be people-centred rather than money-centred. We need to learn to be public-centred in ourapproach. It is the self-interest of the world’s economic

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The lack of a formaleducation has not beenan impediment in my lifeor career because Ialways had self-confidencewhich came from myupbringing and it madeall the difference.

and engineering progress. For example, today a newcomputer comes in the market costing thousands ormillions of rupees; after few months, a modified versionis launched and one is forced to purchase it, spendingmore money, because the previous one is obsolete. Thisvicious cycle of technology extracts more and moremoney from us and hinders our process of positived e v e l o p m e n t a n d p r o g r e s s a n d i s p u r ecommercialization. To get rid of this dependency onthe developed world to provide us with technologicallyadvanced products at extremely high prices, we shouldlearn to become self-sufficient. Education needs toeliminate this darkness by raising awareness about theseissues. It is alright to acknowledge the importance ofmodern technology but we have to achieve theadvancement on OUR OWN – how long will we bedependent on THEM?

When our education system is reviewed and thecurriculum revised to make it more appropriate to ourown cultural and social needs, then only can we moveforward towards a social change. We should stopburdening our children with backbreaking school bagsand look for ways to make the whole educationprocess more meaningful in terms of quality rather thanquantity.

Bajia on religion & moralityA child’s religious education starts at home. At school,at best, it is only ethics that is taught if it’s a goodschool. Religion and morality are closely linked and wecannot separate the two. Children should be taughtethics according to their age. They can be toldinspirational stories of Ibrahim bin Adum or RabiaBasri only when they are able to comprehend their fullmeaning. In our society the alim (one who possesses

knowledge) wants a child of grade 6 to know funeralprayers by heart. What possible significance does it holdfor a child so young? These things need to change. Achild born into a Muslim family is given basic religiousorientation at home where he is taught about Khana-e-Kaba (Highest place of worship for Muslims), Mecca,M e d i n a a n d p r o p h e t M u h a m m a d ( P B U H ) .

Bajia on parents & teachersParents should ensure that their children are not beingsent to teachers who just take salary but lack morals.You can see for yourself what is happening in thehighly reputable schools here. Teachers are moreconcerned with the way they dress and look ratherthan the actual purpose of coming to school. Ingovernment schools lack of cleanliness is deplorable. Ateacher will either be found with his feet on the tableor lying down. I remember seeing a college principaland her attire and makeup shocked everyone presentbecause it was not appropriate. Simplicity should bemirrored in the personality of someone who isa s s o c i a t e d w i t h t h e s a c r e d j o b o f t e a c h i n g .

Parents have become negligent about the upbringingand education of their children. They do not payregular visits to the school. We need to change thislax attitude and there are ways to do it. Those parentswho care about their children’s education and well-being should be brought together in a forum; I havemet many such good people while I was teaching.There are parents who bother about their children’sprogress and make regular inquiries about theirperformance. Parents should participate in theirchildren’s education at all levels, they should beregularly called to schools, no matter to which socio-economic background they belong, to participate indiscussing their children’s education and collectivelylook for ways to improve the education process.

Bajia on cultural educationChildren’s mental growth can be greatly facilitatedthrough stories, riddles and poetry, which are apowerful tool in helping them learn sounds andalphabets as well. There is a dire need to impart suchknowledge through reviving the oral culture in orderto make them more eloquent. As children, we weretaught Iqbal’s poem parinday ki fariyad (The Bird’sComplaint),

O the one who confined me make me freeA silent prisoner I am, earn my blessings free(The Bird’s Complaint)

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20 to 30 birds were brought to our house and kept ina cage; this developed very strong feelings about thebirds particularly about their being imprisoned in acage. We all pleaded to release those birds. That wasthe precise purpose of bringing those birds to our housewhile we were taught the poem.

During the training programs given to our teachers weshould also guide them to teach these valuable thingsto children. Oral literature has not been transferred toour younger generation because there is a tendency toemphasize on materialistic achievements rather than theacademic strength. It is a travesty that our schoolshave marginalized such a treasure of literature. I believethat local knowledge still exists at the grassrootscommunity level. Take the example of Sindhi fil badi(extempore) poetry program on TV. Children shouldbe taught that language so that they can alsoparticipate in such culture promoting activities. It isimportant for children to learn poetry as it not onlybrings rhythm in speech but also requires a knowledgeof vocabulary and an inherent cultural ability todecipher and interpret literature. Parents and teacherscan work together to revive and convey this culturaland literary heritage to people. We can use audiotapesif the storyteller cannot go to every school in person.In my personal experience whenever I tell stories bothchildren and elders listen with equal fascination.Literature is important to learn. For example withoutpoetry you cannot read prose (nasar) properly whetherit is in Urdu or English.

Lack of focus towards this indigenous form of educationhas created a vacuum in our culture and it hasallowed western literature to thrive instead. Westerncivilization considers itself so superior that it wants todictate everything but that myth has now beenshattered. Harry Potter has appeal for us because wedon’t have a clue that the actual concept of thispopular tale comes from our very own myths andlegends. Since we possess little or no knowledge aboutour cultural myths, Westerners take advantage of thisfact and produce Harry Potters, which become roaringsuccesses throughout the world. The whole philosophyof Walt Disney is based on our stories such as kalilawa damna or alf laila wa lail etc. Just take theexample of ikhwan-us-safa. If such tales are narratedand passed on then believe me even the leadership willcome back to its senses. Take the example of qisachahar darvesh (the story of 4 saints). Whenever Iread it I find it very relevant to what is going on inour society today. The Farsi stories of Amir Khusro areamazing. These stories were written 900 years ago andthey still hold true for our current situation. Childrenshould interact with these things.

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Wisdom (danai) is needed along with knowledge. Foracquiring wisdom you do not need to read a particularbook but when books are complemented by theexperience of life wisdom is created. Understanding lifeis real wisdom. People today have knowledge but theylack wisdom and to attain that we will have to makeserious efforts. Take the example of the legendary lovetales of Balochistan. They are so gripping that theyfloor any contemporary writer. These stories areproduced by Balochis who are considered illiterate andbackward. The original Arabic version of the poemLaila Majno is outstanding. It depicts that love upliftsthe body, it urges you to come out of the prison ofthe body because that love takes you to God. LailaMajnoo is one of the first romantic tales of the world.

B a j i a o n t h e p r e s e n t a n d f u t u r eI think Pakistan stands on the verge of completebreakdown. If we do not take the necessary steps nowwe will run out of time to reverse the situation. Ibelieve education can play a key role in bringing aboutthat social awareness and consequently a social change.Our society is becoming increasingly materialistic. Whatwe are witnessing today is the height of vulgarity andlavishness; they do not affect me and my individualitybecause my upbringing has taught me resistance. Ibelieve that every individual manifests the wholeuniverse thus I am the universe. Why should Iconsider myself inferior just because I don’t have alarge house or I don’t own an expensive watch? Whyshould I bother? It is important that every individualdevelops the pride that he/she possesses the universewithin himself and understand that as individuals wehave significance.

I think we all will have to work from the grassrootslevel. We have to start work on different frontssimultaneously. We not only have to revive the moral,spiritual and ethical basis of schooling but also theeconomic side of it. The colonial school has not yetdied. It is alive and thriving in our system. Schoolsalone cannot address the issue of morality. This canonly be done through a strong cultural partnershipbetween the school and society. That partnership wouldmean a good upbringing and the practices in schoolscomplementing rather than negating the upbringing athome. For example if children are taught cooperationat home and competition in schools, you can imaginethe outcome.

Young people like you need to invest your energy andintellect in ridding the society of all these ailments.There is no dearth of opportunities to do good work.If one is committed to make a difference, it can startfrom anywhere.

ModernEducation

Increasing Knowledge or Ignorance?HELENA NORBERG-HODGE

‘Western-style of education’) haschanged all of that. For themajority of the year in Westernas well as developing countrieschildren spend around eighthours a day sitting at desksmemorizing information that willprepare them for ‘getting ahead’in an unsustainable, competitivee c o n o m i c s y s t e m . W i t hconventional development thistype of ‘education’ has beens p r e a d a r o u n d t h e w o r l d .Globalisation is now speeding upthis process. Children all overthe world are being forced toattend school away from theircommunity and the naturalenvironment. The focus is onmemorization of distant facts andfigures, while knowledge relevantt o t h e l o c a l c u l t u r e a n denvironment i s d i s regardedentirely.

Education vs. Learningin Ladakh

What has happened in Ladakhis a striking example of how theimposition of modern, Western-s ty le educat ion has e roded

o one can deny the value of real education – the wideningand enrichment of knowledge. But today education hasbecome something quite different. It isolates children from

their culture and from nature, training them instead to becomenarrow specialists and urban consumers.

There is a great need to pay attention to the actual curriculum inschools today. In the West there has been a move towards morealternative styles of education. However, most alternative schoolsmainly address the mode of teaching – the style in which thecurriculum is presented. This is extremely important; however, thereis relatively little change in what is being taught. Many in the field

of environmental education havebegun to address this issue, howeverwe must extend the analysis to allareas, including history, biology, artsand languages. We must make roomin education once again for thefundamentals of life: how to getalong with others, respect and trustoneself, survive and prosper usingprimarily local resources, maintaincu l tu ra l in teg r i t y and honourdiversity.

Before there was a structured systemcalled ‘education’, children in allcultures grew up learning the skillsthey needed to survive and succeedby observing and participating infamily and community life. Moderneducat ion (a l so can be ca l l ed

H E L E N A N O R B E R G - H O D G E

Helena Norberg-Hodge is founder anddirector of the International Society forEcology and Culture (ISEC), which runsprograms in four continents aimed atstrengthening ecological diversity andcommunity, with a particular emphasison local food and farming. She is theauthor of the inspirational classic,Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

N

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cultural and individual self-esteem, decreased self-reliance,increased dependence on distantgovernments and corporations,and set the stage for increasedc o m p e t i t i o n , c o n f l i c t a n dviolence. Modern schooling actsalmost as a blindfold, preventingchildren from seeing the verycontext in which they live. Theyleave school unable to use theiro w n r e s o u r c e s , u n a b l e t ofunction in their own world.

With the exception of religioustraining in the monasteries,Ladakh’s traditional culture hadno sepa ra te p roce s s ca l l ed‘education’. Instead, educationwas the product of a person’sintimate relationship with theircommunity and their ecosystem.C h i l d r e n l e a r n e d f r o mgrandparents, family and friendsand from the natural world.Helping with the sowing, forinstance, they would learn thaton one side of the village it wasa little warmer, on the otherside a little colder. From theirown experience children wouldcome to distinguish betweendifferent strains of barley andthe specific growing conditionseach strain preferred. Theylearned to recognise even thetiniest wild plant and how touse it, and how to pick out aparticular animal on a farawaymountain slope. They learnedabout connection, process andchange, about the intricate webof fluctuating relationships in thenatural world around them.

For generation after generation,Ladakhis grew up learning howto provide themselves withclothing and shelter; how tomake shoes out of yak skin androbes from the wool of sheep,how to build houses out of muda n d s t o n e . E d u c a t i o n w a slocation-specific and nurtured anintimate relationship with the

living world. It gave children anintuitive awareness that allowedthem, as they grew older, to useresources in an effective andsustainable way.

None o f that knowledge i sprovided in the modern school.Children are trained to becomespecialists in a technological,rather than ecological, society.School i s a p lace to forgettraditional skills and worse, tolook down on them.

Modern education first came toLadakhi villages in the 1970s.Today there are several hundredschools. The basic curriculum isa poor imitation of that taughtin other parts of India, whichitself is an imitation of VictorianBri t i sh educat ion. There i salmost nothing Ladakhi about it.Once, while visiting a classroomin Leh, I saw a drawing in achild’s textbook of a bedroomthat could have been in Londonor New York. It showed a pileof neatly folded handkerchiefs ona four -poster bed and gaveinstructions as to which drawerof the vanity unit to keep themin. Many other schoolbooks wereequally absurd and inappropriate.For homework in one class,pupils were supposed to figureout the angle of incidence thatthe leaning tower of Pisa makeswith the ground. Another timethey were struggling with Englishtranslations of The Iliad andWordsworth.

Most of the skills children learn

in school can never be of realuse to them in Ladakh’s cultureand economy. They learn frombooks written by people whohave never set foot in Ladakh,w h o k n o w n o t h i n g a b o u tgrowing food at 12,000 feet orabout building houses adapted toLadakh’s climate and topographyfrom local materials.

U n d e r m i n i n g S e l f -Esteem, EncouragingCompetition

This situation is not unique toLadakh. In every corner of theworld today, the process called‘education’ is based on the samea s s u m p t i o n s a n d t h e s a m eEurocentric model. The focus ison faraway facts and figures, on‘universal’ knowledge. The bookspropagate information that ismeant to be appropriate for theentire planet. But since only akind of knowledge that is farremoved from specific ecosystemsand cultures can be universallyapplicable, what children learn isessentially synthetic, divorcedfrom the living context. If theygo on to higher education, theymay learn about building houses,but these houses wi l l be ofconcrete and steel, the universalb ox . S o t o o , i f t h e y s t u d yagriculture, they will learn aboutindustrial farming: chemicalfertilizers and pesticides, largemachinery and hybrid seeds.

The global educational system ismaking us all poorer by teachingpeople around the world to usethe same industrial resources,ignoring those of their owne n v i r o n m e n t . I n t h i s w a y,education is creating artificials c a r c i t y a n d i n d u c i n gcompetition.

I n L a d a k h a n d e l s e w h e r e ,modern educat ion not onlyignores local resources, but worse

The global educationalsystem is making us all

poorer by teaching peoplearound the world to use

the same industrialresources, ignoring thoseof their own environment.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G 17

still, robs children of their self-esteem. Everything in schoolpromotes the global consumerc u l t u r e a n d , a s a d i r e c tconsequence, makes childrenthink of themselves and theirtraditions as inferior.

A f e w y e a r s a g o , L a d a k h ischoolchildren were asked toimagine their region in the year2000. A little girl wrote, “Before1974, Ladakh was not known tot h e w o r l d . P e o p l e w e r euncivilised. There was a smileon every face. They did notneed money. Whatever they hadw a s e n o u g h f o r t h e m . ” I nanother essay a child wrote,“They sing their own songs likethey feel disgrace, but they singEnglish and Hindi songs withgreat interest... But in these dayswe find that maximum peopleand persons didn’t wear our owndress, like feeling disgrace.”

I n t h e t r a d i t i o n a l c u l t u r echildren benefited not only fromcontinuous contact with bothmother and father, but also froma way of life in which differentage groups constantly interacted.It was quite natural for olderch i ldren to fee l a sense o fresponsibility for the youngerones. A younger child in turnlooked up with respect andadmiration, seeking to imitatethe older ones. Growing up wasa natura l , non -compet i t ivelearning process.

Now, children are split intodifferent age groups at school.This sort of leveling has a verydestructive effect. By artificiallycreating social units in which,everyone is the same age, theability of children to help andto learn from each other isg r e a t l y r e d u c e d . I n s t e a d ,conditions for competition areautomatically created, becauseeach child is put under pressure

to be just as good as the nextone. In a group of ten childrenof quite different ages, there willnaturally be much more co-operation than in a group of tentwelve-year-olds.

Institutional education also pullspeople away from agricultureinto the city, where they becomed e p e n d e n t o n t h e m o n e yeconomy. Traditionally, there wasno such thing as unemployment.But in the modern sector thereis now intense competition for avery limited number of payingj o b s , p r i n c i p a l l y i n t h eg o v e r n m e n t . A s a r e s u l t ,unemployment i s a l ready aserious problem.

Modern education has broughtsome obvious benef i ts , l ikeimprovement in the literacy rate.It has also enabled the Ladakhisto be more informed about theforces at p lay in the worldoutside. In so doing, however, ithas divided Ladakhis from eachother and the land and putthem on the lowest rung of theglobal economic ladder.

Shif t ing Direct ion inEducation

We urgently need to changeboth; how and what we teachour children. Future generationsneed the knowledge and skillsnecessary not simply to survive,but to repair the damaged worldwe will leave them. Shifting

course so as to provide trainingin regional sustainable agriculture,architecture and appropriatetechnology would further a realdecentralization of production forb a s i c n e e d s . R a t h e r t h a nencouraging specialization for acompetitive, ‘jobless growth’economy, children would bee d u c a t e d f o r d i v e r s eenvironments , cultures andeconomic systems. This does noti m p l y t h a t t h e f l o w o finformation from other cultureswould be curta i led; in factcultural exchange would be animportant part of education.

In much of the ‘developingw o r l d ’ f o r m a l e d u c a t i o ncontinues to be based on thecolonial model – with rote-learning in the language of thecolonial power, with cultural,historical and other informationcoming from abroad, and withtraining in skills relevant to theexport economy rather than thelocal or regional economy. Inmost countries, this form ofe d u c a t i o n f i l t e r s o u t a n yinformation from around theworld about widespread social,e c o l o g i c a l a n d e c o n o m i cproblems in the West, leavingi d e a l i z e d m y t h s a b o u t‘development’ and modern urbanlife intact. We urgently needinformation campaigns thatdemystify the Western consumerculture and that provide peoplewith facts and figures about thecrises facing the planet. Thismeans that the way forward isn o t o n e o f i s o l a t i o n a n dsepara t ion . Ins tead , be t te rcommunication between Northand South can strengthen thevoices of sanity – the voices ofthose who are working for aworld where diverse cultureshave the power to teach theirchildren what they need toknow to live and work in atruly sustainable way.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

Future generations needthe knowledge and skillsnecessary not simply to

survive, but to repair thedamaged world we will

leave them.

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Peter McLarenAn Interview for

EDucate!MASHHOOD RIZVI

UR On...

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Peter McLaren is one of the most influential representatives of critical pedagogy, both nationally andinternationally. A major exponent of the work of the late Paulo Freire, McLaren is considered one of theworld’s leading critical educational theorists. Professor McLaren began his teaching career in his hometown ofToronto, Canada, teaching in an inner–city school in one of the most highly populated housing projects inthe country. McLaren completed his Ph.D at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University ofToronto, in 1983. In 1985 McLaren worked with Henry Giroux to create the Center for Education and CulturalStudies, at Miami University of Ohio, where he served as both Associate Director and Director. While atMiami he was awarded the title of Renowned Scholar in Residence, School of Education and Allied Professions.Professor McLaren is the author and editor of over 35 books. He specializes in critical pedagogy, multiculturaleducation, critical ethnography and critical theory. He began teaching at the University of California in 1993,where he serves as Professor, Division of Urban Schooling, Graduate School of Education and InformationStudies. Professor McLaren lectures worldwide and his work has been translated into 15 languages. He becamethe inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award on April 26, 2002 during a ceremony atChapman University.

McLaren has been one of the major inspirational forces behind EDucate! In this interview he expresses hisviews on progressive and critical education, critical pedagogy, teachers as transformative intellectuals and onthe role of schools in the struggle for social justice.

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What do you feel about the currentstate of educational criticism across thew o r l d ? We h e a r t e r m s s u c h a s

democratic schooling and progressive schooling?Are they for real? What do these look like?

Well in order to answer your question adequately, Iwill have to specify the context in which such‘democratic’ and ‘progressive’ education takes place.The educational left is finding itself without a viablecritical agenda for challenging (in the classrooms andschools across the world) the effects and consequencesof the new capitalism. For years now we have beenhelplessly witnessing the progressive and uncheckedmerging of pedagogy with the productive processeswithin advanced capitalism. Capitalism has beennaturalized as commonsense reality – even as a partof nature itself – while the term ‘democratic education’has, in my mind, come to mean adjusting students tothe logic of the capitalist marketplace. Today capitalis in command of the world order as never before.What we are facing is educational neoliberalism.

What does this term i.e. ‘neoliberalism’ meanin the context of the critical educational

tradition?

As my colleagues, Dave Hill and Mike Cole, havenoted, neoliberalism advocates a number of pro-capitalist positions: that the state should privatizeownership (of the means) of production, includingprivate sector involvement in welfare, social, educationaland other state services (such as the prison industry);sell labor–power for the purposes of creating a ‘flexible’and poorly regulated labor market; advance a corporatemanagerialist model for state services; allow the needsof the economy to dictate the principal aims of schooleducation; suppress the teaching of oppositional andcritical thought that would challenge the rule ofcapital; support a curriculum and pedagogy thatproduces compliant, pro–capitalist workers; and makesure that schooling and education ensure the ideologicaland economic reproduction that benefits the rulingclass.

The business agenda for schools can be seen ingrowing public–private partnerships, the burgeoningbusiness sponsorships for schools, business ‘mentoring’and corporatization of the curriculum, and calls fornational standards, regular national tests, vouchersystems, accountability schemes, financial incentives forhigh performance schools, and ‘quality control’ ofteaching. Schools are encouraged to provide better‘value for money’ and must seek to learn from theentrepreneurial world of business or risk going intoreceivership. In short, neoliberal educational policy

operates from the premise that education is primarilya sub–sector of the economy.

Can you be more specific in terms of whatdistinguishes progressive educators from more

conservative ones?

The challenge of progressive educators is vigorous andvaried and difficult to itemize. Unhesitatingly embracedby most liberals is, of course, a concern to bring aboutsocial justice. This is certainly to be applauded.

Mainly, I would say that liberal or progressive educationhas attempted with varying degrees of success to create‘communities of learners’ in classrooms, to bridge thegap between student culture and the culture of theschool, to engage in cross-cultural understandings, tointegrate multicultural content and teaching across thecurriculum, to develop techniques for reducing racialprejudice; they create conflict resolution strategies,challenge Eurocentric teaching and learning; theychallenge the meritocratic foundation of public policy.Further, they strive to create teacher-generatednarratives as a way of analyzing teaching from a‘transformative’ perspective, to improve academicachievement in culturally diverse schools, to affirm andutilize multiple perspectives and ways of teaching andlearning, and to de-construct the curr iculum.

Your own work has been identified with thetradition of critical pedagogy. What is critical

pedagogy?

Well, there is no unitary conception of criticalpedagogy. There are as many critical pedagogies asthere are critical educators, although there are certainlymajor points of intersection and commonality. Thereare the writings about critical pedagogy that occur inthe academy, which are many and varied. And thereis the dimension of critical pedagogy that is mostimportant – that which emerges organically from thedaily interactions between teachers and students. Inshort, critical pedagogy is designed to serve the purposeof both empowering teachers and teaching forempowerment. Within this perspective, pedagogy andculture are seen as intersecting fields of struggle, andt h e c o n t r a d i c t o r ycharacter of teachingas it currently definesthe nature of teacherw o r k . T h u s t h epurpose of schoolingand everyday classrooml i f e i s sub jec ted tomore critical forms ofanalysis.

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Capitalism has beennaturalized as commonsensereality – even as a part of

nature itself – while theterm ‘democratic education’has, in my mind, come tomean adjusting students to

the logic of the capitalistmarketplace.

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As I recall, the term critical pedagogy evolved fromthe term radical pedagogy, and I came to associateboth terms with the work of my dear friend, HenryGiroux, whose efforts brought me from Canada to theUnited States in 1985. I have attempted in recentyears (with varying degrees of success) to introduce theterm ‘revolutionary pedagogy’ or ‘revolutionary criticalpedagogy’ (after Paula Allman) as a means of redressingrecent attempts to domesticate its practice in schoolclassrooms and in teacher education programsthroughout.

How would you def ine revolut ionarypedagogy then?

A revolutionary critical pedagogy – actively involvesstudents in the construction of working-class socialmovements. Because we acknowledge that buildingcross-ethnic/racial alliances among the working-class hasnot been an easy task to undertake in recent years,critical educators encourage the practice of communityactivism and grassroots organization among students,teachers, and workers. They are committed to the ideathat the task of overcoming existing social antagonismscan only be accomplished through class struggle, theroad map out of the messy gridlock of historicalamnesia.

Is cr i t ica l pedagogy or revolut ionarypedagogy the same as radical education or

does there ex i s t a s ign i f icant d i f ference?

Radical education is wide net term that refers toeverything from liberal progressive approaches tocurriculum design, policy analysis, educational leadershipand classroom pedagogical approaches to more radicalapproaches. You will find many approaches to criticaleducation that are anti-corporate, anti-privatization, butyou won’t find many people positioning their work asanti-capitalist or anti-imperialist. It is incoherent toconceptualize critical pedagogy, as do many of itscurrent exponents, without an enmeshment with thepolitical and anti-capitalist struggle.

Can you share your views on teachers astransformative intellectuals? What needs to

be done in this regard?

This is an important question. I admire Giroux’simportant call for teachers to develop themselves intotransformative intellectuals. To the question of what isto be done, I follow Gramsci in his concept ofdeveloping organic intellectuals. I see the challenge oftransformative (organic) intellectuals today as developingstrategic international alliances with anti-capitalist and

working-class movementsworldwide, as well as withnational liberation strugglesagainst imperialism (and Id o n ’ t m e a n h e r ehomogeneous nationalisms butrather those that uphold thepr inc ip le s o f what Ai ja zAhmad calls multilingual,m u l t i d e n o m i n a t i o n a l ,m u l t i r a c i a l p o l i t i c a lsolidarities).

Transformative intellectualsshould be opposed to pol ic ies imposed by theInternational Monetary Fund and the World Bank on‘undeveloped’ countries because such measures are theactua l cause o f economic underdeve lopment .Transformative intellectuals should set themselves againstimperialism and corruption brought about by capitalistglobalization. In my opinion, critical intellectuals, asinsurgent intellectuals, should do more than appeal tothe power elite; in James Petras words they should takea stronger stand against the State.

Can the existing form of schooling systemlead us to a struggle for social justice?

Well, Mashhood schooling, in any shape or form, couldonly be a means to an end not an end. In so far asour goal is to create a society where real equality existson an everyday basis, it is impossible to achieve thiswithin existing capitalist social relations. A challengeto the causes of racism, class oppression, and sexism(and their association with the exploitation of livinglabor), demands that critical teachers and culturalworkers re-examine capitalist schooling in the contextualspecificity of global capitalist relations. Here thedevelopment of a critical consciousness should enablestudents to theorize and critically reflect upon theirsocial experiences, and also to translate criticalknowledge into political activism.

Another challenge that I have been facedwith is the immediate rejection by teachers

who claim that these concepts look good andwork well only on paper or that these only workin theory but in real life situations there is noclassroom application for such intellectual jargon?What would you say to that?

Well, that is a fair question. In most public schools,and in most private schools for that matter, there areno provisions for classroom applications of theseconcepts. There are some courageous alternative schoolsthat are trying to employ revolutionary critical

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Critical educators encouragethe practice of community

activism and grassrootsorganization among

students, teachers, andworkers. They are

committed to the idea thatthe task of overcoming

existing social antagonismscan only be accomplishedthrough class struggle, the

road map out of the messygridlock of historical

amnesia.

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pedagogical imperatives intothe curriculum, to be sure.But the public schools couldnot function within capitalismi f r evo lu t iona ry c r i t i ca leducators were to challengethe very foundations uponwhich they rest.

Can you expand onthis?

O.K. What I am trying tosay is that revolutionary critical pedagogy is a dialecticalapproach that works with both the concepts of reformand transformation. Reform efforts are important sothat resources are distributed equally among schools inevery neighborhood, so that curricula include the voicesof ethnic minorities, so that there is equality of accessand outcome in education. But we also look towardsthe transformation of capitalist social relations – atleast keep that goal in sight – and keep working inwhatever capacity we can towards its realization. Whilesuch a transformation is unlikely in our lifetime, oreven in our children’s lifetime, it is important to keepthe dream of another world – a better world. And, weneed to believe that a better world is possible.

So what you are saying is that schoolssuffer heavily from moral, intellectual and

ethical contradiction and to a great extenthypocrisy?

Yes, Mashhood absolutely. The problem is that whileschools should serve as the moral witness for the socialworld in which they are housed, they are today littlemore than functional sites for business and highereducation partnerships. The corporate world basicallycontrols the range and scope of the programs, and, ofcourse, military research is being conducted oncampuses. As Ramin Farahmandpur and I have argued,universities are now becoming corporations. Theyembrace the corporate model.

We talk in our classrooms about the values ofopenness, fairness, social justice, compassion, respect forotherness, critical reasoning, political activism, but lookat how the university treats it employees, the serviceworkers, and the graduate students who are exploitedas assistants to the professors. Many of the campusworkers in the cafeterias and in the warehouses andin the offices are paid wages on which they can barelysubsist, and they have few, if any, health benefits andlittle job security. Graduate students assistants oftenteach most of the classes but are paid very small

wages, while the professors earn robust salaries. Weneed to make the university mirror the social justicethat many professors talk about in their classrooms.

That would require a great deal of toleranceand courage?

Absolutely! I want to give you an interesting example.Recently, in a talk I gave at a university in theMidwest, when I talked about trying to establish morelinks between the university and social movements forjustice that operate outside of the university there wasa lot of opposition from the professors in the audience.When I called for socialist principles and practices toresist corporate principles and practices, I was called‘totalitarian’ by one well-known professor. When Italked about the problems with capitalism, and therelationship between the university and the corporatestate, many professors became very offended. They didnot like me using the word ‘state’ because, to them,it sounded too ‘oppressive’. They told me that theypreferred to think of universities as places of hope.When I replied that “hope does not retreat from theworld, but radiates outwards into the world and givesus the strength for a principled opposition to theimperialist practices that surround us”, there were somev e r y a n g r y s t a t e m e n t s f r o m t h e p r o f e s s o r s .

That is where the role of teachers astransformative intellectuals becomes even

more critical?

Yes. Under these circumstances, I see the role ofteachers as that of transforming the world, not justdescribing or interpreting the world and this meansunderstanding the ideological dimension of teacher workand the class-based nature of exploitation within thecapitalist economy and its educational and legalapparatuses. For me, the most immediate challenge isto discover ways of feeding the hungry, and providingshelter to the homeless and bringing literacy to thosewho can’t read or write.

We need to educate political workers to create sitesfor critical consciousness both within the schools andoutside of them in urban and rural spaces wherepeople are suffering and struggling to survive, and weneed to discover ways of creating a sustainableenvironment. My work in critical pedagogy is really theperformative register for class struggle. It sets as itsgoal the decolonization of subjectivity; the reclamationof public life under the relentless assault of thecorporatization, privatization and bussinessification ofthe lifeworld (which includes the corporate-academic-complex).

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We need to educatepolitical workers to create

sites for criticalconsciousness both within

the schools and outside ofthem in urban and ruralspaces where people are

suffering and struggling tosurvive, and we need to

discover ways of creating asustainable environment.

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How would you sum up the challenges andpossibilities?

Well, the challenge is to create an authentic socialistmovement that is egalitarian and participatory – notmerely a different form of class rule. This meansstruggling against the forces of imperial-inducedprivatization, not just in education, but in all of sociallife. In this imperially dominated world, I can say thatI live in the ‘belly of the beast’. The challenge is tosupport collective struggles for social change, to supportcivil society in breaking away from the chains of theeconomic superpowers, and to support a positive rolefor the national state to play – all of this requiressteadfastness and focus.

The struggle for co-operation, sustainable development,and social justice is a struggle that we should not leavesolely to social movements outside the sphere ofeducation. Educators need to be at the heart of thisstruggle. This is a very difficult proposition to makehere in the United States. In my travels around thecountry, professors in schools of education are inclinedto support the status quo because of the benefits thatit has provided for them. Yet currently, the top one-half of one percent of the population of the UnitedStates hold about one-third of all wealth in the UnitedStates. We have 31 million poor people, which isapproximately the entire population of Canada. Wehave 3 million people who live on the streets. And Ilive in the richest country in the world. This is thebelly of the beast, a beast that in the process ofmaintaining its great wealth for a few and misery fort h e v a s t m a j o r i t y, i s d e s t r o y i n g t h e g l o b e .

As I have argued with Noah de Lissovoy and RaminFarahmandpur, struggling against imperialist exploitationmeans dismantling a Eurocentric system of culturalvaluations that rationalizes globalization as ‘development’and ‘progress’, and portrays those who suffer itsviolence especially the masses of the South – as the

beneficiaries of the favors of the magnanimous and‘advanced’. We know this to be a lie. From the bellyof this lie, the effects of imperialism worldwide arerecycled and re-presented as proof of the need forintervention by transnational corporate el ites.Dismantling imperialism means destroying this unholymarriage of capitalist accumulation and neocolonialviolence. This is only a vision at this particularhistorical moment, but it is one that we must continueto defend.

A n y m e s s a g e y o u w o u l d l i k e t ocommunicate to the readers of EDucate!

Yes. I would like to say that in regards to ourdiscussions, no impatient ultimatums can be deliveredto the masses from the sidelines. Critique is essential,but it must arise from the popular ‘common sense’. Inthe terminology of Paulo Freire, the productive groundfor the operation of liberatory praxis will be found inthe ‘generative themes’ that are truly lived in the‘limit-situations’ of the people. In the face of such anintensification of global capitalist relations, rather thana shift in the nature of capital itself, we need todevelop a critical pedagogy capable of engagingeveryday life as lived in the midst of global capital’stendency towards empire. The idea here is not toadapt students to globalization, but make them criticallymaladaptive, so that they can become change agentsin struggles for social justice.

Mashhood: Thank you Peter.Peter: Anything for EDucate! As I have stated overand over again, it is emerging as a strong tool forliberation. EDucate! is doing an outstanding job inadvancing the cause of social justice and human dignityand setting the groundwork for the development ofwhat Paulo Freire called conscientization (being criticallyreflective about the self in relation to the social). Yourpublication is an inspiration to many who are strugglingto bring about a better world.

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In the terminology of PauloFreire, the productive

ground for the operationof liberatory praxis will be

found in the ‘generativethemes’ that are truly lived

in the ‘limit-situations’ ofthe people.

fresh and powerful concepts ofdiversified approaches towardslearning is presented in thispaper. These concepts are builto n a t h o u g h t p r o v o k i n gknowledge of the limitation oftraditional schooling in the faceo f t h e c h a l l e n g e o f a nincreasingly complex globalsociety.

Identifying the ‘RealProblem’

With the unique features of highlevel of mismanagement andcorruption, the crises faced byPakistani schools is a microcosmof a global problem of seeminglya paralyzing inability to create,introduce, interact around andutilize new ideas in the fields ofe d u c a t i o n a l d e v e l o p m e n t .Powerful research from fieldssuch as cogni t ive sc iences ,applied linguistics, psychology,neurological sciences, ecologicalsciences, biological sciences,social anthropology and semiotics,indicates that the way schoolsare configured goes against much

Educationin

PakistanFrom Numbers to Learning

WASIF RIZVI

he issues of educational access like the rural schools or girlseducation, have been the focus of a fairly extensive publicdebate in Pakistan. Since the issues of access are essentially

quantitative, so the bulk of the discourse is on the statistical analysisof the situation with politicians and policy-makers gasping in horroron the appall ingly low numbers of enrolment and l iteracy.

Surprisingly though this debate rarely alludes to the content,methodology, or examining the conceptual bases of schooling. Anyserious thinker in education would know that, these ‘gasps of horror’could be louder if the condition of education is examined on thequalitative grounds. Almost the entire system of schooling in Pakistan

(with the exception of few boldinnovations) is based on discreditedtheories of learning and teaching.The indelible damaging effects ofpracticing these theories on them e n t a l a n d t h e e m o t i o n a l(sometimes even the phys ical)growth of little children are welldocumented in powerful researchstudies. Classrooms dominated byobsessive rote memorization andconfined to utilizing very few or justone learning tool, the textbook, isa familiar suffocating spectacle in ourschools.

In order to launch a meaningful andsusta inable chal lenge to theseproblems, a framework to introduce

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

W A S I F R I Z V I

Was i f R i z v i i s Gene ra l Manage r,Aga Khan Education Service Pakistan.He has also worked as a social-policydevelopment consultant. He has twopost-graduate degrees: a masters degreein Education from Harvard University andan M.A. in English Literature fromPunjab University, Lahore, Pakistan.

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of what we know about learning — about thediversity of learners, learning styles and learningprocesses, learning relationships, learning culturesand the spaces where and conditions under whichlearning takes place. In the following pages, abroad rationale for change in the light of theparamount research and the arguments of theleading experts in the field of education ispresented. These theories and arguments areshaping a fundamental shift in the approaches ofschool development /improvement.

The Increasing Inadequacy andInappropriateness of ‘Yesterday’sSolutions’

“Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solution.”(Peter Senge)

Before constructing a sound critique on formalschooling, it should be clarified that I recognizethe tremendous value and need for organizedlearning spaces where adults andchildren can come together butargues that such spaces need tobe radically different in terms oftheir ideological and philosophicalgoals and assumptions, structuresand mechanisms, processes andpractice. Some learning spaceshave managed to undertake thisp r o c e s s o f t r a n s f o r m a t i o n ,however, constituted as such, itwould be both imprecise and inappropriate to usethe same term i.e., ‘schooling’, to describe theexperiences linked to these new spaces. Severalgeneralizations can be made concerning how theinstitution of schooling has been developed and, inmany cases, continues to be reproduced around theworld:

Challenging the Basis of SchoolingSchools have been shaped by ideological andphilosophical traditions of development, which areincreasingly being challenged. The inter-linked logic[s] of colonialism (civil servants, conversion andracial superiority), industrialization and humancapital theory (workers managers and jobs),modernization (modern/Western), nation-building(national identity and allegiance to the state) andglobalization (consumerism and competition) haveplayed significant roles at different points in history,in shaping the values, goals, structure, timing,processes, and activities of schools.

The Certificate SyndromeSchooling has been organized around final resultsand products rather than continuous processes. Thisorientation has tended to lead towards approachestied to memorization of a large repertoire of factsand routines without necessarily understandingthem. There has been little link between learningand the wider context of life and development.Schooling has been conceived of as taking placeonly in the early years in one’s life, and learningis thought to be complete when one graduates andreceives a diploma i.e., signifying that one is now‘educated’.

Fostering Control and IndoctrinationConclusively discredited theories of Skinnerianbehaviorism, Piagetian developmental psychologyand Darwinistic individualism, still underliedominant structure and practice in conventionaleducation systems. Schools and the processes ofteaching and learning are predicated on the

institutional desire to fostercontrol and discipl ine. Theeffect, as Papert (1993, p. 55)describes, is that the institutionof School, with its daily lessonp l a n s , f i x e d c u r r i c u l u m ,standardized tests, and others u c h p a r a p h e r n a l i a , t e n d sconstantly to reduce learning toa series of technical acts andthe teacher to the role of a

technician. In the framework of this highlyformalized and mechanical environment, Schank(1995) argues that the very nature of schoolingopposes natural learning.

I n f l e x i b l e a n d R i g i d L e a r n i n gStructuresEducation systems have tended to be rigid andisolated. Schools have been conceived of as closedsystems, de-linked from their outside environments.The validity of other spaces for learning, otherknowledge systems, and other partners in thelearning/teaching process has often been denied.Most schools have refused to acknowledge thatlearner s spend more t ime in the in formalenvironment than they do in schools. The validityof other spaces for learning, other channels oflearning (media and environment) other knowledgesystems, and other partners in the learning/teachingprocess have often been neglected, and even,devalued. Furthermore, there has been very littleflexibility within the system. It has been organized

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Education systems havetended to be rigid andisolated. Schools havebeen conceived of as

closed systems, de-linkedfrom their outside

environments.

along strict linear levels of education i.e, the stagesapproach, with artificial separations such as primary,secondary and tertiary. Schooling takes place withininflexible blocks of time.

Knowledge as Commodity:Schooling has been framed in terms of knowledgeand value transmission. Gardner (1993) describesthat, “In the outmoded view of learning thatdominates our institutions, knowledge is regardedas an objective substance that can be depositeddirectly into people’s minds. Education is seen asthe process by which knowledge is transferred intothe learner’s mind, and teaching is seen as thepackaging of knowledge for efficient transfer.” Thefocus has been on teaching rather than supportinglearning and understanding. Learners have beenregarded as ‘empty vessels’ and the range ofknowledge and central experiences that they comewith is hardly acknowledged.

Schooling as a ‘Factoryof Mass Production’:There is no sensitivity for thediversity of learners. The systemhas been constructed along thelines of factory in the traditionof Fordism (a term coined todescribe the industrial massp r o d u c t i o n p r o c e s s o fautomobiles)(Gardner 1991).Within this framework, learningintervent ions a re typ ica l l ydesigned for the ‘mean’ learner. There is littleflexibility for the catering to the specific differencesof learners — their individual personalities, culture,linguistic, learning styles, family background,motivational levels, interests and special needs.Furthermore, the system fails to acknowledge thephysical, emotional, social and cognitive abilities ofeach learner.

Cul tural ly I r re levant Curr icu la:C u r r i c u l a h a v e b e e n f r a m e d i n t i g h t l ycompartmentalized and fragmented disciplines, withcontent and materials that tend to be irrelevantto most learners. Several critiques have been raisedabout the propensity of schooling to alienateindividuals from their ethnic and linguisticcommunities. The focus of curricula has been ondeveloping abstract, academic, and generalizedlearning, with little attention to contexualized,reflective, emotional learning (Resnik, 1987; Perkins,1996; Goleman, 1995).

Promoting Individualism:Learning in the classroom has been seen as apredominantly individualistic activity (Resnick, 1987;Abbot, 1995). Competition has been viewed as afar more powerful motivator than cooperation(Marshall, 1996). Sharing with, assisting andcollaborating with fellow learners is primarily donein a mechanistic, superficial way, with the ultimategoal still competing with a set of individuals. Thelearner has been seen to be sub-ordinate to theteacher, who is viewed as the omnipotent expert,with classroom roles largely fixed. The potential oflearners to learn from other learners, their parentsand communities, and in other environments israrely explored.

Causing Psychological Impotence:Schooling is supposed to be the ‘equalizing’ andempowering force. However, schooling and itsclaims of meritocracy have been strongly critiqued

and questioned on the basis ofreproducing hierarchical socio-economic relations (Bowles andGintis, 1976) and reinforcingexist ing notions around thedistribution of power. Most ofthe developing countries today,have educational systems thatfeature socio-economically-biaseddifferent tracks of learning, whichl e a d t o d i f f e r e n t r o l e s ,opportuni t ies and power insociety. Illich has described the

feelings of ‘psychological impotence’ in relation tothe dominant socio-economic institutions that arecultivated in students. Those who drop-out or areforced out of the system are labeled failures andleave feeling humiliated, bitter, frustrated, anddemoralized. J.P. Naik (1975, p171) has commentedon this process at work in India (very applicableto us), “The main achievement of this system,therefore, is to condemn the bulk of children ofcommon people as dropouts and failures and toconsign them to a life of drudgery and povertywhich has hardly any parallel in the contemporaryworld or even in our own ear l ier history.”

These critiques are by no means exhaustive andserve to highlight only certain concerns about thelimitations of schooling. The extent to which thesecritiques apply to any particular context can, ofcourse, be extensively debated. Positive examplescan be found in the education system, but theseoccur in spite of the system rather than because

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Education is seen as theprocess by which

knowledge is transferredinto the learner’s minds,and teaching is seen as

the packaging ofknowledge for efficient

transfer.

of it. What should emerge from this discussion isthat most educational systems today still remaininsensitive to the widely diverse needs of learnersof all age groups and ignorant to the complexityo f l e a r n i n g p r o c e s s e s . Fu r t h e r m o r e , t h einstitutionalized intervention of schooling hasprovided little space and empowerment for bothindividual learners and learner groups to engage inthe const ruct ion o f a l te rnat ive v i s ions o fdevelopment. Such critique extends far beyond theschool as being elitist, classist, racist or sexist. Itraises fundamental questions around the school asbeing a dehumanizing and socially destructive forcein society.

What must be viewed as particularly disturbing,however, as we look towards the future, is ourcontinued obsession with the institution of‘schooling’ as the central reference point forlearning; the increasing demands we place on it asa panacea for solving society’s problems; and ourinability to ‘see’ and stimulate other dynamiclearning spaces. Formal schooling, whether inperson or at a distance, is an inappropriate solutionby i tsel f for deal ing with the developmentchallenges and opportunities of the future. Fullan(1993), after extensive review of change initiatives,argues that introducing new innovations andreforms into current educational systems is “anultimately fruitless uphill battle” as these systemshave been designed to be resistant to change. Hecalls for “a new mindset about educational change”.

What can we do?Those of us committed to nurturing each humanbeing and each community’s inherent potential

must support the long and painful efforts torethink the structure, organization, content,instructional processes, and evaluation mechanismsthat conspire to uphold the dominant learning-oppressive system of factory-schooling. Effortstowards radical transformation should focus oncreating lifelong learning environments (in schoolsand out of schools) that seek to enable andempower the huge wealth of diverse humanpotential that exists in our people and cultures.

In the short term, this must involve steps to:

n Shift our pol icy focus f rom a ‘MinistryCommitted to Expanding Schooling/HumanCapital’ to a ‘Ministry Committed to ExpandedLearning/Human Potential’.

n Conduct indigenous research on differentframeworks and understandings of contextualanalysis of powerful examples of innovativelearning and pedogogical practices around theworld in the light of new understandingregarding the concepts of life long learning.

n Challenge the legitimacy of existing schoolingframeworks and evaluation mechanisms. Workto develop a dynamic ‘learning to learn’curricular environment and new mechanismsfor assessment.

n Develop teacher training efforts with a greateremphasis on ‘teachers as transformativeintellectuals’.

n Develop programs for parents and largercommunities to understand the conceptual andtheoratical understanding of schooling vis-à-vispower structures, social stratification, and socialchange.

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Look out for EDucate! In Urdu & SindhiWe seek writers/literary personalities to comeforward and contribute to this endeavor by:

n Contributing original pieces in Urdu & Sindhi on the critical themes ofEducation & Development.

n Helping in translation of previously published articles from English toUrdu & Sindhi.

EDucate! MagazineData Processing & Research Cell

Sindh Education Foundation: Plot 9, Block 7, Clifton 5, Karachi-75600, Pakistan

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chools are supposed to play a pivotal part in the educationalsystem of any country. They provide the basis to erect thebuilding of higher education on it. The stronger is the base

the higher are the chances of an effective and meaningful educationalsystem. In the past, there have been some sporadic efforts to improve

schools but somehow these effortscould not bring the desired changein our school milieu. Apart fromother genuine reasons one maincause was the conflicting views onthe question of what makes a goodschool? This question may look verysimple at first glance but whendifferent people try to answer this,it no more remains a straightforwardquery.

The central source of complexity isthe re lat iv i ty of the not ion of‘ g o o d n e s s ’ . O n e ’ s n o t i o n s o feducation, teaching, learning anddevelopment contribute to theconcept of a good school. There aresome common misconceptions abouta good school, not only among the

ReconceptualizingGood Schools

DR. SHAHID SIDDIQUI

S

D R . S H A H I D S I D D I Q U I

Dr. Shahid Siddiqui has done his Ph.D.in Language Education from Universityof Toronto, Canada, M.Ed. TESOL fromthe University of Manchester, U.K.; andMA English from University of Punjab.Currently, Dr. Siddiqui is working at theGhu l am I s haq Khan I n s t i t u t e o fEngineering Sciences and Technologywhere he heads the ManagementSciences and Humanities Programme.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

parents, but also within theteach ing communi ty. Someaspects are crucial to making aschool a good school, but theseare either ignored or underplayedby the head teachers, teachers,and parents.

There are three popular notionsof a good school, as viewed bythe majority of the people inPakistan. The first and foremostis the notion of ‘best results’. Aschool that shows 100 percentresult, with maximum A1 and Agrades is always considered abest school. It is interesting ton o t e t h a t t h i s n o t i o n i sconsidered as the top mostfactor by parents, teachers anddecision makers alike.

Another popular notion of a‘good school’ is its ‘Englishness’.Parents would always look for an

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English medium school where spoken English ismandatory for students and teachers and thestudents could speak English language with greatfacility and fluency. The contents and the teaching-learning process becomes, of secondary importance.

A third notion of a good school hinges around the‘posh look’ of a school where parents mainly lookfor a good building with carpeted classrooms. Theabove stated notions of a good school are sopowerful that they have influenced a number ofaspects of our educational system. For instance, tobe called a good school there is a rat race ofbagging A1 and A grades and for that there is nodiscrimination between fair and unfair means.Similarly, to cash on the notion of ‘Englishness’ allkinds of schools declare themselves as Englishmedium schools. The result is that majority of theprivately owned schools erectthe s ignboards o f ‘Engl i shmedium schools’. Yet anotherview of a good school, ‘poshlook’ is exploited by the ownersby ‘special interior decoratingtechniques’ of large bungalowsturned into ‘schools’.

These notions of a good schoolare narrow and defective. Amore comprehensive view ofschool is a place that provideso p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r h o l i s t i cdevelopment of children. Thisview takes care of major aspects of educationincluding academic development , phys ica ldevelopment, social development, and moraldevelopment. It is important to note that theseaspects of development could reinforce one another.

Let us start with the academic development of achild. One of the aims of a good school is toprepare its students as independent learners and todevelop their concepts, skills and attitudes toenable them to face the various situations of lifewith confidence. To achieve this goal , thecurriculum, the teacher, the head teacher, theschool policy and the school culture should begeared in such a way that equal emphasis is laidon concepts, skills, and attitudes.

One important aspect of academic development is

the intellectual growth of the child and this canbe achieved through developing critical thinkingskills. For that, a good school ensures that theclassroom environment is non-threatening andchildren are encouraged to voice their viewpointsfreely. The self-image of children is built in sucha way that they develop a sense of self-respect. Agood school focuses on quality of learning ratherthan quantity of books, as academic/intellectualdevelopment cannot be facilitated merely bybending the backs of children with the load ofheavy bags and homework.

Most of the efforts in Pakistani schools, however,are directed towards so called ‘academic-minus-intellectual’ development of the child. The view ofacademic development is narrow and confined onlyto prepare students to get good grades. Critical

th ink ing and independentlearning skills are set aside asthey are considered to be awaste of time. On the contrary,learning by rote is encouragedd u r i n g t h e a s s e s s m e n t o fchildren. A heavy school baghas become mandatory even inthe early classes. Most of thet e a c h i n g i n p u t i s h i g h l ytheoretical in nature. Physicalpunishment, in some form, isstill prevalent even in the mostfashionable schools. Loads ofhomework is considered to be

an effective device to keep students busy at homeas well, thus taking away the joys of childhoodand turning them into robots.

Physical development is equally important forchildren as it is closely, linked with academicdevelopment. A good school is sensitive to thisneed and provides opportunities for physicaldevelopment of children. Physical facilities, includingthe size of classroom, passages of air and light,cooling and heating, furniture, clean drinking water,availability of canteen etc are also of greatsignif icance. The balance between physicaldevelopment and academic performance is of primeimportance. Physical facilities are central to ahealthy body and mind. A good school caters forthe physical comfort and development of a childas well.

A good school lays a lotof emphasis on

developing the social skillsof a child, example, howto work in collaborativegroups, how to ask aquestion in a polite

manner, how to presentone’s viewpoint, and how

to disagree in anagreeable manner.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G

Ironically, a number of our good schools ignore thisobvious link. We may see some so called Englishmedium schools housed in big kothis (villas), andcharging heavy tuition fees, without any playgroundto provide an opportunity to the students to playand develop their limbs. For example, there is noproper arrangement for cooling in the scorchingheat and no heating arrangement in the biting coldweather.

One of the objectives of education is to preparethe child to develop into a good human being anda useful thinking citizen of the society. This meansproper social development of a child at school tofacilitate him to be able to work in a friendlymanner with classmates, family members, andsociety at large. How can we prepare the childrenfor that role? Not through sermons, but by actingas role models for them. Lecturing the studentsabout punctuality will perhaps be not that effectiveif the teacher does not set apersonal example . A goodschool lays a lot of emphasison developing the social skillsof a child, example, how towork in collaborative groups,how to ask a question in apolite manner, how to presentone’s viewpoint, and how tod i s a g r e e i n a n a g r e e a b l em a n n e r . T h e t a s k s a n dassignment, in a good school, are designed in sucha manner that there is no negative competitionamong students, rather they work in harmony formutual learning and exploration. Other factors thatmay make or mar the impact is the nature of therelationship between the teachers themselves. Afriendly and democratic relationship leaves apositive impact on the students. A good schoolpromotes equality of opportunities to all students,irrespective of gender or other criteria. All studentsare considered equal, and there is no one who is‘moral equal’.

In reality, the social development aspect is notgiven much importance. The social development isexhibited through occasionally heroic hanging ofattractive posters on the walls of the classrooms.The essence of social development is, however,rarely reflected in actions. There may be two orthree ‘bright’ students who get all the attention of

teachers, and who in turn socially stand on ahigher pedestal than the rest of the students.Similarly, when a teacher snubs a child in anindignant manner, without caring for the latter’sself-esteem and self image, it could shatter theconfidence of the child. It sends a message to theother children that this could be an approvedmanner of discourse in society.

An important aim of education is to inculcatecertain values among students, which should actfor them as a code of conduct. These may includesome basic ethics like truthfulness, punctuality,keeping a promise, caring and sharing, politeness,patience, tolerance, equality, love for peace andrespect for others. A good school works for themoral development of students through curricula,pedagogy and, above all, through real life examplesof the teachers and other working staff of theschool.

T h i s a s p e c t o f c h i l ddevelopment also gets minimumattention as far as practicalexamples are concerned. Insome English medium schools,teachers shout at students andin some cases beat them aswell. Psychological punishmenta l s o g o e s a l o n g w i t h t h ep h y s i c a l p u n i s h m e n t . Fo r

instance, a student is asked to stand on his tablebefore the whole class. Some of these incidents inthe class leave indelible impressions on thestudents’ minds and leads to a negative outlook,such as lack of confidence, lack of sharing, fearand timidity, which may last throughout their lives.

The present scenario necessitates a need toreconceptualize our view of a good school by goingbeyond the common notions of good grades,‘Englishness’ and posh façades. A useful way ofassessing a school is from the perspective of holisticdevelopment of the child. This implies equalemphasis being laid on academic, physical, socialand moral development. A good school then looksfor human, physical and financial resources tocreate an enabling, non-threatening, and friendlyenvironment for the development of a completepersonality in children.

The present scenarionecessitates a need to

reconceptualize our viewof a good school by going

beyond the commonnotions of good grades,‘Englishness’ and posh

façades.

EDUCATIONR E T H I N K I N G30

false beliefs. But more importantly,I think, is the manner and style ofpreventing and blocking independentand creative thinking and imposinghierarchies and competitiveness andthe need to excel, not in the senseof doing as well as you can, butdoing better than the next person.Schools vary, of course, but I thinkt h a t t h o s e f e a t u r e s a r ecommonplace. I know that they’renot necessary, because, for example,the school that I went to as ach i l d wasn ’ t l i ke t ha t a t a l l .

I think schools could be run quitedifferently. That would be veryimportant, but I really don’t thinkt h a t a n y s o c i e t y b a s e d o nauthoritarian hierarchic institutionswould tolerate such a school systemfor very long. As Sam Bowles andHerb Gintis have pointed out, itmight be tolerated for the elite,because they would have to learnhow to think and create and soon, but not for the mass of thepopulation. There are roles that thepublic schools play in society thatcan be very destructive.

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I was sent to an experimentalprogressive school from infancy,before I was two, until about twelveyears old, until high school, atw h i c h p o i n t I w e n t i n t o t h eacademic, college-oriented schoolin Philadelphia. That experience,both the early experience in theprogressive school and the laterexperience in the academicallyoriented high school, elite highschool, was very instructive. Forexample, it wasn’t until I was inhigh school that I knew I was agood student. The question hadnever arisen. I was very surprisedwhen I got into high school anddiscovered that I was getting all Asand that was supposed to be abig deal. That question had simplynever arisen in my entire education.In fact, every student in the schoolI had previously at tended wasregarded as somehow being a verysuccessful student. There was nosense of competition, no ranking ofstudents. It was never anything evento think about. It just never cameup that there was a question ofhow you were ranked relative toother students.

Well, anyway, at this particularschool, which was essentially aDeweyite school and I think a veryg o o d o n e , j u d g i n g f r o m m yexperience, there was a tremendouspremium on individual creativity, notin the sense of slapping paints onpaper, but doing the kind of worka n d t h i n k i n g t h a t y o u w e r ei n t e r e s t ed i n . I n t e r e s t s we r eencouraged and children wereencouraged to pursue their interests.They worked jointly with others orby themselves. I t was a l ive lyatmosphere, and the sense was thateverybody was doing somethingimportant.

Noam Chomsky OnSchooling

IN P A S S I N G

N O A M C H O M S K Y

Noam Chomsky is one of theleading intellectuals and socialcritic of modern times. He isI n s t i t u t e P r o f e s s o r i n t h eDepartment of Linguistics andPhilosophy at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. He hash a d a m a j o r i n f l u e n c e o nl inguist ics , psychology, andphilosophy, and a significante f f ec t on a r ange o f o the rdisciplines from anthropology tomathematics, education to literarycriticism.

It wasn’t that they were a highlyselect group of students. In fact, itwas the usual mixture in such aschool, with some gifted studentsand some problem children whohad dropped out of the publicschools. But nevertheless, at leastas a child, that was the sense thatone had — that, if competing ata l l , you were compet ing wi thyourself. What can I do? But nosense o f s t r a i n abou t i t andcer ta in ly no sense of re la t i veranking. Very different from what Inotice with my own children, whoas far back as the second gradeknew who was ‘smart’ and whowas ‘dumb’, who was high-trackedand who was low-tracked. This wasa big issue.

Well, then I got to high school, theacademic high school in the publicschool system, which was supposedto be a very good high school,and it was a real shocker. For onething, as I said, there was theshock of discovering that I was agood student, which had neveroccurred to me before. And thenthere was the whole system ofprestige and value that went alongw i t h t h a t . A n d t h e i n t e n s ec o m p e t i t i v e n e s s a n d t h ereg imen ta t ion . I n fac t , I canremember a lot about elementaryschool, the work I did, what Istudied and so on. I remembervirtually nothing about high school.It’s almost an absolute blank in mymemory apart from the emotionaltone, which was quite negative.

I f I t h i n k b a c k a b o u t m yexperience, there’s a dark spott he re . Tha t ’ s wha t s choo l i nggenerally is, I suppose. It’s a periodof regimentation and control, parto f w h i c h i n v o l v e s d i r e c tindoctrination, providing a system of

Computers and theDeskilling of

TeachersMichael W. Apple

e are repeatedly toldthat unless we havea ‘ t echno log i ca l l y

l i terate ’ work force we wil lultimately become outmodedeconomically. This has createdimmense pressure on schools toquickly, and often relativelyunreflectively, get large numbersof computers in schools and toinstitute ‘computer l iteracy’classes for their students. Yet, asI have shown in both ‘Teachersa n d Te x t s ’ a n d ‘ O f f i c i a lKnowledge’, not only are theseeconomic claims more than alittle inaccurate, the proposals fora technological future in schoolshave little understanding of someof the most major negat ivec o n s e q u e n c e s o f s u c h atechnological fix, especially onthe lives of teachers.

A helpful way of thinking aboutthese consequences is to employthe concepts of deskilling andintensification These conceptssignify a complex historicalprocess in which the control oflabor has altered, one in whichthe skills that workers havedeveloped over many years arebroken down and reduced totheir atomistic units, automated,

and redefined by management to enhance profit levels, efficiency, andcontrol. In the process, the employee’s control over timing, overdefining the most important way to do a task, and over the criteriathat establish acceptable performance, are slowly taken over as theprerogatives of management personnel who are usually divorced fromthe place where the actual labor is carried out. Loss of control onthe part of the employee is almost always the result. Pay is oftenlowered. And the job itself increasingly becomes exactly that — justa job as it becomes routinized, boring, and alienating as conceptionis separated from execution and more and more aspects of jobs arerationalized to bring them into line with management’s ‘need’ forincreased ‘accountability’, ‘control’ and ‘cost effectiveness’.

These processes are not limited to what have been called workingclass positions. The separation of conception from execution, forexample, has expanded rapidly into professional labor as well. Let ustake as a prime instance the aforementioned pressure to bring theunbridled benefits of the newtechnology into the classroomsof public and private schools.G i v e n t h e s e k i n d s o fpressures, what may happent o t e a c h e r s i f t h e n e wtechnology continues to bepushed into schools in anuncritical way?

One of the major effects ofthe current (over) emphasison technologizing classroomsmay be the deskilling andd i s e m p o w e r i n g o f ac o n s i d e r a b l e n u m b e r o fteachers. Given the alreadyheavy workload of planning,

W

MEDIA & TECHNOLOGYRETHINKING

M I C H A E L A P P L E

Michael Apple is John Bascom Professorof Educat ion in The Univers i t y ofWisconsin, Madison. Professor Apple haswritten extensively on the politics ofe d u c a t i o n a l r e f o r m a n d o n t h erelationship between culture and power.

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teaching, meetings, and paperwork for mostteachers, it is probably wise to assume that veryfew teachers will actually be given more than atiny amount of training in computers, programming,their positive and negative social effects, and soon. This will be especially the case in elementaryschools where teachers are already teaching a widearray of subjects. Research indicates that only ahandful of teachers are actually given substantialinformation before computer curr icula areimplemented. Because of this, most teachers haveto rely on pre-packaged sets of material, existingsoftware, and specifically purchased material fromthe scores of software manufacturing firms thataggressively market their products, the vast majorityof which have quite questionable educational merit.

All of this is happening in a time when teachers’labor has become ‘intensified’. There is ever moreto do as widespread economic and social problemsare given over to the school to supposedly solve.Thus, time is at a premium. Time to evaluatethese purchased computer programs and even tolearn how to use them is nearly nonexistent.

The impact of this can be striking. What ishappening is the exacerbation of trends we havebegun to see in a number of nations. Instead ofteachers having the time and the skill to do theirown curriculum planning and deliberation, theybecome the isolated executors of someone else’splans, procedures, and evaluative mechanisms. Inindustrial teens (and we need to remember thatlike many other professionals. teachers are workersemployed by the state), this is an aspect of thetransformations of the paid labor process I notedearlier — the separation of conception fromexecution.

This reliance on prepackaged software — withouteither the time or resources to sufficiently evaluateits real educational worth — can have a numberof long-term effects:

n It can cause a decided loss of importantskills and dispositions on the part of teachers.When the skills of local curriculum planning, onwhich so much of progressive, community based,and culturally responsive pedagogy is based, are notused they can tend to wither and weaken.n The tendency to constantly look to one’sown or one’s colleagues’ historical experience aboutcurriculum and pedagogy is considerably lessenedas most major parts of the curriculum, and theteaching and evaluative practices that surround it,a r e v i e w e d a s s o m e t h i n g o n e p u r c h a s e s .n Substantive skills, including the ability todesign relevant experiences for those students whoare least likely to find a culturally responsivecurriculum in schools, are lost through lack of useover time.n Very importantly, the school itself istransformed even more into a lucrative market asall manner of material is introduced.

My point in these brief comments is not to takea neo-luddite position. There are many interesting,socially critical, and pedagogically creative uses towhich computers can be put in schools throughoutthe world. Rather, I want to argue in the strongestpos s ib l e t e rms that un le s s we s i tua te theintroduction of this technology back into the socialreorganization of the labor processes that manyprofessional employees are now experiencing, wemay be reproducing some of its most deleteriousand harmful effects into schools. Teachers andstudents are too important to let this go onuncritically.

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g Bo th dams and s choo l s a r ep r o p a g a t e d a s ‘ s y m b o l s o fprogress’, such that increasing theirquantity receive praise from thoseseek ing a so - ca l l ed modernSubcontinent.

g Both are heavily financed andadvocated by international donorinstitutions, like the World Bank orother multilateral and bilateraldevelopment agencies.

g Both are suppor ted by hugeindustries with seriously vestedinterests – politicians, bureaucrats,and corporations – each has itsown manifestation of what Roylabels the ‘Iron Triangle’.

g Both dams and schools are saidto benefit all affected by them,and in fact, both rely on a typeof social engineering (the belieft ha t we can con t ro l o t he r s ’behaviors to conform to particularends).

g Very few (if any) evaluations areconducted to assess the short – orlong-term impact of either damsor schools.

g Nei the r va lue t he l i f e s t y l e s ,knowledges, or cultures of thetraditional/rural-affected as worthpreserving or protecting or growingor contributing to the quest for aso-called modern Subcontinent.

g The negative effects of both damsa n d s c h o o l s , w h e n e v e nacknowledged, disproportionatelyaffect the poor and marginalizedand create new kinds of structureso f o p p r e s s i o n a n ddisempowerment.

g Simultaneously, when inadequacieso r d e t r i m e n t a l f a i l u r e s a r eacknowledged, the beneficiaries ofboth attempt piecemeal solutionsto ‘mend’ the problems, ratherthan unde r tak ing a se r ious ,systemic, and systematic evaluationof the project.

g Those who benefi t from eachproject also manage to look awayand both implicitly and explicitlycondone the sufferings of thoseharmed by them, thus reinforcingthe 20-80 divide (20% of thepopulation benefiting on the backsof the other 80%).

g B o t h a r e c o m m a n d e d a n dc o n t r o l l e d b y G o v e r n m e n tauthorities, from their design andplanning to the details of theirimplementation. Rarely are thevoices of the ‘served’ heard inany stage of the process; in fact,only a few experts are said to beable to manage and understandt h e s y s t e m s . Fo r e x a m p l e ,con t rac to r s /bu i l de r s can becompared to teachers (the expertf a c i l i t a t o r s o f t h e p r o j e c t ) ,sophisticated, engineering plans toGovernment cur r icu lum, anddisplaced tribal communities toenrolled children (since neitherh a v e m u c h s a y i n t h e i rparticipation/compliance with theproject).

g Both dams and schools try tooperate in an inherently confusingand con t rad i c to r y s y s t em o fconflicting interests and purposes– i.e. dams as sources of power,

tools for irrigation, mechanisms forflood-control, and reservoirs ofdrinking water, and schools asplaces for authentic learning, forpreparing for examinations, fordeveloping cultivating creativity andcivic participation, etc.

g Finally, both try to posit a ‘takeit-or-leave it’ stance. That is, theyclaim that despite the problemswith dams and schools, we havet o t a k e t h e m a s t h e y a r e ;otherwise, our only other choicewill be to revert backwards tosome romanticized, traditionallifestyle, which is unfeasible in ourq u e s t f o r p r o g r e s s a n ddevelopment. Never are any third,fourth, or fifth options presentedin this dichotomy.

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In The Greater Common Good, Arundhati Roy makes the comparison between Big Dams and Nuclear Bombs. She says, “They’reboth weapons of mass destruction…weapons the Government uses to control its own people…both malignant indications of acivilization turning upon itself. They represent the severing of the link… the understanding – between human beings and the planetthey live on.” The analogy can be extended to factory schools, by building upon Roy’s criticisms of development and applyingthem to the education system of the Subcontinent:

SHILPA JAIN

How Factory SchoolsAre Also Like Big Dams

IN P A S S I N G

S H I L P A J A I NShilpa Jain is a learning activistfor Shikshantar in Udaipur,India. She hopes to continueresearching and activating thelink between learning and social-political-economic transformation,and the role of children andyouth in these learning processes.Shilpa has a B.A. magna cumlaude in Political Science andWomen’s Studies from HarvardUniversity.

exploit cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of thecolonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for thesurplus goods produced in our factories.” (Rhodes)

“I would define globalisation as the freedom for my group ofcompanies to invest where it wants, when it wants, to produce whatit wants, to buy and sell where it wants, and support the fewestrestrictions possible coming from labour laws and social conventions”.(Barnevik)

T h e m o d e r n t r a n s n a t i o n a lcorporations are the true heirs tot h e E a s t I n d i a C o m p a n y, t h eHudson’s Bay Company, the NewZealand Company – major players inea r l i e r waves o f co lon i sa t ion ,d i s p o s s e s s i o n a n d t h ecommodification of peoples, landsand nature itself. The drive toreduce everything and everyone toa commodity to be bought and soldin the market place has been ade f in ing cha rac te r i s t i c o f thecolonisation process the world over.

To fully understand the worldviewthat informs this process it is helpfulto realise that the idea of corporateglobalisation as another form ofcolonisation, also resonates outsideof the Third World.

Some Of The Instruments Might Be New,But The Song Remains The Same

Aziz Choudry

“Zamane ke andaz budley gaey, naya raag hai, saaz budley gaey”Allama Iqbal, Saqi nama.

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Aziz has written on GATT/WTO, APEC,the MAI, colonization and the rights ofIndigenous Peoples to self-determinationetc. His articles have been published inaround 20 countries in Australasia, Asiaand the Pacific, North America, andEurope, and translated into severallanguages. Based in Aotearoa (NewZ e a l a n d ) h e h a s o r g a n i z e d a n dparticipated in a wide range of local,national, and international solidaritycampaigns and initiatives.

A z i z C h o u d r y

ooking at the free marketfundamentalism sweepingthe world, one must ask

how much the raag and saazhave really changed since Iqbal’spoem was published in 1935.

L i k e S a q i n a m a ’ s r e c e n tp o p u l a r i s a t i o n f o r a n e wgeneration by Junoon, one ofPakistan’s most popular musicbands, the beat, instruments andintensity with which today’sneol iberal pol ic ies manifestthemselves might sound differentfrom ‘old style’ colonial rule –but the song remains the same.

N o w c o m p a r e t h e s e t w os ta tements , made a lmos t acentury apart. The first comesfrom Cecil Rhodes, the Britishcolonialist and business magnatewho died in 1902. The secondwas uttered by Percy Barnevik,President of the ABB IndustrialGroup, in 1997.

“We must find new lands fromwhich we can easily obtain rawmaterials and at the same time

L

R E T H I N K I N GG l o b a l i z a t i o n

36

It is no coincidence that the governments ofcountries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, andNew Zealand – all of them cheerleaders for theneoliberal agenda – are themselves built on legaciesof genocide and dispossession of Indigenous Peopleswithin (and beyond) the territories that they nowoccupy.

Sharon Venne, an indigenous lawyer and scholarf r o m t h e C r e e N a t i o n i n C a n a d a w r i t e s :“Colonizers believe that they can use our lands andresources without acknowledging those resourcesand lands belong to others. Now the colonizers areb e i n g u s e d a n d c o n s u m e d b y t h e i r o w ncorporations and companies. Their governmentscannot protect them. There is an assumption thatthis is a new process. Rather, it is colonizationcontinued. It is a beast who knows no limits.When it cannot consume the Indigenous Peoples’lands and resources, it has turned on its ownpeople. In an attempt to understand, the colonizershave called it ‘globalization’. ForIndigenous Peoples, it is not anew concept. It is just thecontinuation of the colonizationthat began in 1492.”

Maori educationalist GrahamHingangaroa Smith points outthat the same processes ofcommodification that we nowsee as a central tenet of globalfree market ideology were usedby British settlers to accessMaori land in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 19thcentu ry. “ Th i s wa s ach i eved th rough theindividualization of Maori land titles; i.e. tocommodify or ‘package up’ what were collective orgroup held titles into individual holdings in orderto facilitate their sale to Pakeha [British settlers]under Pakeha rules and customs.” This was acommon tool of the old-style colonizer. Nowadaysit is the Asian Development Bank, the WorldBank and the international ‘investment community’which views communal ownership of land,communitarian values and subsistence economiesas impediments to be swept out of the way in thename of economic growth and ‘development’t h r o u g h a t t r a c t i n g f o r e i g n i n v e s t m e n t .

Although their names may not feature prominentlyamong the individuals and organisations that havehigh international profiles for their critiques ofglobalisation, many Indigenous communities in the‘First World’ have not only been among the most

affected by transnational corporate plunder but arealso on the frontlines of resistance.

Like earlier jockeying for imperial spheres ofinfluence modern corporations compete for higherprofits, new markets and new sources for cheaperlabour and raw materials. Transnational corporationsaccount for two-thirds of world trade in goods andservices. Free trade is merely a euphemism forfreedom from governmental restrictions fortransnational corporations. Of the world’s top 100economies, based on a comparison of annualcorporate sales and a nation’s GDP, 51 werecompanies and only 49 were countries. Accordingto the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studiesreport, The Top 200: the Rise of Global CorporatePower (2000), by 1999, Sony, Philip Morris andAT & T were all bigger than Pakistan, just asIBM was bigger than Singapore.

Just as the imperial powers, which built theirwealth, industry, political andeconomic might on colonisation,s l a v e r y a n d t h e f t p a s s e dthemselves off as civilisers ofthe savages, so too modern daydefenders of the ‘free world’f r e q u e n t l y r e s o r t t omanipulation and bullying toachieve the kinds of goals thatRhodes and Barnevik share.

Many stories of arm twistingh a v e e m e r g e d f r o m l a s t

November’s WTO Ministerial Meeting in Qatar asindustrialized countries, led by the USA and theEuropean Union coerced developing countriestowards opening up their markets and neweconomic sectors. It was, as one non-governmentalobserver put it, a meeting characterised by the“high-handed unethical negotiating practices of thedeveloped countries – linking aid budgets and tradepreferences to the trade positions of developingcountries and targeting individual developingcountry negotiators”. Such divide and rule tacticsare hardly new. But the cynical linkage of the so-called war against terror with support for free tradegreatly increased the pressure on many Third Worldcountries which had wanted to stand togetheragainst the rich countries at the WTO even morefirmly than they had at Seattle.

One of the promises of the globalisation gang inthe West was that under the WTO agreements,all countries would play by the same rules. But the

The drive to reduceeverything and everyone

to a commodity to bebought and sold in the

market place has been adefining characteristic ofthe colonisation process

the world over.

GLOBALIZATIONR E T H I N K I N G

37

USA and other industrialized nations are expert inmatch-fixing and ball-tampering on the not so levelplaying field of the global economy. September 11was seized upon in a desperate attempt to staveoff growing disillusionment with both free marketpolicies and the multilateral trading system.Without it, who knows what shape the neoliberalagenda would now be in? Perhaps the DohaMinisterial would have been a repeat of Seattle’sfailure to come to agreement on internationaltrade, only without the mass protests outside? Hadthat happened, what credibility could the WTOhave maintained?

Colonialism has always thrived on double standards.From the systematic destruction of South Asia’srich textile industries in the 1800s so that theBritain’s highly protected factories and economymight flourish, to the recent 64% increase in USfarm subsidies even as the Bush administrationdemands that poor countries open their marketsyet further, under the guise ofconcern for human rights. USpoliticians have turned thesituation of child workers inthe Sialkot football stitchingindustry and China’s prisonl a b o u r i n t o a r g u m e n t s t op r o t e c t a n d e n s u r e acompetitive advantage for theirown businesses. Yet they remain noticeably silentabout the massive privatized prison-industrialcomplex in the USA which produces goods fordomestic consumption. American scholar RichardFalk writes about the USA’s “perpetual rediscoveryof its own perceived innocence … Despite thedispossession of the Indigenous Peoples of NorthAmerica, despite slavery and its aftermath, despiteHiroshima and Vietnam, this self-proclaimedinnocence remains untarnished”.

Meanwhile the Australian government, one of theAsia-Pacific region’s most ardent advocates of thefree flow of goods and services through tradeliberalization is going to extraordinary lengths tokeep people – asylum seekers – out. John Howard’sgovernment is continuing the colonial tradition ofusing the Pacific Islands like Nauru and PapuaNew Guinea as a dumping ground – this time forthe de spera te peop le who have f l ed f romA f g h a n i s t a n , I r a q a n d o t h e r c o u n t r i e s .

Colonized peoples have long been subjected toarguments regarding the inevitability of theirsubjugation and colonial rule, and the inherent

supremacy of the coloniser’s worldview. So too, weare now told that corporate globalisation is like themoon’s pull on the tide. A natural, organic,unstoppable process. As Mike Moore, Director-General of the WTO said while still a NewZealand parliamentarian: “We evolved from families,to tribes to the city state, to the Nation state andnow to global and regional economic and politicalarrangements.”

We can dissect and denounce the privatisation,deregulation and liberalisation policies promoted bythe IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank,US and European foreign policy and locked in byinternational free trade and investment agreementsall we like. But unless we are prepared to take aclear position against imperialism in all its forms,then all of our talk will remain just that – talk.

It is one thing for us to agree that corporateglobalisation is another form of colonisation. It is

another to develop strategieslocally and internationally,which are consistent with thisunderstanding.

Colonization and globalisationhave thrived on making usfight one another. Any genuinestruggle to counter the latest

forms that imperialism is taking must urgently learnto deal with such divisions among peoples.

There is real potential to build strong, vibrantconnections between struggles of Indigenous Peoples– and others, especially among the politically-conscious desi diaspora – in the so-called FirstWorld with movements and communities in theThird World struggling for economic and socialjustice. Some of those links have already beenmade.

The most dynamic and robust resistance tocorporate globalisation is coming from peoples’movements, which have grown out of olderstruggles against imperialism. It is through suchmovements , and the unglamorous work o fcommunity level organizing, not NGO talk fests orarcane and elitist academic discussions, that we canbuild genuine solidarity among peoples and developreal alternatives to a fundamentalist economic andpolitical agenda that is fuelling desperation andcommunalism and fragmenting communities acrossthe planet.

GLOBALIZATIONR E T H I N K I N G

The most dynamic androbust resistance to

corporate globalisation iscoming from peoples’

movements...

institutions or the general public is willing to face up to this.

What ‘Ecologically Sustainable Development’ really has to meancannot be grasped unless we begin with the ‘limits to growth’ analysisof the global situation. Rich countries like Australia are already farbeyond levels of production and consumption that are sustainable,or that could be shared by all the world’s people. Yet our supremegoal is to increase levels of production and consumption all the timeand without any limit.

Consider the following lines of argument from the large ‘limits’literature:

1. If the 9 billion people expected to be living on earth soon after2070 were each to consumeminerals and energy at thepresent rich world per capitarate, world annual output ofthese i t ems wou ld have toincrease to about 8 times theirpresent levels. For about 1/3 ofthe basic l ist of 35 mineralitems, all potentially recoverableresources would probably beexhausted in under 40 years(Trainer 1995). All potentiallyrecoverable oil, gas, shale oil,and coal (assuming 2000 billiontonnes) and uranium (via burnerreactors) would be exhausted inabout the same time span. Toproduce the required amount ofenergy from nuclear sources

What is SustainableDevelopment?

TED TRAINER

o s t o f t h epronouncements madeabout ‘Ecolog ica l ly

Sustainable Development’ arenonsensical, because they areb a s e d o n t h e m i s t a k e nassumption that the task is tofind ways that will enable us tocontinue with affluent industrial-consumer l i f e s t y l e s and tocontinue pursuing economicg r o w t h , w i t h o u t d e p l e t i n gre source s o r damag ing theenvironment.

B u t , t h i s i s n o t r e m o t e l ypossible. A sustainable societycan only be achieved if there isenormous reduct ion in theaggregate amount of producingand consuming going on in theworld i.e., the present volumesof trade, business turnover,exports, investment, purchasing,work etc., must be cut to asmall proportion of their currentlevels. This means phasing outvast quantities of production ande c o n o m i c a c t i v i t y , a n dimplementing a zero-growth orsteady state economy. Hardlyanyone within government,academia, the media, educational

DEVELOPMENTR E T H I N K I N G

M

38

T E D T R A I N E RTed Trainer teaches at the University ofNew Sou th Wa le s . He i s one o fAustral ia’s foremost environmentalcampaigners. Trainer has called for anew movement toward ‘eco-villages’ asa way to teach the pub l i c abou tsustainable alternatives.

would require approximately 700 times theworld’s present nuclear capacity, all in the formof breeder reactors, given that fusion power isnot likely to be available on the necessaryscale for many decades, if ever. This wouldmean that at any one time approximately threequarters of a million tonnes of plutoniumwould be in use.

2. Although a sustainable society must eventuallybe based on renewable energy sources, it is notplausible that these could meet present worldenergy demand for electricity and liquid fuels,let alone any multiple of it.

3. To produce the average North American dietrequires .5 ha of crop land per person. If 9billion people were to have such a diet 4.5billion ha would be needed, but that is about3.5 times all the crop land on the planet.

4. It takes about 12 ha of productive land toprovide one person in North America withtheir current ‘living standard’. If 9 billion wereto live that way we would require 108 billionha of productive land, but that is about 15times all the productive land on the planet!

5. S i n c e t h e e a r l y 1 9 9 0 s t h e U N ’ s I n t e r -governmental Panel on Climate Control hasbeen telling us that if we are to prevent theamount of carbon dioxide in the atmospherefrom increasing we must reduce carbon releaseby 60-80%. If we reduced it by 60% andshared the available fossil fuels equally amongall 9 billion people, you and I would have toget by on one-eighteenth of the quantity wenow use.

6. One of the most worrying resource scarcitieslooming is to do with water. We are usingwater much faster than it falls as rain; i.e., weare reducing the water stored in the ground.The difference is huge; in fact if we reducedwater use in agriculture to the rate at whichwe can get it from rainfall we could feed 480m i l l i o n p e o p l e l e s s t h a n w e d o n o w.

Most people have little idea of the magnitude ofthese f i gures . We are not jus t a l i t t l e b i tunsustainable; we are far beyond levels of resourceuse, product ion and consumption that aresustainable.

Now, add the ab su rd imp l i ca t i on s o f ou rfundamental, fierce and never-questioned obsession

with economic growth. Nothing is more importantin consumer society than increasing the volume ofproducing and consumption, i.e., economic activity,all the time, rapidly and without limit. If we havea mere 3% p.a. growth in economic activity andby 2070 the expected 9 billion people will all haverisen to the per capita living standards we in richcountries would then have, total world economicoutput would be 60 times as great as it is now.The present levels of production and consumptionand resource use and environmental impact aregrossly unsustainable, but we are committed to aneconomic system that will multiply the presentimpacts by 60 in 70 years and if 3% growthcontinued they would double every 23 yearsthereafter.

The conventional assumption is that these multipleswill be avoided through technical advance. It isassumed that better technologies will make itpossible for us to go on pursuing ever rising ‘livingstandards’ and economic growth while actuallygetting the resource and ecological impacts downto sustainable levels. But the multiples are far toogreat for this to be remotely plausible. The bestknown tech-fix advocate is Amory Lovins. Heargues that resource and environmental costs perunit of production could be cut to one-quarter, andmaybe less, or present amounts. But, this is farfrom sufficient.

If all the world’s people were to have the presentrich world ‘living standard’, resource demand wouldbe at least 5 times as great. If global populationrises to 9 billion as expected the multiple becomes7.5. If we in rich countries have 3% p.a. growthin ‘living standards’ then the volume of productionand consumption in 2070 will be 8 times as greatas it is today, so if 9 billion were to live as wewould, total world production would be 60 timesas great as it is today. But, right now it isprobably two to three times a sustainable volume;remember carbon emissions should be cut by atleast two-thirds. So, to enable us to go on withthe pursuit of affluence and growth, by 2070technical advance would have to enable 60 timesas much producing and consuming while generatingonly one half to one third of the present resourceand environ mental cost. This is far beyond whatcould be achieved.

DEVELOPMENTR E T H I N K I N G

One of the most worrying resource scarcities looming is to do with water. Weare using water much faster than it falls as rain; i.e., we are reducing the

water stored in the ground.

39

Implications for a sustainable society

If the limits to growth analysis of our predicamenti s va l id then a number o f ve ry c lea r andinescapable implications are evident for the natureof a sustainable society that all could share. Giventhat it must be a society in which per capitaresource use and environmental impact are a smallfraction of their current rich world rates, theremust be, a) much simpler lifestyles, based onacceptance of frugality and material sufficiency, b)a high level of self-sufficiency, within household,national and especially local areas, c) morecooperative ways, e.g. enabling sharing of resources,and d) a zero-growth or steady state economy,achieved after a long period of negative growth,i.e., large scale reduction in unnecessary productionand consumption. That means many factories mustbe closed down and large volumes of capitalcurrently being invested must cease to be invested.

Needless to say, nothing like this is possible in thepresent consumer/capitalist economy. Even moreproblematic, such a society cannot be achievedunless there is enormous value change, from theindividualistic, competitive and acquisitive wayscentral in Western society. It would be easy todesign and build communities and local economiesof the required kind…if enough people wanted todo so. Indeed, thousands of people are presentlydeveloping these within the Global Eco-villagemovement. Nevertheless, the change from consumersociety is so great that we are unlikely to makethe transition.

Thus, most references to ‘ecologically sustainabledevelopment’ made within mainstream discourseonly point to small improvements in the rate ofresource or environmental impact resulting fromsome activity and imply that all is well becausegains of this sort can be kept up until theaggregate impacts are reduced to sustainable levels.This is seen to be seriously mistaken. When themagnitude of the present overshoot is understood,along with the fact that only a few of the world’speople are presently consuming as much as we doin rich countries, and when the implications of thegrowth commitment are understood, it is obviousthat achieving a sustainable society will requireenormous change in lifestyles and patterns ofsettlement, the almost total scaping of theconsumer-capitalist economy, and unprecedentedchange in some of the fundamental values drivingWestern culture, especially greed.

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EDucate! 1Initiating aDiscourse onGlobal Concerns

EDucate! 2Addressing theParadigms ofEducation andDevelopment

EDucate! 3Learning fromCHOMSKY

EDucate! 4Media, Education& Society

Any genuine teaching will result, if successful,in someone’s knowing how to bring about abetter condition of things than existed earlier.

John Dewey

Education has produced a vast populationable to read but unable to distinguish whatis worth reading.

G. M. Trevelyan

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they aremade stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

It is little short of a miracle that modernmethods of instruction have not alreadycompletely strangled the holy curiosity ofinquiry… I believe that one could evendeprive a healthy beast of prey of i tsvoraciousness if one could force it with awhip to eat continuously whether, it werehungry or not…

Albert Einstein

The only real education comes from whatgoes counter to you.

Andre Gide

You cannot teach a man anything; you canonly help h im f ind i t within himsel f.

Galileo Galilei

Nothing in education is so astonishing as theamount of ignorance it accumulates in theform of inert facts.

Henry Brooks Adams

When asked how much educated men weresuperior to those uneducated, Aristotleanswered, “As much as the living are to thedead.”

Diogenes Laertius

Aid to developing countries for educationfrom bilateral sources has decreased, e.g. aidfrom the World Bank has dropped from1,487 to 880 million.

The E-9 – the world’s nine high populationcountries: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India,Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan– continue to account for more than three-quarters of the world’s illiterate population.

Progres s in pr imary educat ion masksconsiderable disparities: 60% of the out-of-school children are girls; and the gender gapin countries where this is a major problemhas not appreciably narrowed. Children ofrural areas, urban slums, ethnic minoritiesand geographically remote communities alsoin general, registered slower or no progressin access to schooling.

Of the children involved in exploitativedomestic labour worldwide, 90% are girls.

If pay for production workers had grown asfast as pay for chief executives, factoryworkers would be making an average of$114,035 a year (instead of $23,753) andthe minimum wages would be $24.13(instead of $5.15).

There are 42 million fewer girls than boysenrolled in primary schools across the world.South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have thewidest gender gaps.

To purchase a computer would cost theaverage Bangladeshi more than eight years’income, the average American, just onemonth’s wage.

& Reflections...Inspirations WAKEUP

CALLS!!!

41

in Education. The former centres on socially producing labour-power(people’s capacity to labour) for capitalist enterprises, the latter focuseson setting business ‘free’ in education for profit-making. Thus, businesswants to make profits from education, and to make education fit forbusiness – to make schooling and further and higher education subordinateto the personality, ideological and economic requirements of capital.

T h e C u r r e n t P r o j e c t o f G l o b a l C a p i t a l i s m

The fundamental principle of capitalism is the sanctification of private (or,corporate) profit based on the extraction of surplus labour (unpaid labour-time) as surplus value from the labour-power of workers. This is a creedof competition, not co-operation, between humans. It is a creed andpractice of racialized and gendered class exploitation, exploitation by thecapitalist class of those who provide the profits through their labour, theworking class.

John McMurtry ’s The Cancer Stage ofCapitalism (1999) describes ‘the Pathologizationof the Market Model’. He suggests that toargue for a ‘free market’ in anything thesedays is a delusion: the ‘market model’ thatwe have today is really the system thatbenefits the ‘global corporate market’ – asystem where the rules are rigged to favourhuge mul t inat iona l and t ransnat iona lcorporations that take over, destroy orincorporate (hence the ‘cancer’ stage ofcapitalism) small businesses, innovators, etc.that are potential competitors. Thus, openingeducation to the market, in the long run, willopen it to the corporate giants – who willrun it in their own interests. Glenn Rikowski(The Battle in Seattle: Its significance foreducation, 2001) and others argue that theWorld Trade Organisation (WTO) and other

Neo-liberalism,Global Capitalism

& Educational ChangeDAVE HILL

T h e C o n t e x t s o fE d u c a t i o n a l C h a n g e

T h e c u r r e n t a n t i - e g a l i t a r i a neducation system needs to becontextualised in two ways. Firstly,t h e p o l i c y c o n t e x t – t h erestructuring of the schooling andeducation systems across the world– needs to be placed within theideological and policy context ofthe links between Capital, Neo-liberalism (with its combination ofprivatization, competitive markets ineducation characterised by selectionand exclusion) and the rampantg r o w t h o f t h e n a t i o n a l a n dinternational inequalities.

It is important to look at the bigpicture. Markets in education, so-called ‘parental choice’ of a diverserange of schools, privatization ofschools, cutting state subsidies toeducation and other public servicesare only a part of the educationalstrategy of the capitalist class.National and global capitalismwishes to, and has succeeded incutting public expenditure. It doesthis because public services areexpensive. Cuts serve to reducetaxes on profits. In addition, thecapitalist class has a Business Planfor Education and a Business Plan

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L

D A V E H I L LDave Hill teaches at UniversityCollege Northampton. Prior tothat he taught in schools andcolleges in inner-city London. Hismost recent book, written withMike Cole, Peter McLaren andGlenn Rikowski, is Red Chalk:on Schooling, Capitalism andPolitics.

e d u c a t o r sC R I T I C A L

42

global clubs for the mega-capitalists) are setting thisa g e n d a u p i n e d u c a t i o n a c r o s s t h e g l o b e .

Globalisation, Inequality and Economicand Social Justice

Global inequalities have been well described with theIMF/World Trade Organisation/World Bank inspired cutsin health and welfare budgets throughout the ThirdWorld.

I n B r i t a i n t h e i n c r e a s i n g i n e q u a l i t i e s , t h eimpoverishment and creation of a substantial underclasshas also been well documented (for example in DaveHill and Mike Cole, Schooling and Equality: Fact,Concept and Policy, 2001). For example, in Britain theratio of chief executives’ pay to average worker’s paystands at 35 to one. In the USA it has climbed to450 to one (from around 35 to one in the mid-1980s).Inequalities both between states and within states haveincreased dramatically during theera of global neo-liberalism. In theUSA, for example, the economicapartheid nature of capitalism hasbeen widely exposed in the work ofPeter McLaren (e.g. Che Guevara,Paulo Freire and the pedagogy ofRevolution, 2000). To give oneexample, in the USA, the top 1percent of the richest people havewealth – financial wealth – equalt o t h e b o t t o m 9 5 p e r c e n t .

To take another example, Chile,hailed as a beacon of neo-liberalpolicies ‘boasts one of the mostunequal economies in the world…in which only 10percent of the Chilean population earns almost halfthe wealth and in which the richest 100 people earnmore than the state spends on social services. Realsalaries have declined 10 percent since 1986 and theyare still 18 percent lower than when Allende was inpower’.

The Effects of Neo-Liberal Capitalism

In discussing the Market, as a part of neo-liberalideology and policy, it is important to see how thisimpacts on people’s lives, life chances and deaths, tobecome aware of the effects of what John McMurtrycalls the The Cancer Stage of Capitalism (1999), andof market ideology in fiscal, social and educationalprovision.

Neo-liberalism requires that the state establishes andextends:

1. Privatization/Private ownership of the means ofp r o d u c t i o n , d i s t r i b u t i o n a n d e x c h a n g e .

2. The provision of a Market in goods and services– including private sector involvement in welfare,social, educational and other state services (sucha s a i r t r a f f i c c o n t r o l , p r i s o n s , p o l i c i n g ) .

3. Within education the creation of ‘opportunity’ toacquire the means of education (though notnecessarily education itself, as McMurtry notes) andadditional cultural capital, through selection.

4. Relatively untrammelled selling and buying oflabour power, for a ‘flexible’, poorly regulated labourmarket.

5. The restructuring of the management of thewe l f a re s t a te on the ba s i s o f a co rpora temanagerialist model imported from the world ofbusiness. As well as the needs of the economydictating the principal aims of school education,the world of business is also to supply a model ofh o w i t i s t o b e p r o v i d e d a n d m a n a g e d .

6. Suppression of oppositionalcritical thought and of autonomousthought and education.7. Within a regime of cuts inthe post–war Welfare State and lowpublic expenditure.

Privatization, Business andEducation

How, in more detail, do educationmarkets fit into the grand plan forschooling and education? What iscapital ism’s ‘Business Plan forEducation’? McMurtry is one amongmany who note that education as

a soc ia l ins t i tut ion has been subordinated tointernational market goals including the language andself-conceptualisation of educators themselves.

Richard Hatcher in his article “Getting down to thebusiness: schooling in the globalised economy”, in theBritish education journal Education and Social Justice(2001), shows how Capital/Business has two major aimsfor schools. The first aim is to make sure schoolsproduce compliant, ideologically indoctrinated, procapitalist, effective workers. That is, to ensure thatschooling and education engage in ideological andeconomic reproduction. National state education andtraining policies in the business agenda FOR educationare of increasing importance for national capital. In anera of global capital, this is one of the few remainingareas for national state intervention – it is the site,suggests Hatcher, where a state can make a differenceThe second aim is for private enterprise, privatecapitalists, to make money out of it, to make private

Inequalities both betweenstates and within states

have increaseddramatically during the

era of global neo-liberalism. In the USA, for

example, the top 1percent of the richestpeople have wealth –

financial wealth – equalto the bottom 95 percent.

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L 43

profit out of it, to control it: this is the businessagenda IN schools.

The effects of neo-liberalism in educationand society

Neo-liberal policies globally have resulted in a loss ofn Equity, Inequalities and Economic and Social Justicen Democracy – as business values and interests are

increasingly substituted for democratic accountabilityand the collective voice.

The Growth of Educational Inequality

There is considerable data on how poor schools have,by and large, got poorer (in terms of relative educationresults and in terms of total income) and how richschools (in the same terms) have got richer. Marketsexacerbate existing inequalities.

A Cri t ique of Neo-Liberal Theory:Neo-Liberalism and Education

I n o w w a n t t o l o o k a t o n etheoretical and academic aspect ofsome neo-liberal arguments andsuggest where they fall down. Neo-l i b e r a l s m a k e a n u m b e r o fu n w a r r a n t e d i m p l i c a t i o n s o rconclusions about the role of thestate in education and about therole of the market in education.These relate to their assumptionthat the market/privatization isc o m p a t i b l e w i t h e d u c a t i o n .

Education is not a commodity, to be bought and sold.One can buy the means to an education, but not thehard graft of autonomous learning itsel f. JohnMcMurtry, among others, has noted that education andthe capitalist market in terms of their opposing goals,opposing motivations, opposing methods, and opposingstandards of excellence.

Firstly, the goals of education. ‘Private profit is acquiredby a structure of appropriation, which excludes othersfrom its possession. The greater its accumulation byany private corporation, the more wealth others areexcluded from in this kind of possession. This is whatmakes such ownership ‘private’. Education, in contrast,is acquired by a structure of appropriation that doesnot exclude others from its possession. On the contrary,education is furthered the more it is shared, and themore there is free and open access to its circulation.That is why learning which is not conveyed to othersis deemed ‘lost’, ‘wasted’ or ‘dead’. In direct opposition

to market exchanges, educational changes flourish mostwith the unpaid gifts of others and develop the morethey are not mediated by private possession or profit’.

Secondly, opposing motivations. McMurtry notes that‘the determining motivation of the market is to satisfythe wants of whoever has the money to purchase thegoods that are provided. The determining motivationof education is to develop sound understanding whetherit is wanted or not. ‘The market by definition can onlysatisfy the motivations of those who have the moneyto buy the product it sells. The place of education, onthe other hand, remains a place of education insofaras it educates those whose motivation is to learn,independent of the money – demand they exercise inthe i r l ea rn ing ’ . In add i t ion , ‘deve lopment o funderstanding is necessarily growth of cognitive capacity;wherein satisfaction of consumer wants involves neither,and typically impedes both’.

Thirdly, opposing methods. ‘The method of the marketis to buy or sell the goods it has to offer to anyonefor whatever price one can get…The method of

education is never to buy or sellthe item it has to offer, but torequire of all who would have itthat they fulfil its requirementsautonomously’... Everything that ist o b e h a d o n t h e m a r k e t i sacquired by the money paid for it.N o t h i n g t h a t i s l e a r n e d i neducation is acquired by the moneypaid for it.

Fourthly, opposing Standards ofExce l lence . ‘ The measures o fexcellence in the market are (i)

how well the product is made to sell; and (ii) howproblem-free the product is and remains for its buyers.The measures of excellence in education are (i) howdisinterested and impartial its representations are; and(ii) how deep and broad the problems it poses are toone who has it’….the first works through ‘one sidedsales pitches...which work precisely because they arenot understood’, the second ‘must rule out one – sidedpresentation appetitive compulsion and manipulativeconditioning’.

In analysing the relationship between neo-liberalism andeducation, the last critical theoretical point I wish tomake here is that the Market suppresses CriticalThought and Education itself.

McMurtry concludes, powerfully, ‘this fundamentalcontradiction in standards of excellence leads, in turn,to opposite standards of freedom. Freedom in themarket is the enjoyment of whatever one is able to

There is considerable dataon how poor schools

have, by and large, gotpoorer (in terms of

relative education resultsand in terms of totalincome) and how richschools (in the same

terms) have got richer.

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L44

buy from others with no questions asked, and profitfrom whatever one is able to sell to others with norequirement to answer to anyone else. Freedom in theplace of education, on the other hand, is precisely thefreedom to question, and to seek answers, whether itoffends people’s self-gratification or not’.

McMurtry succinctly relates his arguments above to the‘systematic reduction of the historically hard won socialinstitution of education to a commodity for privatepurchase and sale’. The commodification of educationrules out the very critical freedom and academic rigourw h i c h e d u c a t i o n r e q u i r e s t o b e m o r e t h a nindoctrination. Much of my own work calls for criticaleducation and for the development of teachers ascritical transformative intellectuals.

The Role of Critical TransformativeIntellectuals in Education and otherCultural Sites

The first is that critical educators can indeed attemptto provide a spark that can ignite the desire forrevolutionary democratic social transformationthroughout the world. To carry the metaphor evenfurther, it does so at a time when critical/radicaleducation, almost everywhere, is in danger of terminal‘burn-out’. However, the question of how far thistransformative potential can be realized is the subjectof considerable debate, for contemporary theory as wellas practice. The autonomy and agency available toindividual teachers, teacher educators, schools anddepartments of education is particularly challenged whenfaced with the structures of capital and its current neo-liberal project for education.

I recognize and do not underestimate the limitationson the agency and autonomy of teachers, teachereducators, cultural workers and their sites, and indeed,the ve r y l im i t ed au tonomy o f the educa t i onpolicy/political region of the state from the economic.There are, in many states, greater and greaterrestrictions on the ability of teachers to use theirpedagogical spaces for emancipatory purposes.

The repressive cards within the ideological stateapparatuses are stacked against the possibilities oftransformative change through Initial Teacher Educationa n d t h r o u g h s c h o o l i n g. B u t h i s t o r i c a l l y a n dinternationally, this often has been the case. Spaces doexist for counter-hegemonic struggle – sometimes (asnow) narrower, sometimes (as in Western Europe andNorth America, the 1960s and 1970s) broader. Havingrecognized the limitations, though, and havingr e c o g n i z e d t h a t t h e r e i s s o m e p o t e n t i a l f o rtransformative change, whatever space does exist should

be exploited. Whatever we can do, we must do,however fertile the soil at any given moment in anyparticular place. But schools and colleges are not theonly place.

Working Outside of the Classroom! LocalAction

Unless critical educators’ actions, within schools andeducation, are linked to a grammar of resistance, suchresistant and counter-hegemonic activity is likely to fallon relatively stony ground. Hence, using schools andeducational sites as arenas of cultural struggle ande d u c a t i o n i n g e n e r a l a s a v e h i c l e f o r s o c i a ltransformation needs to premise upon a c learcommitment to work with communities, parents andstudents. When I say working ‘with’, I do not meansimply ‘leading’ or ‘talking at’; working with means‘learning’ from the daily existence of the exploitedclasses. Ideally it means fulfilling the role of the organicintellectual, organically linked to and part of thesegroups. This means also working with communities –and their own despair and anger – in developing theperception that schools and education themselves ares i t e s o f soc ia l and economic and ideo log ica lcontestation, not ‘neutral’ or ‘fair’ or ‘inevitable’, butsites of economic, cultural and ideological domination,of class domination. It is thereby important to be awareof the role of education in capital reproduction and inthe reproduction of class relations.

Mass Act ion as Part of a BroaderMovement for Economic and SocialJustice

Globally and nationally societies are developing andhave always developed, to a greater or lesser degree,critical educators, community activists, organicintellectuals, students and teachers whose feelings ofoutrage at economic and social class and racial andgender oppression lead them/us into activism. It isbeing part of action, part of networks, part of mini –and of mass action. Ideological intervention inclassrooms and in other cultural sites can havedramatic effect. However, actualising that ideology, thatopposition to oppressive law or state or capitalist action,the effect of taking part in, feeling the solidarity, feelingthe blood stir, feeling the pride in action, the jointlearning that comes from that experience, can developconf idence , unders tanding, and commitment .

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L 45

engage in a much needed self-critique regarding the nature and purposeof teacher preparation, in-service teacher programs and the dominant formsof classroom teaching. Similarly, the debate provides teachers with theopportunity to organize collectively to improve the conditions under whichthey work and to demonstrate to the public the central role that teachersmust play to any viable attempt to reform the publ ic schools .

In order for teachers and others to engage in such a debate, it is necessarythat theoretical perspective be developed that redefines the nature of theeducational crisis across the world while simultaneously providing the basisfor an alternative view of teacher training and work. In short, recognizingthat the current crisis in education largely has to do with the developingtrend towards the disempowerment of teachers as all levels of educationis a necessary theoretical precondition for teachers to organize effectivelyand establish a collective voice in the current debate. Moreover, such arecognition will have to come to grips with a growing loss of power amongteachers around the basic conditions of their work, but also with achanging public perception of their role as reflective practitioners.

I want to make a small theoreticalcontribution to this debate and thechallenge it calls forth by examining twomajor problems that need to be addressedin the interest of improving the qualityof ‘teacher work’, which includes all theclerical tasks and extra assignment as wellas classroom instruction. First, I think itis imperative to examine the ideologicaland material forces that have contributedt o w h a t I w a n t t o c a l l t h eproletarianization of teacher work; that is,the tendency to reduce teachers to thestatus of specialized technicians within theschool bureaucracy, whose function thenbecomes one o f the manag ing andimplementing curricular programs ratherthan developing or critically appropriatingcurricula to f it specif ic pedagogicalconcerns. Second, there is a need todefend schools as institutions essential to

Teachers AsTransformatory

IntellectualsHENRY GIROUX

Unlike many past educationalreforms movements, the present callfor educational change presentsboth a threat and a challenge topublic school teachers that appearunprecedented. The threat comesi n t h e f o r m o f a s e r i e s o feducational reforms that displaylittle confidence in the ability ofpublic school teachers to provideintellectual and moral leadership forour youth. For instance, manyr e c o m m e n d a t i o n s t h a t h a v eemerged in the current debateacross the world either ignore therole teacher’s play in preparinglearners to be active and criticalcitizens or they suggest reforms thatignore the intelligence, judgmentand experience that teachers mightoffer in such a debate. Whereteachers do enter the debate, theyare object of educational reformsthat reduce them to the status ofhigh-level technicians carrying outdictates and objectives decided byexperts far removed from theeveryday realities of classroom life.The message appears to be thatteachers do not count when itcomes to critically examining thenature and process of educationalreform.

The political and ideological climatedoes not look favorable for theteachers at the moment. But itdoes offer them the challenge tojoin a public debate with theircritics as well as the opportunity to

H E N R Y G I R O U X

Henry A. Giroux is currently teaching atPennsylvania State University. ProfessorGiroux has published extensively in awide-ranging number of scholar lyj o u r n a l s a n d b o o k s . G i r o u x i sinternationally renowned for his work incritical pedagogy and has publishedmany books on the subject. He lectureswidely on a variety of cultural, socialand educational issues in the UnitedStates and abroad.

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L46

maintaining and developing acritical democracy and also todefending teachers as transformativeintellectuals who combine scholarlyref lection and practice in theservice of educating students to bethoughtful, active citizens. In theremainder of this essay, I wil ldevelop these points and concludeby examining their implications forproviding an alternative view ofteacher work.

Devaluing and DeskillingTeacher Work

One of the major threats facingprospective and existing teacherswithin the public schools is thei n c r e a s i n g d e v e l o p m e n t o fi n s t r u m e n t a l i d e o l o g i e s t h a temphasize a technocratic approachto both teacher preparation andclassroom pedagogy. At the core ofthe cu r rent emphas i s on theinstrumental and pragmatic factorsin school life are a number ofimportant pedagogical assumptions.These inc lude: a ca l l for theseparation of conception fromexecution; the standardization ofschool knowledge in the interest ofmanaging and controlling it; theincreased call for standardizedtesting, and the devaluation ofcritical, intellectual work on thepart of teachers and students fort h e p r i m a c y o f p r a c t i c a lcons ide ra t ions . In th i s v i ew,teaching is reduced to training andc o n c e p t s a r e s u b s t i t u t e d b ymethods.

I n s t e a d o f l e a r n i n g t o r a i s equestions about the principlesunderlying different classroommethods, research techniques andtheories of education, students areoften preoccupied with learning the‘how to’, with what works, or withmastering the best way to teach agiven body of knowledge. Forexample the mandatory f ie ld-practice seminars often consist ofstudents sharing with each otherthe techniques they have used in

managing and controlling classroomdisc ip l ine , organi z ing a day ’ sactivities, and learning how to workw i t h i n s p e c i f i c t i m e t a b l e s .

Technocratic and instrumentalrationalities are also at work withinthe teaching field itself, and theyplay an increasing role in reducingteacher autonomy with respect tothe development and planning ofcurricula and the judging andimplementa t ion o f c l a s s roominstruction. This is most evident inthe proliferation of what has beencalled ‘teacher-proof ’ curriculumpackages. The underlying rationalein many of these packages reservesfor teachers the role of simplycarrying out predetermined contentand instructional procedures. Themethod and aim of such packagesi s t o l e g i t i m a t e w h a t I c a l lmanagement pedagogies. That isknowledge is broken down intodiscrete parts, standardized for easiermanagement and consumption, andmeasured through predefined formsof assessment. Curricula approacheso f t h i s s o r t a r e m a n a g e m e n tpedagogies because the centralquestions regarding learning arer e d u c e d t o t h e p r o b l e m o fmanagement, i.e., “how to allocateresources (teachers, students andmaterials) to produce the maximumnumber of certified…students withina designated time.

T h e u n d e r l y i n g t h e o r e t i c a lassumption that guides this type ofpedagogy is that the behavior ofteachers needs to be controlled andmade consistent and predictableacross different schools and student

populations. The deskilling thatteachers experience across the worldis further exacerbated by WorldBank pedagogies that impose oncountries forms of privatization ands t a n d a r d i z e d c u r r i c u l a t h a tundermine the potential for criticalinquiry and engaged citizenship.L e a r n i n g i n t h i s i n s t a n c e i sdepoliticized and often reduced toteaching to the test.

What is clear in this approach isthat it organizes school life aroundcurr icu lar, ins t ruct iona l , andevaluation express who do thethinking while teachers are reducedto doing the implementing. Thee f f e c t i s n o t o n l y t o d e s k i l lteachers, to remove them from theprocesses o f de l iberat ion andreflection, but also to routinize thenature of learning and classroompedagogy. Needless to say, theprinciples underlying managementpedagogies are at odds with thepremise that teachers should beactively involved in producingcurricula materials suited to thecultural and social contexts inwhich they teach. More specifically,the narrowing of curricula choicesto a back-to-basics format and theintroduction of lock-step, time-on-task pedagogies operate from thetheoretically erroneous assumptionthat all students can learn fromthe same materials , classroominstructional techniques and modesof evaluation. The notion thats tudents come f rom d i f fe renthistories and embody differentexperiences, linguistic practices,cultures, and talents is strategicallyi gnored wi th in the log ic andaccountabil ity of managementpedagogy theory.

Teachers as TransformativeIntellectuals

In what follows, I want to arguethat one way to re th ink andrestructure the nature of teacherw o r k i s t o v i e w t e a c h e r s a stransformative intellectuals. The

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L 47

It is imperative toexamine the ideologicaland material forces that

have contributed to reduceteachers to the status of

specialized technicianswithin the school

bureaucracy.

category of intellectual is helpful ina number of ways. First, it providesa theoretical basis for examiningt e a c h e r w o r k a s a f o r m o fintellectual labor, as opposed todefining it in purely instrumental ortechnical terms. Second, it clarifiesthe k ind s o f i deo log i ca l andpractical conditions necessary forteachers to function as intellectuals.Third, it helps to make clear therole teachers play in producing andlegit imating var ious pol i t ical ,economic and social intereststh rough the pedagog i e s theyendorse and utilize.

By viewing teachers as intellectuals,we can illuminate the importantidea tha t a l l human ac t i v i t yinvolves some form of thinking. Noactivity, regardless of how routinizedit might become, can be abstractedfrom the functioning of the mindin some capacity. This is a crucialissue, because by arguing that theuse of the mind is a general partof all human activity we dignifythe human capacity for integratingthinking and practice, and in doingso highlight the core of what itmeans to view teachers as reflectivepractitioners. Within this discourse,teachers can be seen not merely as“performers professionally equippedto realize effectively any goals thatmay be set for them. Rather [theyshould] be viewed as free men andwomen with a special dedication tothe values of the intellect and theenhancement of the critical powersof the young.”

Viewing teachers as intellectualsalso provides a strong theoreticalc r i t i que o f t e chnoc ra t i c andinstrumental ideologies underlyingan educational theory that separatesthe conceptualization, planning andde s i gn o f cu r r i cu l a f r om theprocesses of implementation andexecution. It is important to stressthat teachers must take activeresponsibility for raising seriousquestions about what they teach,how they are to teach, and whatthe larger goals are for which they

are striving. This means that theymust take a responsible role inshaping the purposes and conditionso f s c h o o l i n g . S u c h a t a s k i simpossible within a division of laborin which teachers have l i t t leinfluence over the ideological andeconomic conditions of their work.This point has a normative andpolitical dimension that seemsespecially relevant for teachers. Ifw e b e l i e v e t h a t t h e r o l e o fteaching cannot be reduced tomerely training in the practicalskills, but involves, instead, theeducation of a class of engagedand public intellectuals vital to thedevelopment of a free society, thenthe category of intellectual becomesa way of linking the purpose ofteacher education, public schoolingand in-service training to the very

principles necessary for developinga democratic order and society.Recognizing teachers as engagedand public intellectuals means thateducators should never be reducedto technicians just as educations h o u l d n e v e r b e r e d u c e d t otraining. Instead, pedagogy shouldbe rooted in the practice of ethicaland political formation of both theself and the broader social order.

I have argued that by viewingteachers as intellectuals we canbegin to rethink and reform thetraditions and conditions that haveprevented teachers from assumingtheir fu l l potent ia l as act ive ,reflective scholars and practitioners.I believe that it is important noto n l y t o v i e w t e a c h e r s a si n t e l l e c t u a l s , b u t a l s o t o

contextual ize in pol i t ical andnormative terms the concrete socialfunctions that teachers have bothto their work and to the dominantsociety.

A starting point for interrogatingthe social function of teachers asintellectuals is to view schools aseconomic, cultural and social sitesthat are inextricably tied to thei s sue s o f po l i t i c s , power andcontrol. This means that schools domore than pass on in an objectivefashion a common set of valuesand knowledge. On the contrary,schools are places that representforms of knowledge, languagepractices, social relations and valuesthat are particular selections andexclusions from the wider culture.As such, schools serve to introduceand legitimate particular forms ofsocial l i fe . Rather than beingobjective institutions removed fromthe dynamics of politics and power,schools actually are contestedspheres that embody and expresss t r u g g l e o v e r w h a t f o r m s o fauthority, types of knowledge, formsof moral regulation and versions ofthe past and future should belegitimated and transmitted tostudents. The struggle is mostv i s i b l e i n t h e d e m a n d s , f o rexample, of right-wing religiousgroups currently trying to instituteschool prayer, remove certain booksfrom school libraries, and includecertain forms of religious teachingsin the science curricula. Of course,different demands are made byfeminists, ecologists, minorities, andother interest groups who believethat the schools should teachwomen’s studies, courses on theenvironment, or black history. Inshort, schools are not neutral sites,and teachers cannot assume theposture of being neutral either.

In the broadest sense, teachers asintellectuals have to be seen inte rms o f the ideo log i ca l andpolitical interests that structure thenature of the discourse, classroomsocial relations, and values that

It is important to stressthat teachers must takeactive responsibility forraising serious questionsabout what they teach,how they are to teach,

and what the larger goalsare for which they are

striving.

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L48

they legitimate in their teaching.With this perspective in mind, Iwant to conclude that teachersshould become transformativeintellectuals if they are to educatestudents to be active, crit icalcitizens.

C e n t r a l t o t h e c a t e g o r y o ftransformative intellectual is thenecessity of making the pedagogicalmore political and the politicalmore pedagogical. Making thepedagogical more political meansinserting schooling directly into thepolitical sphere by arguing thatschooling represents both a struggleto define meaning and a struggleover power relations. Within thisperspective, critical reflection anda c t i o n b e c o m e p a r t o f afundamental social project to helps tudent s deve lop a deep andabiding faith in the struggle toovercome economic, political andsocial injustices, and to furtherhumanize themselves as part of thisstruggle. In this case, knowledgeand power are inextricably linkedto the presuppos i t ion that tochoose l i f e , to recogn i ze then e c e s s i t y o f i m p r o v i n g i t sdemocratic and qualitative characterfor all people, is to understand thepreconditions necessary to strugglefor it. Teaching must be seen aspolitical precisely because it isdirective, that is, an interventiont h a t t a k e s u p t h e e t h i c a lresponsibility of recognizing, asPaulo Freire points out, that humanl i f e i s c o n d i t i o n e d b u t n o tdetermined.

A critical pedagogical practice doesnot transfer knowledge but createthe possibilities for its production,a n a l y s i s , a n d u s e . Wi t h o u tsuccumbing to a kind of r igiddogmatism, teachers must providethe conditions for students to bearwi tness to h i s tory, the i r ownactions, and the mechanisms thatdrive the larger social order so thatthey can imagine the inseparable

connection between the humancondition and the ethical basis ofour existence. The key here is tor e c o g n i z e t h a t b e i n g atransformative intellectual is noexcuse for being dogmatic. While iti s c r u c i a l t o r e c o g n i z e t h a teducation has a critical function,the teachers task is not to moldstudents but to encourage humanagency, to provide the conditionsfor students to be self-determiningand to struggle for a society thati s b o t h a u t o n o m o u s a n ddemocratic.

M a k i n g t h e p o l i t i c a l m o r epedagogical means utilizing forms ofpedagogy that embody politicalinterest that are emancipatory innature; that is, using forms ofpedagogy that treat students ascritical agents; make knowledgeproblematic; utilize critical andaffirming dialogue; and make thecase for struggling for a qualitativelybetter world for all people. In part,this suggests that transformativeintellectuals take seriously the needto give students an active voice intheir learning experiences. It alsom e a n s d e v e l o p i n g a c r i t i c a lvernacular that is attentive toproblems experienced at the levelof everyday life, particularly as theya r e r e l a t e d t o p e d a g o g i c a lexperiences connected to classroompractice. As such, the pedagogicalstarting point for such intellectualsis not the isolated student butindividuals and groups in theirvarious cultural , c lass , racial ,historical and gender settings, along

with the particularity of theird iver se prob lems , hopes , anddreams.

Transformative intellectuals need todevelop a discourse that unites thelanguage of cr i t ique with thelanguage of possibility, so that socialeducators recognize that they canmake changes. In doing so, theymust speak out against economic,political and social injustices bothwithin and outside of schools. Atthe same time, they must work tocreate the conditions that givestudents the opportunity to becomecitizens who have the knowledgeand courage to struggle in order tomake despair unconvincing andhope practical. Hope in this case isnot a call to social engineering noran excuse to overlook the difficultconditions that shape both schoolsand the larger social order. On thecontrary, it is the precondition foroffering up those languages andvalues that can help point the wayto a more democratic and justworld.

As Judith Butler has argued, thereis more hope in the world whenwe can question common senseassumptions and believe that whatwe know is directly related to ourability to help change the worldaround us, though it is far fromthe only condition necessary forsuch change. Hope provides thebasis for dignifying our labor asintellectuals, offering up criticalknowledge linked to democraticsocial change, and allowing bothstudents and teachers to recognizeambivalence and uncertainty as afundamental dimension of learningto engage in critique, dialogue, andan open ended struggle for justice.As difficult as this task may seemto social educators, it is a struggleworth waging. To do otherwise isto deny educators the opportunityt o a s s u m e t h e r o l e o ft r a n s f o r m a t i v e i n t e l l e c t u a l s .

Transformative intellectualsneed to develop a

discourse that unites thelanguage of critique with

the language ofpossibility, so that socialeducators recognize thatthey can make changes.

EDUCATORSC R I T I C A L 49

MUHAMMAD KHAN (DRIVER)

Muhammad Khan is an integral member of our team. Although not ‘literate’ in theconventional sense of the word or ‘educated’ by the standards of the privileged few,he has the brilliance and motivation to handle perhaps the most radical section of ourmagazine: ‘Opinions of the Oppressed’.

For this issue we gathered opinions of people regardingschool going and non-school going children:

What is the difference between a child who goes to school and achild who does not go to school?

Results . . .

VOICEVOICELESS

of the

“In today’s time, there is a clear difference betweena child who goes to school and a child who doesnot. Those who go to school are extremely illmannered and ill disciplined as compared to thosewho do not go to school. The latter do notpossess these weaknesses because school teacherscannot offer the kind of upbringing, which theparents give to their children.”

Gul Samad – Clerk

“School going chi ldren learn whatever theenvironment of the school teaches them. Insteadof going to sub-standard schools it is better thatchildren stay at home and are taught and trainedby their parents and siblings.”

Sher Bahadur – Shopkeeper

“Yes! There is a difference between children whogo to school and those who do not. Those whogo to school are highly ill mannered. If thechildren, not attending school, are given propereducation and up bringing, they can comparativelybecome better.”

Inamur Rehman – Peon

“I think there is a big difference between a childwho goes to school and a child who does not.Knowledge is illumination. Those children who goto school are like light and those who do notremain in darkness.”

Aftab – Waiter

“The school going children can make a name fortheir country and become bright stars given that

the quality of school they are attending is goodand it is providing them proper up bringing. Thosewho do not go to school cannot even tell thelocation of their country so how can they progressin the world?”

Mukheeb – Fruit seller

“A child who does not go to school is like a blindperson while a child who goes to school is like aperson who is able to see. Thus, children must goto school.”

Fazal Wahab – Student

“The difference between the children who go toschool and those who do not is that the formeracquire knowledge and become able to read andwrite, which would subsequently help them in theirlives.”

Munawar Shah – Labourer

“The difference between the children who go toschool and those who do not is like the differencebetween sky and earth. Those who go to schoolacquire education and become doctors andengineers while those who do not go to school donot progress.”

Naik Mohammed – Cold Drink Seller

“School going children are arrogant and do notrespect their elders while illiterate children who donot go to school are very respectful and decent.”

Habib-ur-Rehman – Warehouse keeper

50

“Those who go to school are initially well-mannered but as they grow up they lose respectand mannerisms while those who do not go toschool are respectable and have regard for theirelders.”

Khaksar Ali – Candy Seller

“Those children who go to madrasahs are betterthan those who go to school. The latter onlywaste time and money as schools focus more onfees rather than children.”

Anonymous

“Boys and girls who go to school don’t have anymanners and insight. On the other hand thosewho do not attend school possess ethics and self-respect.”

Ishtiaq Ali – Student

“The difference between school-going children andnon-school going is that of intellect and awareness.Those who go to school can differentiate betweengood and bad while those children who do notattend schools are neither literate nor reflect anycivility and manners. Moreover, school goingchildren become better citizens after becomingliterate.”

Nasir Mohammed Khan – Student

“The difference between children who go to schooland the children who don’t is that school goingchildren are neat and clean and they have moreawareness than illiterate children. As far asmanners are concerned they come from upbringingat home and mischief is a part of every child’snature. Those who attend school are equally

mischievous as those who don’t. The children whoare literate tend to look after their parents more.”

Nawab Sher – Site purchaser

“In today’s age, the future of school going childrenis much brighter than of those who do not go toschool. School going children after receivingeducation become responsible citizens of thecountry and their thinking and actions are betterthan those of illiterate children who lose their wayin darkness. School going children, therefore, makebetter citizens.”

Ali Haider – Student

“Those children who go to school are naughty andill-mannered. On the other hand, they are neatand clean, they are respected both at home andoutside and they will be successful in the future.Those children who do not go to school areneither respected by their family nor by outsiders.They remain deprived of the advances of themodern age. They sit at home and commit andcreate evil actions and problems for their parents.If parents provide proper upbringing to theirchildren they would be successful and happy. Theywill also be neat and clean and well mannered.Everyone wil l value such a child. It is theresponsibility of the parents to raise their childrenproperly.”

Ibrar Ahmed – Student

“Those children who go to school are neat andclean and well mannered while those who do notg o t o s c h o o l h a v e n o s u c h a t t r i b u t e s . ”

Zarshan – Labourer

On a final note…

In our society education means schooling and we do not consider any other form oflearning, outside the school, as education. These responses, coming from people whorepresent the masses, make evident the fact that whoever does not attend a formalschool is considered illiterate and ignorant. And all those who go to schools are assumedto have a certified bright future ahead and are considered the most ethical and responsiblehuman beings. It is sad to note that we either dismiss or are unaware of the alternativeresources of education, which lie outside the curriculum of schools and which are anequally (or doubally) enriching source of knowledge for our children. Learning from family,elders and community is one example. Some responses (very few) suggested the oppositei.e. the children who do not go to school are better off than school-going ones becausethe latter are devoid of the moral and ethical attributes of a good citizen due to thedestructive environment of schools. We should learn to appreciate and look for alternativemeans of education for our children and not restrict their process of education toschooling only. We should also learn to regard those children who do not attend a formalschool instead of labeling them as ‘illiterate’ or ‘ignorant’. It is most important tounderstand the fact that one can learn his/her morals and ethics and be educated withoutgoing to school.

VOICE of the VOICELESS

51

A. I need your advice.B. On what?A. I need to make a decision. I have been invited to

two conferences on the same subject at the sametime. Which one should I go to?

B. Where are the two conferences?A. Well, one is in Geneva, the other is in ParisB. Hmmm... that is a tough choice. And they are

both at the same time you say?A. Yes, and then there is a workshop in Islamabad

around then too…B. Oh please! Why would you even consider going

there over Geneva and Paris?A. Well, because its at the new Serena Hotel. They

say its the most expensive hotel in the country.B. Oh! that’s alright then, but listen, even I needed

your advice. There is a training course I have beeninvited to in New York and another seminar inSingapore. Even I’m confused about which one tochoose.

A. Well you said you had to go do some shopping inNYC didn’t you?

B. Yes, but Singapore is so much cheaper and Ihaven’t been there yet.

A. Gosh yes, my wife keeps badgering me to get someconference there too, but I suppose she will eitherhave to settle for Geneva or Paris. I haven’t beento Paris yet either. And they are putting us up int h i s f a n c y h o t e l o n t h e C h a m p s E l y e e s e .

B. Very nice. My Singapore one is in a five star righton the waterfront. Look that still doesn’t solve ourp r o b l e m . W h i c h o n e s h o u l d w e c h o o s e ?

A. I don’t know, tough choice. Sometimes I feel thesedonors are trying to trap us by giving us suchtough choices.

B. I agree. I mean its as if they want to make lifedifficult for us. By the way, what’s the topic foryour conference?

A. Understanding poverty in the 21st century. Yours?B. How to eradicate poverty in the 21st century.A. Ok, I have an idea, lets see which one gives us

the higher daily allowance otherwise, we will flipa coin.

B. Sounds good, but lets do it over coffee andCheesecake at the Marriot. I have to prepare forthis round table discussion on malnutrition orsomething somewhere in the Western Sahara…

They call it the Poverty Trap. For once theyare right. Once you are into it, its hard toget out. Not the poverty, the trap. Am Iconfusing some people? Well let me clarify.Observe the conversation below:

Right dears, if this isn’t a trap, I don’t know what is. I can tell you one thing though. Sightseeing has neverbeen so cost efficient and convenient. If nothing else, its great business for the airline and hotel industry, wouldn’tyou say so? I must say the attack on Afghanistan (sorry, did I say ‘attack’? I meant ‘war’) has done much toimprove the waning ties in development with our dear friends – the donors. I mean, where else would be betterto decide the future of a war-torn and starving country than in Germany or Japan. I have heard many say thatgoing to deprived and poverty-ridden areas is an ‘experience’, but only if it is compensated by a room at thenear-by Sheraton after. I mean, one does need a good nights rest, to head out on the next ‘excursion’ you know.

So, what is it that provokes the powers that be to constantly skirt over the issues? Exactly, how much are theywilling to cut back on luxuries in order to meet the ‘needs of the poor’ they so diligently want kept on theagenda? Do they and even we for that matter, know who the ‘poor’ are? It seems that poverty is no longerthe cause, it is now the effect of such mis-spent agendas. What is a greater cause for concern, is that it is ourvery own people who often pander to these agendas wholeheartedly. I mean who wouldn’t want to get a freetrip to Paris or Geneva, right? But admittedly, it is a difficult trap to get out of, especially for those who wantto have a taste of the ‘good’ life. But juxtaposing poverty against these desires is probably taking the issue toofar. I mean, just join a multi-national then for God’s sake! I hope some may agree with me (I hear the NGOersshaking their heads).

The aim of this comment is not to trivialize or even mock the issue of poverty. It is far too serious an issueto be viewed in such a manner. The aim more rather, is to divert the attention of practitioners and policymakers to the more pressing issues at hand. Why is poverty on the increase despite the (relatively) enormousamount of funds being poured into poverty reduction and alleviation programmes (that’s another thing, we needto decide what to do with poverty, reduce it or get rid of it!). Why don’t initiatives work? What is being donewrong? Somehow I can hear the poverty pundits saying they will need a few more conferences and workshops( i n e x o t i c l o c a t i o n s n o l e s s ) t o g e t t h e s e i s s u e s s o r t e d o u t ! A n d t h e d r a m a c o n t i n u e s …

Development Diary

By KT

52

Many students, especially those who are poor,intuitively know what schools do for them. Theyschool them to confuse process and substance.Once these become blurred, a new logic isassumed. The pupil thereby is ‘Schooled’ to confuseteaching and learning, grade advancement witheducation, a diploma with competence and fluencywi th the abi l i t y to say something new. Hisimagination is ‘schooled’ to accept service in placeof value. Medical treatment is mistaken for healthcare, social work for the improvement of communitylife, police protection for safety and the rat racefor productive work.

Welfare bureaucracies claim a professional, politicaland financial monopoly over the social imagination,setting standards of what is valuable and what isfeasible. This monopoly is at the root of themodernization of poverty. Every simple need towhich an institutional answer is found permits theinvention of a new class of poor and a newdefinition of poverty. Modernized poverty combinesthe lack of power over circumstances with a lossof personal potency. This modernization of povertyis a world-wide phenomenon and lies at the rootof contemporary under development.

It is obvious that even with schools of equal qualitya poor child can seldom catch up with a richone. Even if they attend equal schools and beginat the same age, poor children lack most of theeducational opportunities, which are casuallyavai lab le to the middle c lass ch i ld . Theseadvantages range from conversation and books inthe home to a vacation travel and a differentsense of oneself. So the poorer student willgenerally fall behind as long as he depends onthe school for his learning and advancement.

Paradoxically, the belief that universal schooling isabsolutely necessary is most firmly held in thosecountries where the fewest people have been andwill be served by schools. All over the world theschool has an anti-educational effect on the society:school is recognized as the institution, whichspecializes in education. The failures of school aretaken by most people as a proof that educationis very costly, very complex, always arcane andfrequently almost impossible task.

School appropriates the money, men and good willavailable for education and in addition discouragesother institutions from assuming educational tasks.Obligatory schooling inevitably polarizes a society;it also grades the nations of the world accordingto an international caste system. Countries are ratedlike castes whose educational dignity is determinedby the average years of schooling of its citizens,a rating, which is closely related to per capitagross national product and much more painful.School has become the world rel igion of amodernized proleriat and makes futile promises ofsalvation to the poor of the technological age. Theescalation of schools as destructive as the escalationof weapons but less visibly so. Everywhere in thewor ld, school cos ts have r i sen fas ter thanenrolments and faster than the GNP.

Neither learning nor just ice is promoted byschooling because educators insist on packaginginstruction with certification. Learning and theass ignment of social ro les are mel ted in toschooling. Yet to learn means to acquire a newskill or insight, while promotion depends on anopinion, which others have formed. Learningfrequently is the result of instruction, but selectionfo r a ro l e o r ca t ego r y i n t he j ob marke tincreasingly depends on mere length of attendance.

Curriculum has always been used to assign socialrank. An illusion regarding schools is that mostlearning is the result of teaching. Teaching maycontribute to certain kinds of learning under certaincircumstances. But most people acquire most oftheir knowledge outside school, and in school inso far as school, in a few rich countries, hasbecome their place of confinement during anincreasing part of their lives.

The deschooling of society implies a recognition ofthe two-faced nature of learning. An insistence onskill alone could be disaster; equal emphasis mustbe placed on other kinds of learning. But ifschools are the wrong places for learning a skill,

S O C I E T A L L E A R N I N GB O O K S F O R A B E T T E R W O R L D

53

DESCHOOLING SOCIETYIVAN ILLICH

they are even worse p laces for get t ing aneducation. School does both tasks badly, partlybecause it does not distinguish between them.School is inefficient in skill instruction especiallybecause it is curricular. Schools are even lessefficient in the arrangement of the circumstances,which encourage the open-ended, exploratory useof acquired skills, for which the term ‘liberaleducation’ is used. The main reason for this is thatschool is obligatory and becomes schooling forschooling’s sake: en enforced stay in the companyof teachers.

In schools, including universities, most resources arespent to purchase the time and motivation of alimited number of people to take up pre-determinedproblems in a ritually defined setting. The mostradical alternative to school would be a networkor service, which gave each man the sameopportunity to share his current concern with othersmotivated by the same concern. Some schoolsbecome so flexible that they cease to be useful.‘School’ and ‘teaching’ are such terms. Like anamoeba they fit into almost any interstice of thelanguage. ABM will teach the Russians, IBM willteach Negro children and the army can becomethe school of a nation.

A degree always leaves its indelible price tag onthe curriculum of its consumer. Certified collegegraduates fit only into a world, which puts a pricetag on their heads, thereby giving them the powerto define the level of expectations in their society.In schools, including universities, most resources arespent to purchase the time and motivation of al im i t ed number o f peop le to take up p redetermined problems in a ritually defined setting.The most radical alternative to school would be anetwork or service, which gave each man the sameopportunity to share his current concern with othersmotivated by the same concern.

I believe that a desirable future depends on ourdeliberately choosing a life of action over a lifeof consumption, on our engendering a life style,wh i ch w i l l enab le u s t o be spon taneous ,independent, yet related to each other, rather thanmaintaining a lifestyle which only allows us to makeand unmake, produce and consume – a style oflife which is merely a way station on the road tothe depletion and pollution of the environment.

‘Modern’ technology transferred to poor countriesfalls into three large categories: goods, factories,which make them and serviced institutions –principally schools – which make men into modernproducers and consumers. Most countries by farspend the largest proportion of their budget onschools. Fundamental social change must begin with

a change of consciousness about institutions andto explain why the dimension of a viable futureturns on the rejuvenation of institutional style.

Schools are fundamentally alike in all countries, bethey fascist, democratic or socialist, big or small,rich or poor. This identity of the school systemforces us to recognize the profound world-identityof myth, mode of production and method of socialcontrol, despite the great variety of mythologies inwhich the myth finds expression.

A good educational system should have threepurposes: it should provide all who want to learnwith access to available resources at any time intheir lives; empower all who want to share whatthey know to find those who want to learn it fromthem and finally, furnish all who want to presentan issue to the public with the opportunity to maketheir challenge known. Learners should not beforced to submit to an obligatory curriculum or todiscrimination based on whether they possess acertificate or a diploma. Nor should the public beforced to support, through a regressive taxation ahuge professional apparatus of educators andbuildings which infact restricts the public’s chancesfor learning to the services the profession is willingto put on the market. The planning of neweducational institutions ought not to begin with theadministrative goals of a principal or president orwith the teaching goals of a professional educatorsor with the learning goals of any hypothetical classof people. It must not start with the questions,“What should someone learn?” but with thequestions, “What kinds of things and people mightlearners want to be in contact with in order tolearn?”

In a world, which is controlled and owned bynations and corporations, only limited access toeducational objects will ever be possible. Butincreased access to those objects which can beshared for educational purposes may enlighten usenough to help us to break through these ultimatepolitical barriers. Public schools transfer control overthe educational use of objects from private toprofessional hands. The institutional inversion ofschools could empower the individual to reclaimthe r ight to use them for educat ion. Localcommunit ies are valuable. They are also avanishing reality as men progressively let serviceinstitutions define their circles of social relationship.

School has become the advertising agency, whichmakes you believe that you need the society as itis. In such a society, marginal value has becomeconstantly self-transcendent. The ethos of non-satietyis thus at the root of physical depredation, socialpo la r i z a t i on and p s y cho log i ca l pa s s i v i t y.

54 LEARNINGS O C I E T A L

A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationshipat any level, inside or outside the school, revealsits fundamentally narrative character. This relationshipinvolves a narrating Subject (the teacher) andpatient, listening objects (the students). The contents,whether values or empirical dimensions of reality,tend in the process of being narrated to becomelifeless and petrified. Education is suffering fromnarration sickness.

The outstanding characteristic of this narrativeeducation, then, is the sonority of words, not theirtransforming power. “Four times four is sixteen; thecapital of Para is Belem.” The student records,memorizes, and repeats these phrases withoutperceiving what four times four really means, orrealizing the true significance of ‘capital’ in theaffirmation “the capital of Para is Belem”, that iswhat Belem means for Para and what Para meansfor Brazil. Narration (with the teacher as narrator)leads the students to memorize mechanically thenarrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into‘containers’, into ‘receptacles’ to be ‘filled’ by theteacher. The more comple te l y he f i l l s thereceptacles, the better a teacher he is. The moremeekly the receptacles permit themselves to befilled, the better students they are.

Education thus becomes an act of depositing, inwhich the students are the depositories and theteacher is the depositer. Instead of communicating,the teacher issues communiqués and makes depositswhich the students patiently receive, memorize, andrepeat. This is the ‘banking’ concept of education,in which the scope of action allowed to thestudents extends only as far as receiving, filing, andstoring the deposits. They do, it is true, have the

opportunity to become collectors or cataloguers ofthe things they store. But in the last analysis, it ismen themselves who are filed away through thelack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge inthis (at best) misguided system. For apart frominquiry, apart from the praxis, men cannot be trulyhuman. Knowledge emerges only through inventionand re-invention, through the restless, impatient,continuing, hopeful inquiry men pursue in theworld, with the world, and with each other.

The raison d’etre of libertarian education, on theother hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation.Education must begin with the solution of theteacher-student contradiction, by reconciling thepoles of the contradict ion so that both aresimultaneously teachers and students. This solutionis not (nor can it be) found in the bankingconcept. On the contrary, banking educationmaintains and even stimulates the contradictionthrough the following attitudes and practices, whichmirror oppressive society as a whole:

a. the teacher teaches and the students aretaught;

b. the teacher knows everything and the studentsknow nothing;

c. the teacher thinks and the students are thoughtabout;

d. the teacher talks and the students listen –meekly;

e. the teacher disciplines and the students aredisciplined:

f. the teacher chooses and enforces his choice,and the students comply;

g. the teacher acts and the students have theillusion of acting through the action of theteacher;

h. the teacher chooses the program content, andthe students (who were not consulted) adaptto it;

i. the teacher confuses the authority of knowledgewith his own professional authority, which hesets in opposition to the freedom of thestudents;

j. the teacher is the Subject of the learningprocess, while the pupils are mere objects.

It is not surprising that the banking concept ofeducation regards men as adaptable, manageablebeings. The more students work at storing thedeposits entrusted to them, the less they developthe critical consciousness, which would result fromtheir intervention in the world as transformers ofthat world. The more completely they accept thepassive role imposed on them, the more they tendsimply to adapt to the world as it is and to thefragmented view of reality deposited in them.

Pedagogy Of TheOppressed

PAULO FREIRE

55LEARNINGS O C I E T A L

The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not‘marginals’, are not men living ‘outside’ society.They have always been ‘inside’ – inside thestructure, which made them ‘beings for others’. Thesolution is not to ‘integrate’ them into the structureof oppression, but to transform that structure sothat they can become ‘beings for themselves’. Suchtransformation, of course, would undermine theoppressors’ purposes; hence their utilization of thebanking concept of education to avoid the threatof student conscientizacao.

The banking approach to adult education, forexample, will never propose to students that theycritically consider reality. It will deal instead withsuch vital questions as whether Roger gave greengrass to the goat, and insist upon the importanceof learning that, on the contrary, Roger gave greengrass to the rabbit. The ‘humanism’ of the bankingapproach masks the effort to turn women and meninto automatons – the very negation of theirontological vocation to be more fully human.Solidarity requires true communication, and theconcept by which such an educator is guided fearsand proscribes communication.

Yet, only through communication can human lifeho l d mean i ng . T he t ea che r ’ s t h i n k i ng i sauthenticated only by the authenticity of thestudents’ thinking. The teacher cannot think for hisstudents, nor can he impose his thought on them.Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned aboutreality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation,but only in communication. Those truly committedto liberation must reject the banking concept in itsentirety, adopting instead a concept of men ascon s c i ou s b e i ng s , a nd con s c i ou sne s s a sconsciousness intent upon the world. They mustabandon the educational goal of deposit-makingand replace it with the posing of the problems ofmen in their relations with the world. ‘Problem-posing’ education, responding to the essence ofconsciousness – intentionality – rejects communiquésand embodies communication. It epitomizes thespecial characteristic of consciousness: beingconscious of, not only as intent on objects but asturned in upon itself in a Jasperian ‘split ’ –consciousness as consciousness of consciousness.

Liberating education consists in acts of cognition,not transferrals of information. It is a learningsituation in which the cognizable object (far frombeing the end of the cognitive act) intermediatesthe cognitive actors-teacher on the one hand andstudents on the other. Whereas banking educationanesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling ofreality. The former attempts to maintain the

submersion of consciousness; the latter strives forthe emergence of consciousness and criticalintervention in reality.

Students, as they are increasingly posed withproblems relating to themselves in the world andwith the world, will feel increasingly challenged andobliged to respond to that challenge. Because theyapprehend the challenge as interrelated to otherproblems within a total context, not as a theoreticalquestion, the resulting comprehension tends to beincreasingly crit ical and thus constantly lessalienated. Their response to the challenge evokesnew challenges, followed by new understandings;and gradually the students come to regardthemselves as committed.

In problem-posing education, men develop theirpower to perceive critically the way they exist inthe world with which and in which they findthemselves; they come to see the world not as astatic reality, but as a reality in process, intransformation. Although the dialectical relations ofmen with the world exist independently of howthese relations are perceived (or whether or notthey are perceived at all), it is also true that theform of action men adopt is to a large extent afunction of how they perceive themselves in theworld. Hence, the teacher-student and the students-teachers reflect simultaneously on themselves andthe world without dichotomizing this reflection fromaction, and thus establish an authentic form ofthought and action.

Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posingeducation regards dialogue as indispensable to theact of cognition, which unveils reality. Bankingeducation treats students as objects of assistance;problem-posing education makes them criticalthinkers. Education is thus constantly remade in thepraxis. In order to be, it must become. Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve theinterests of the oppressor. No oppressive ordercould permit the oppressed to begin to question:Why? While only a revolutionary society can carryout th is educat ion in sys temat ic terms, therevolutionary leaders need not take full powerbefore they can employ the method. In therevolutionary process, the leaders cannot utilize thebanking method as an interim measure, justifiedon grounds of expediency, with the intention oflater behaving in a genuinely revolutionary fashion.They must be revolutionary – that is to say,dialogical from the outset.

56 LEARNINGS O C I E T A L

Infed is “the home of informal education”. It aimsto provide a space for people to explore the theoryand practice of informal education. In particular,Infed wants to encourage educators to developways of working and being that foster associations,conversations and relationships. Dr Mark K. Smithwho specializes in the field of informal educationand lifelong learning is the editor of Infed.

This web site which has been operative since 1996,creat ing the informal educat ion homepage(www.infed.org), has been a major priority. Between4000 and 7000 people visit the site each week.This s i te serves as reservoir o f knowledgecontaining article archives by various authors,specialized features on informal education, searchfacilities and lastly a comprehensive encyclopediaof informal education. In order to navigate thisinformative site more conducive to the user’s needswe have created a list of some core features ofInfed and a concise synopsis of these components:

Introductory GuidesThis sector features articles, commentaries and linkson what is informal education and the conceptsunderlying the subject. Additionally, it introducesthe development of theory and practice ofcommunity development, community organizationand community participation.

I n fo rma l Educa t ion in S choo l sIn recent years there has been a significant growthin the number of informal educators working informal educational settings like schools and colleges.This section explores the phenomenon – and someof the poss ibi l i t ies and problems involved.

G l o b a l i z a t i o n a n d E d u c a t i o nThese sets of articles examine some key questionssurrounding globalization – and its significance foreducators. It contains four topical sections regardingglobalization: The theory and experience ofglobalization, definitions of globalization, globalizationand the incorporation of education, informal andnon–formal education, development and colonialism.

Young peop le and Connex ionsThis feature examines youth strategy and the rolesof personal advisers and learning mentors, as is thefuture for youth work. Though the connexionservice is aimed at the English government’s youthstrategy, we can read some interesting conceptssuch as social exclusion, joined–up thinking andindividualization.

Using Informal EducationThis section contains excerpts of the book, UsingInformal Education, edited by Tony Jeffs and MarkSmith. Here we can read about a variety of helpfultopics such as personality and curriculum, informaleducation with young women in the community,informal education in residential care with adultsand neighborhood, crime and informal educationetc.

Developing Youth WorkThis piece spotlights the book written by Infed’sown editor Mark K. Smith. Not only does thisbook highlight informal education but also mutualaid and popular practice. It attempts to constructa coherent and distinctive understanding of youthwork to the reader.

Encyclopedia of Informal EducationThe encyclopedia has over 300 articles that explorekey ideas, thinkers and practices within informaleducation and lifelong learning. The articles rangefrom history of Maria Montessori to Karl Marx’stheories to the beginning times of education.

S O C I E T A L L E A R N I N GW E B S I T E S F O R A B E T T E R W O R L D

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www.infed.orgHOME OF INFORMAL EDUCATION

FARWA

Pour the Self in culture’s acid strong, When it becomes soft, mould it as you long;in these two lines Iqbal sums up the very essence of his thoughts on ‘Euro-centric’or ‘modern’ forms of education. If you are wondering what all this has to do withthe plight of our education system today, I urge you to read through the entire pieceand then decide if there actually exists a strong connection between what Iqbal wroteyears ago and where we are right now? I hope to persuade you that it not onlyhas a great deal to do with our present educational disaster but also reminds us ofour collective failure to understand and encounter the nefarious basis of theEurocentric model of schooling and education. At the very outset of what we callthe Final Analysis, I want to make several confessions:

g I do not claim to be an expert on schools, politics, or economics. What I amabout to present is a personal statement of my views and interpretations of Iqbal’s‘warnings’ against the detrimental impact of Eurocentric/modern education.g I do not pretend to speak from an unbiased or neutral viewpoint. Opposing viewsare presented to us constantly – if not explicitly then by implication – and if I havebeen less than generous or fair, it is because I do not feel obligated to give anotherhearing to what we’ve all heard before and will certainly hear again. More importantly,the ‘state of art’ our education system is in today also restricts me from being afair observer of whimsical arguments from the ‘other side’.

I believe that Iqbal and his teachings/warnings have certainly been in the publiceye long enough for all of us to have an opinion regarding their relevance to ourexisting educational and social situation. Those of you, who are genuinely interestedin the issues I am about to raise, will find a more complete explication of them inmany of the verses of Iqbal I have included in the essay. This is a partial list; Iqbal,on numerous occasions identifies the importance of an indigenous educational system.He repeatedly highlights the power of our culture and social values and has alsowarned us of the consequences of undermining our traditional values. I think Iqbal’spowerful analysis of the colonial model of education system was crucial then andto develop an understanding of his teachings is even more crucial now. I feel hisworks on education could be re-published today and be just as relevant. Not muchhas changed. As a matter of fact, Iqbal still provides us with directions that wecould still follow in attacking many of today’s educational issues. Back to basics isnot the key. I don’t want to go back to anything. Forward to basics is a much morepositive statement.

I do not wish to be a doomsayer. The trends are clear and the issues are serious.The ultimate outcomes however, are uncertain rather than inevitable. If I believedotherwise, I would not be in the ‘business’ of education. It

FinalAnalysis

ADVICE

A Frankish Lord advised his son toseek,Such aim that is always pleasantne’er bleak.

If lion’s temper is to lamb revealed,I t w i l l ent i re l y make i t s b loodcongealed.

Much good, if regal point remains inheart,In dominating men sword plays nopart.

Pour the Self in culture’s acid strong,When it becomes soft, mould it asyou long.

On this Elexir’s efficacy you cancount,To heap of dust can change a mightymount!

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EDUCATION AND ITSCONSEQUENCES

Though we also are happy with theprogress of the young,But some complaint from the happylips also comes with it

We had thought education wouldbring economic freedom,We did not know that atheism wouldalso come with it

Bang-i-dara

THE DAY WE SEALED OUR FATEAnalyzing today’s educational system through

Iqbal’s eyesMASHHOOD RIZVI

is not my intention to condemn present teachers or administrators as a group. Thereare those who have no business in education, and there are those who areexceptionally well suited for it. Most fall somewhere in-between. This is true of anyprofession. A majority of those I have met take their responsibilities extremely seriously,seem to be genuinely interested in providing quality education to the young people,and seem to be frustrated at the difficulty in doing so. If they have collective failuresand shortcomings, most of them can be ascribed to their own faulty education andto the nature of the institutional structure, which they feel compelled to change.This, of course, is the whole point of what I am about to share: you cannot fix asystem that is already fixed.

The process of studying Iqbal was like a voyage where I discovered answers toquestions for which I always wanted answers: What is worth knowing is the truth– the truth about our society, the world, and ourselves. Ultimate truth, of course,will always be debatable, but there can be no serious debate that schools presentlyteach much that is not true as if it were, and omit or suppress most of thoseuncomfortable truths that might incite us to challenge the status quo: What isimportant is to be able to think critically and independently, to be able to findinformation and use it to those purposes, and to be able to distinguish between factand fiction, myth and reality; the values and attitudes that should be encouragedand any that help to get an individual out of his/her isolated socio-economic classand into the common humanity, i.e.., those that promote peace, freedom, justiceand all that they imply.

Iqbal unveils the authoritative and indoctrinating nature of Eurocentric educationi.e. to manufacture students who are submissive and eventually ‘enslaved’ and‘colonized’ by the pressures of modern society. I find in his writings a strong senseof resentment of mindless respect for authority that was and still is, an importantpart of the hidden curriculum of the schools. I refer to the authority of the schoolto determine what is worth knowing; the authority of the administrators to establishand enforce the rules under which learning may take place; the authority of theteachers and the book publishers to determine the form and content of what willbe learned. The student, for far too many teachers and administrators, is a blankslate, an empty bucket, a garden to be weeded and shaped, i.e., raw material tob e p a t t e r n e d , m o l d e d a n d p r o c e s s e d a s m a n d a t e d b y t h e ‘ m a s t e r s ’ .

This is still as relevant as it was when he wrote Zarbe Kalim. With a few notableexceptions, no one encourages our students to think for themselves, to trust theirown thoughts and feelings, to raise questions and investigate issues and relationships,to examine what might or might not be important to them. The curriculum andthe rules have implicitly defined, on the contrary, “what is important”. Questionsand investigations have been constrained to pre-defined channels leading to answersalready known. Issues have been limited to historical conflicts long since resolvedand originality and creativity have been attacked or at best confined to art classes.When a rare teacher does try to create an open-ended situation, it is so novel andthreatening that the opportunity it presents is invariably lost in the frantic effort tofind out just exactly what he or she wanted. As a result of all this, many studentsstill don’t always feel comfortable expressing their own thoughts and opinions, whichgoes to show just how well the lesson was learned.

The end result of the education our students receive – and it seems much morereceived than actively comprehended – is predictable and, I think now, almost exactlywhat it was intended to be and exactly what

THE STUDENT

May God acquaint you with somegale, Your tides no stir at all exhale.

Respite from books you do not get,But Book Revealed too soon forget.

RELIGION AND EDUCATION

The teaching that the English havedevised,‘Gainst Faith and ties has greatintrigue contrived.

THE VOICE OF KARL MARX

The world does not like tricks and,Of science and wit nor, their contestsThis age does not l ike anc ientthoughts, From core of hearts theirshow detests.

O wise economist, the books youwrite Are quite devoid of useful aim:They have twisted lines with ordersstrangeNo warmth for labour, though theyclaim.

T h e i d o l h o u s e s o f t h e We s t ,Their schools and churches wideThe ravage caused for, greed ofwealth Their wily wit attempts tohide.

59

Iqbal thought it would do to us. Just as Iqbal suggested that students are able totake in, store and retrieve information on demand, quickly and accurately, and inthe form in which it has been presented, and able, with some facility, to paraphrasethe theories, ideas, and conclusions of the experts. In short, they are fully ‘schooled’.That their communication skills are virtually limited to the written word is of noconsequence. Neither is the fact that they have never investigated a controversialissue and reached their own conclusions. Nor does it seem important that manyare unable to think on their feet, are lacking common sense and are almost totallyignorant of what is going on in the world. Many students that I have met afterlaunching EDucate! have shared that they have never had a truly original thought,have no convictions of their own, and would have been petrified, even had theyhad any, at the prospect of expressing or defending them. But none of that reallymatters. It is enough to have passed the exams. Nothing else is required. Nothingelse is encouraged.

Not being able to learn anything from intellectual powerhouses like Iqbal comes ata price. The price we have paid is becoming increasingly evident. There is presentlya crisis in Pakistan’s education system at all levels. More money is being spent oneducation than ever before. Innovative curricula (albeit called ‘back to basics’) abound.More and more tests and requirements are being required of teachers. Test scoresin our schools, however, keep declining; violence and vandalism keep increasing;young adults are graduating from high school unable to act as responsible citizens.Beyond all this there is the certain knowledge that what happens in school todaywill ultimately affect our society in a profound way tomorrow. For all these reasons,and others, it seems necessary to re-question the assumptions on which moderneducation rests.

The most basic assumption of all, of course, is that education is essential, or atleast beneficial, to both the individual and society. This is so obvious that to questionit might seem absurd. But is it true? The answer seems to depend largely on howyou define education. Again a stark distinction can be found in the definition ofeducation amongst the Eurocentric and the progressive schools of thought. Accordingto Webster, it is “the things one learns by being taught: schooling or training.”(Websters, 1965). The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, however, defines educationas “the process of becoming critically aware of one’s reality in a manner that leadsto effective action upon it.” (Freire, 1968). Most of us will immediately recognizethat there is a world of difference between the two definitions, that the one doesnot necessarily imply the other. That difference, however, has actually developedonly over the past hundred years or so. In simpler times, the correlation betweenschooling and the ability to operate in the world effectively was much greater thanit is today. A hundred years ago, the content of education was virtually the sameas it had been for generations. This was not a problem because the world itselfremained much the same from one generation to the next. Children learned whattheir parents had learned because it was useful when dealing with essentially thesame world.But no more! The world – the physical, political, economic,

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FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

Free thinking can bring ‘bout theruinOf those whose thoughts are low andmeanThey don’t possess the mode andstyleOf though (that may be chaste andclean.

If thoughts are raw and immatureNo good accrues to man in least:The utmost. that such thoughts cando Is change of wan to state ofbeast.

INDIAN SCHOOL

About the Self here have no talk, Obard, Because with schools suchsermons don’t accord.

Much good that birds that chirp maynot descry, The modes of hawk, itsstate and rank so high.

A free man’s breath can match asubject year, How slowly moves thetime of serfs, is clear!

The free perform such deeds in spanof breath, But slaves are every instantprone to sudden death.

The thoughts of persons free withtruth are lit, But thoughts of slavesdo not own sense a bit.

A s l a v e h a s c r a z e f o r m a r v e l sw r o u g h t b y G u i d e s , H i m s e l f awonder’live, his memory fresh abides.

This is the training that befits themwell, Painting, music and science ofplants as well.

MODERN AGE

W h e r e f r o m a m a n c a n f i n dR i pe t h ou g h t s i n p r e s e n t a g e ?The weather of this parkNo ripeness can presage.

The seats of learning giveThe mind of pupils scopeBut leave the thoughts of youthU n l i n k e d b y t h r e a d o r r o p e .

The love of God is deadBy unbelief ‘mong FranksThrough lack of link in thoughts,East Shackles wears on shanks.

social and psychological environments to which we must adapt, or have it adapt tous if we are to survive – has changed. In fact, it has changed more drastically inthis century alone than in all the centuries of recorded history before it. We arebeset by problems that were unknown and even unimaginable in the past, such asoverpopulation and mass starvation, the threat of sudden and complete nucleardestruction, environmental waste and pollution, racial and economic confrontation,dwindling resources, increasing bureaucratic regimentation and impersonality in ourhuman relations, and growing dependence on others for the very means of existence.The list goes on and on, and we are all familiar with it. We are the most schooledgeneration in the history of humankind but how effectively are we dealing with theserealities of life? How well has our education equipped us to deal with these problems?How well is our present educational system equipping our children to deal effectivelywith the world of the future, a world that by all indications will be even morecomplex? I think one answer will cover all three questions: Not very well.

The reason for the failure of schools lies in the definition of their purpose, andtherefore in the definition of education itself. Are the educated people those whohave had a certain amount of ‘schooling or training’, or those who know themselves,can develop and communicate ideas, are adaptable to change, aware of realities,and able to identify problems, propose solutions, and implement them, i.e., able todeal effectively with life? Put in those terms I’m willing to wager that all of us viewWebster’s definition – ‘schooling or training’ – as woefully inadequate to describewhat education should be about. Yet the reality of our schools is such that this isprecisely the message that students get: education is what happens in schools, andconversely, that school is where education occurs. It is implicit in the structure ofthe institution...the medium is once again the message.

The crisis in education springs largely from the conflict between what schools are,and the definition of education that they imply, and what they need to become ifrational and lasting solutions to our problems are to be found and implemented.This is only part of the story. Attempts to reform the educational system as if itexisted in a vacuum are bound to fail, because the educational crisis is only oneaspect of the larger crisis facing our society: the largely unrecognized but very realconflict between science and economics, between the possible and the actual.Technologically, we are living in the Space Age; economically, we are still tied tothe good old system of 19th Century industrial capitalism. It is my belief that manyof the problems we face could be solved with existing resources and technologies.They are not being solved because the resources and technologies are not beingapplied to their solution. They are, instead, being applied, for the most part, to thecontinuing and increasing production of consumer goods, the continuing and increasingproduction – through mass-media advertising – of markets for those goods, and thecontinuing and increasing production of service industries to keep it all rolling smoothlyalong. It is an unhappy fact of life – it is a tragic fact of life – that the normaloperations of the basic economic units of capitalism consistently sacrifice the healthydevelopment of community, work, environment, education, and social equality, tothe accumulation of capital and the growth of marketable goods and services. Ashas been said many times, corporations are inherently disinterested in anything butprofits. It is the nature of the beast.

In the meantime, as the old saying goes, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer;the rest of us find ways to make ends meet and pray we don’t get sick. The issueis one of values. Humane solutions to our human problems continue to elude usbecause we have been, and continue to be, educated to embrace the exploitive,manipulative values of a century ago. They are no longer acceptable. If they everwere, they reflect an extremely immature vision of the world, socially, economically,and scientifically, a vision that was a logical product of its time but has no rightfulplace in ours. But we continue to educate our children for a world that no longer

MAN OF PRESENT AGE

In heart of man of present age,No Love of God is found at allWit stings him like a furious snake,His’glance cannot his mind enthrall.

Though man aspires to find the trackOf stars that roam in sky and treadAlas! man has completely failedTo map the world of mind or head.

I n i n t r i c a c i e s o f h i s t h o u g h tHe is embroiled; is clear and plain,So he is not as yet awareOf what is loss and what is gain.

Man has harnessed rays of the Sun,Much gain from them he has drawn,But he can not transform the darkAnd dismal night of life to dawn.

LENIN BEFORE GOD

A blaze of art and science lights theWe s t , Wi t h d a r k n e s s t h a t n oFountain of Life dispels.

In high-rcared grace, in glory and ingrandeur, The towering Bank out-topsthe cathedral roof

What they call commerce is a gameof dice, For one, profit, for millionsswooping death.

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exists. Why? It is primarily because public education, like most other institutions inour society, has been gradually diverted from its true purpose in order to serve thepowerful and the privileged. Universal education and compulsory schooling haveflourished because they were instituted at the beginning of a period of extremelyrapid economic growth, when new machines, new sources of power, new kinds ofsocial organization and control, and vast quantities of rich and easily available rawmaterials made most people in Western countries rich beyond the wildest dreamsof earlier times. For the past hundred years, schools have been useful to almosteveryone. They have been useful to the rulers of society because they have taughtmost people how to live and work like machines, and to want what only machinescould produce. They have been useful to the ordinary people of our society becausethey have held out the promise that their children could rise in the world, mighteven be rich and powerful themselves one day. And for a while, this was the case.But now the sources of rich and cheap raw materials that made the boom possibleare nearly used up. What is left is scarcer, of poorer quality, and harder to get at...andthus more expensive. The ‘endless’ boom is over. Even in the richest countries, peopleare starting to realize that they can no longer expect what they only recently tookfor granted that they and their children would be richer in the future than theyare now; in fact in poor countries most people face famine and disaster.

Those with vested interests in the old order of things are, not surprisingly, concernedwith keeping them that way. Their interest in change is limited to preventing it,or, if change is unavoidable, with minimizing, delaying, controlling, and capitalizingon it to the maximum extent possible. School, inasmuch as it is inflicted on virtuallyeverybody, is an ideal instrument for inculcating the values, attitudes and mythsthat make possible the maintenance of the privileged elite: like a high-priced hit-man, it is neat, systematic, and terribly effective. As Jonathan Kozol once observed,the problem is not that public schools do not work well, but that they do. (Kozol,1972). It is clear that schools play a central role in maintaining and justifying ananachronistic social order. They are not educating to the realities of the present,let alone the future because school has come to serve the interest of those whowant to preserve the arrangements of the past. We are ‘educated’ to accept, fit into,and promote a dying system because that system has not yet been completely milkedd r y. T h e r e i s s t i l l s o m e m o n e y t o b e m a d e f r o m i t . ( R e i m e r, 1 9 7 2 ) .

Where does education (not mere schooling) fit into this dismal picture? It seemsthat instead of multiplying the sources of citizenry initiative, schools now serve tolimit them; instead of encouraging prompt and energetic efforts to protect and extendour freedoms, school acts to disinherit us by encouraging and rewarding docility,conformity, and acceptance of the present order as right and even inevitable, thoughit is neither; instead of encouraging examination of and confrontation with theproblems of institutionalized greed and concentrated power, schools actually encouragethe consumer orientation on which these depend, train (at public expense) the futureeconomic elite, and have themselves become ‘Big Business’, one of the biggest, infact. In short, public education now serves as one of the most effective instrumentsof those it was intended to protect us from. It does so in many ways. Perhaps themost obvious is the linking of social roles with school achievement. Today, of course,a high school diploma is prerequisite for almost any job; you can’t even collect garbagefrom the streets of Karachi without one!

Progress through school depends on one’s willingness to play the game and to playby the rules. The game, in all but a few schools and with all but a few exceptionalteachers, might be called ‘Let’s Pretend’, and it goes something like this: Let’s pretendthat you are not who you are and that this work makes a difference to you; let’spretend that what bores you is important, and that the more it bores you the moreimportant it is; let’s pretend that there are certain things that everyone must know;let’s pretend that your competence can be judged

There science, philosophy, scholarship,government, Preach man’s equalityand drink men’s blood.

Death to the heart, machines standsovereign, Engines that crush all senseof human kindness.

When shall this galley of gold’sdominion founder?, Thy world Thyday of wrath, Lord, stands and waits.

Bal-i-Jibril

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THE MEDITATIONS OF MIHRABGULAGHAN

In school the noise of games, debates,Great stir and animation prevail,This abundant joy e’ery momentbreeds New griefs and naught elsecan avail.

For men of free and noble birthSuch knowledge is a venom dread,Which makes them earn some barleycorn, To fill their bellies with itsbread.

O fool, great wisdom and book loreHave not much worth nor carryweight To learn a Useful art onemustPut in much strife and struggle great.

If such a craftsman likes, with ease,By d int o f sk i l l and magic ar t ,Like dew, can make from mass ofSun, The rays of light proceed anddart.

(and judged objectively) on the basis of how well you can play. The rules of thegame are simple and straightforward. You must follow directions, stay in your seat,raise your hand, be quiet, stay in line, control yourself, must not question the authorityof the book, the teacher, or the principal to determine what is best for you. In short,you are to shut up and toe the line. The final rule, of course, is that you mustplay by the rules, and the ultimate rule is that you must, in fact, play at least untilyou’re sixteen. Those who don’t play very well, or won’t play by the rules – andof course those who refuse, for one reason or another, to play at all drop out ofthe education picture at some point, and the point at which they drop out determineswhether they will subsequently be paid for their bodies, their hands, or their brains,and how much they will be paid. Those who play well are allowed to keep playing,at increasingly difficult levels of competition, through high school and into theirtwenties in college and graduate school, after which they are finally rewarded byinstallation as a sort of ‘apprentice-elite’ at McDonalds or perhaps some university.

It should now be clear how right Iqbal was and how relevant his teachings are eventoday. He made it clear then and it has become crystal clear now that obligatorymass education plays a central role in justifying and maintaining a continuing hierarchyof privilege. The career and therefore the life of the individual depend more andmore on the success in school. The illusion is maintained that all have an equalopportunity to achieve that success, but the facts fail to support it. The gradedcurriculum, by its very nature, depends on the relative failure of some, and it isthe poor who fail most consistently. They begin the game at a disadvantage, almostcertainly finding that what happens in school is less relevant to their real needsthan it is to their more advantaged peers; they tend to experience one failure afteranother. They drop out, most of them, and ref i l l the ranks of the poor.

Even beyond the issues of democracy and social justice is the issue of human survival,for those who stay in school – rich, poor, and in-between are initiated alike intothe myths of limitless production and consumption by the production methods throughwhich they are inculturated. They are prepared for specialized roles in specializedinstitutions, selected and shaped in terms of both skills and values. By its ownbureaucratic, hierarchical, and authoritarian structure, school accustoms people toaccept the single, integrated hierarchy of power and privilege that prevails in thelarger society.

It is important to recognize that the structure of school has not evolved becauseof any organizational prerequisites for imparting cognitive skills; on the contrary,there is an overwhelming amount of research indicating that such skills are moreefficiently learned in democratic, non-repressive atmospheres. The structure of school– its hidden curriculum, its message – is designed to produce and reinforce thosevalues, attitudes, and affective capacities which allow individuals to move smoothlyinto an alienated and class-stratified society.

The hidden curriculum of school is dangerous because it bolsters belief in a sicksociety – a society dedicated to competitive consumption of everything that can beproduced. It assumes that people want principally to consume and that in order todo so, they must be bound to the wheel of endless production. The whole theoryof contemporary schooling is based on a similar assumption: that production methodsapplied to learning will result in learning. They do result in learning to produceand consume, but at what price? As a means of learning to adapt to a changingworld they are absurd.

This brings us back to the two definitions of education: ‘schooling or training,’ orthe ‘ability to deal effectively with life’. We need to decide very soon to changeour priorities, and change our schools to meet them. It will not be easy. It isdiscouraging in the extreme to note that some of the most able spokespersons forreform (the late John Holt, for one) (Holt, 1976) have reached the point of writingoff the

TEACHERS

If you desire to breed such rubywhich is red, Don’t beg light of sunthat from course has fled.

The world is trapped by traditionsold and hoar, Preceptors helplessquite, can do no more.

Those who deserved to lead themodern age, Have worn out brainsand others hold the stage.

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THE SCHOOL

Tile present age, your constant foe,Like Ezrail has snatched your soulYou have imbibed much care andgrief Pursuit of wealth your only goal.

When faced by rivals strong andbrave. Your heart beats fast andshakes with fear, Such life is naughtbut Death, in fact, When blows oflife you can not.

The knowledge that this age impartsHas made forget you craze and zest,Which bade the mind to keep awayFrom pretexts that on truth didn’trest.

With free hand Nature has bestowedOn you the eyes of hawk so keen,But bondage has replaced them withThe eyes, of bat, devoid of sheen.

The things on which schools throwno light, And keep them from youreyes concealed, Go to retreats ofmount and waste, And get them bysome Guide revealed.

(public) schools as unreformable, and see no solution but to ‘deschool’ society. (Illich,1976). That is a hard choice, but we are perhaps, at the point where there is nothingelse but hard choices. Unfortunately, our own education has done little to prepareus to accept that challenge. What most of us received, from kindergarten to highschool, was preparation for college. What we’ve had from schools of education is mostlyHOW to teach. Virtually nowhere in those sixteen years of schooling have we beenconfronted with anything vaguely resembling a hard choice involving values, moraldilemmas, real problems of the real world, or the truth about power and privilege inour society. On the contrary, school has done an outstanding job of shielding us fromthe truth, insulating us against moral outrage, deadening our ability to think criticallyand independently, and silencing the voice within that insists we do something morethan just believe in ideals.

Education reflects society. The crisis in our education reflects the larger crisis of ourcivilization. Our system of education is still chained to the mechanistic, exploitive,and profit-oriented values that gained ascendancy in our society a century or more,ago. That view of the world cannot survive much longer. Even if the earth’s resourceswould permit it, those who have been systematically exploited over the years willnot. The crisis facing this country centers on the necessity of redesigning our economyand life styles along the lines of human and planetary realities. The crisis in educationcenters on the fact that it is still preparing people to accept, fit into and promotethe old colonial values. We face the very real possibility of having an entire generationtrained and indoctrinated to serve a system that in all likelihood would no longerexist when the students come of age. Where would that leave them, and us? Iqbalcould have well re-issued his works with up-dated publishing dates. Little has changedsince his scathing analysis of the colonial schooling system.

What can you and I do about it? For me to suggest what I think we should do wouldbe just a little too much like... school. I feel we have all had enough of being toldwhat the answers are. If you accept the problem, you must accept the responsibilityof finding your own answers. However, I am presumptuous enough to suggest the firststep. That is to recognize our past, present and future realities. No matter what idealswe may hold, ‘schooling or training’ is the operant definition of modern education.No matter what clichés and patriotic catch-words we may hear from the rich andpowerful, the politicians, and the media, the actual power of the ordinary person todirect the course of his or her own life is declining. No matter what rhetoric wemay hear about conservation, ecology, human rights or social justice, we live in aculture whose dominant ethic is materialistic and essentially exploitive of both physicaland human resources. Inasmuch as our own schooling has failed to educate us tothese fundamental realities, we must assume – if we are serious about our lives andour profession – the burden of educating ourselves. This in itself will be difficult –few of us have learned how to learn. We have no choice, however, but to start fromwhere we are. The first decision, then, is whether or not to make the effort to findout just what the reality of the situation is. I believe that Iqbal with his phenomenalvision and incisive identification of the truth about colonial and modern schooling,if nothing else, still gives us a point from where to begin. I hope we can now takea lead from him.

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UPBRINGING

Existence and knowledge both arepoles apart, Life burns the soul,w h e r e a s l o r e m a k e s i t s m a r t .

Joy; wealth and power all, to lore aredue, How irksome that to Self ityields no clue.

No dearth of lettered men, ah few!provide The bowl with wine of gnosislike True Guide.

The ways of teachers don’t expandthe heart, Match stick can’t light toelectric lamp impart.

AWAKENING

A man with true belief, Whose Selfattentive grows Like Sturdy sword ofsteel, Can cut and sheen it shows.

The urge to shine and grow, Withinthe mote concealed ‘Fore his eyessharp and keen Is with much hasterevealed.

You have no link or bond With menof godly brand You are a slave toworld,O n w o r l d h e h o l d s c o m m a n d .

So far you have not formed Forcoast a love or taste: He knows thedepths full well, By dint of naturechaste.

International Society forEcology and Culture

“Globalization is transforming unique individuals into mass consumers, and homgenising diversecultural traditions around the world. It is destroying wilderness and biodiversity, and creatingan expanding stream of waste that the biosphere cannot absorb. It is widening the gap betweenrich and poor worldwide, and leading to increased levels of crime and violence. In the nameof ‘growth’ and ‘efficiency’, it is dividing us from each other and from the natural world onwhich we ultimately depend… If globalization is the root of so many problems, localization –a shift away from the global and towards the local – is an obvious part of the solution.”

Helena Norberg-Hodge, Founder and Director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture

t oResist ingMonoculture,Rebuilding Community

F r o m

GlobalLocal

www.isec.org.uk