What is Education For? Planting The Seeds
When placed with the question, what is education for? The Western schooling narrative tends to make education systems mold people into who they are. The reality is, as stated by Vandana Shiva, we are “moving away from wisdom to knowledge, and now we are moving from knowledge to information.” When we view education as a simple means of transmitting information, we see students as ‘empty shells’ that need to absorb knowledge, facts, information, and skills based on distinct subjects. We want to separate children by grade and skill level to survive in Western society. The goal is to create ‘products’.
Modern-day schooling is more of an assembly line, seen as concrete jails, spending 6-8 hours a day inside learning about nature through books. The values of cooperation and compassion decline because there is no spiritual learning. Modern education centers around materialism with the influence of a capitalist society that creates an urban consumerist culture. We are the corporation's products and subject to a specific agenda that molds people into their society. Whereas traditional ‘schooling’ fosters sustainability in knowing the land, how to grow food, and where they live.
We need to be more aware of the distinctions between education and schooling and how we have moved from wisdom to knowledge, and knowledge to information. The distinction has the potential to disrupt our traditional views of formal education because, ultimately our aim is not to teach in a specific way. Instead, there is a great desire to preserve children’s languages and culture, to keep those web of relations between humans and land alive and well.
The implications for how I view the role of educators in the classroom is to know that we do not have all the answers. We only have a set or one way of knowing, so we cannot ignore other cultures and ways of knowing because we are just presenting the world through a determined type of agenda. We need to question whose values we uphold, as the film raises the question, “What does it mean to be human and alive?” It leads us to focus on the well-being of life on the planet.
It prompts us to ask, whose knowledge is prevalent in modern-day schooling? What facts, information, and skills do we want our students to acquire in education? The acquisition of knowledge develops through learning and experiences. What we need to move away from is a uniform way of thinking. Beyond the factual knowledge is wisdom. Wisdom requires you to make thoughtful judgments, and in time, you develop this wisdom and empathy as you move through the world around you. It allows you to take on different perspectives when you hear wisdom imparted from many people, whether it is an elder or from someone you respect.
Wisdom allows me to keep searching for, to keep the wonder alive, and to keep learning. With wisdom comes time and patience through my experiences and relations. I desire to move away from the Western schooling narrative and towards the multitude of narratives or ways of knowing. Keep an open mind and heart and move back to wisdom, allowing it to guide me.
Teachers can cultivate an attitude of openness and respect for multiple perspectives if they open up and realize the injustices and systems that we are living in that perpetuate a pre-determined type of notion. We must respect and honor different types of cultures, languages, and traditions that are part of someone’s identity. As Leo Tolstoy states, "education is culture under restraint. Culture is free.” However, as educators today, we must not put other cultures under restraint and only show our way of knowing. We do not have the right to exert such power and compulsion, so we need to be mindful of how we approach and not impose but instead diverge.
References:
Black, C. (Film director, Editor of moving image work). (2010). Schooling the World: The White Man's Last Burden [film]. Lost People Films.