McEducation
for All?
opening a
dialogue around UNESCO’s vision for commoditizing learning
August
2003
the
voices from civil society include:
Shilpa Jain, Manish Jain, Pat Farenga, Munir Fasheh, Paige Raibmon, Vivek Bhandari,
Yusef Progler, Lisa Aubrey, Sanat Mohanty, Ram Subramanian, Zaid Hassan, Jan
Visser, Vachel Miller, Vineeta
Sood, Linda Mbonambi, Gustavo
Esteva, Dania Quirola, Rick Smyre,
Jenny Gidley, Bob Stigler, David Wolsk,
Ashish Kejriwal, Sylvia Lee, Jamie Schweser, Venkatesh Iyer, Arif Tabassum, Nitin Paranjape, Fode Beaudet, Ekundayo J. D. Thompson,
Ash Hartwell, Paul Cienfuegos, Nesar Ahmad, Manish Bapna, Makarand Paranjape,
Prashant Varma and Jock McClellan
copyleft* August 2003
* Material may be reproduced and
shared freely with authors and source acknowledged.
An
Invitation to the Reader
We thought it might be appropriate to state at the outset what this dialogue is not about. This might help to clarify our intent and help pull us out of certain dead-end debates -- and enter into new generative questions/conversations.
First and foremost, this dialogue is not a personal attack on John Daniel, UNESCO or even McDonald's. We have no personal vendetta to carry out against any of these entities. We name them only to better help us understand the current state of affairs in the world today.
Second, this dialogue is not only about higher education. McEducation for All has larger implications for entire education system ¾ primary, secondary, adult, vocational, non-formal ¾ as well as the larger universe of lifelong learning.
Third, this dialogue is not only about public vs. private control of education. It makes little difference whether the education system is in the hands of the public sector (the government) or in the hands of the private sector (multinational, transnational or national companies). For people, the result is similar: an invasive assault on their own knowledges, meanings, experiences, values, dreams, visions and practices of living.
We see Daniel’s editorial as starting point for initiating a larger dialogue – about the commodification of learning, and therefore, the commoditization of living. Though the editorial specifically mentions commoditizing learning materials, it is clear that this only makes sense within a certain container ¾ a frame in which learning roles, relationships, contexts, content is held.
We hope you will take the variety of issues, questions and concerns they raise around commoditization, as an opportunity to engage with this larger dialogue. This dialogue has come together in three rounds, over the span of several months. The first round extends the McDonald's metaphore to raise several questions about the Education for All program. The second round builds upon these questions with more critical insights into different aspects of Daniel's editorial specifically and McDonaldization more broadly. The third rounds elaborates on these critiques and offers suggestions for freeing ourselves from the traps of commoditization.
We invite you to join us in this dialogue. Please share your
comments, questions and reactions with us at shikshantar@yahoo.com
or on www.swaraj.org/shikshantar.
"HIGHER
EDUCATION FOR SALE"
FROM EDUCATION TODAY: THE
NEWSLETTER OF UNESCO'S EDUCATION SECTOR (OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2002)
The
hue and cry about the ‘McDonaldization’ of education should make us reach for
our critical faculties. First, despite their ubiquity, McDonald’s restaurants
account for only a tiny proportion of the food that people eat. Second,
McDonald’s is successful because people like their food. Third, their secret is
to offer a limited range of dishes as commodities that have the same look,
taste and quality everywhere.
Commoditization.
It’s an ugly word that my spellchecker rejects. But it is a key process for
bringing prosperity to ordinary people by giving them greater freedom and wider
choice. Products that were once hand crafted and expensive become standardized,
mass produced and inexpensive. Personal computers and cellular telephones used
to be specialized items for the elite. Today they are mass-market consumer
items.
When
products become commodities there is fierce price competition between
manufacturers and profit margins are squeezed. Producers hate this and
industries often have to restructure, but consumers benefit greatly.
What
are the implications for education? Is the commoditization of learning material
a way to bring education to all? Yes it is, and open universities in a number
of countries have shown the way. By developing courseware for large numbers of
students they can justify the investment required to produce high quality
learning materials at low unit cost.
Such
materials can be used successfully outside their country of origin after local
adaptation and translation. Commoditizing education need not mean
commercializing education. The educational community should adopt the model of
the open source software movement. We can imagine a future in which teachers
and institutions make their courseware and learning materials freely available
on the web. Anyone else can translate and adapt them for local use provided
they make their new version freely available too.
In
this way, teachers all over the world can be freed from the chore of
reinventing the wheel of basic content. They can then concentrate on adapting
the best material, helping students to study it and assessing their competence
and knowledge. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has shown the way by
making its own web materials available free. Let’s hope this heralds a
worldwide movement to commoditize education for the common good.
- John Daniel
Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO
Round 1
"The
idea that technology is neutral is itself not neutral— it directly serves the
interests of the people who benefit from our inability to see where the
juggernaut is headed…
We
must raise questions about whether technological society has lived up to its
advertising, and also to address some grave concerns about its future
direction. Until now we have been impotent in the face of the juggernaut,
partly because we are so unpracticed in technological criticism. We don’t
really know how to assess new or existing technologies. It is apparent that we
need a new, more holistic language for examining technology, one that would
ignore the advertised claims, best-case visions, and glamorous imagery that
inundate us and systematically judge technology from alternative perspectives:
social, political, economic, spiritual, ecological, biological, military.
Who
gains? Who loses? Do the new technologies serve planetary destruction or
stability? What are their health effects? Psychological effects? How do they
affect our interaction with and appreciation of nature? How do they interlock
with existing technologies? What do they make possible that could not exist
before? What is being lost? Where is it all going? Do we want that?"
- Jerry Mander
In the Absence of the Sacred, 1996
We recently came across John Daniel’s
editorial note, “Higher Education for Sale”, in UNESCO’s Education for All
bulletin (October 2002). It raises several serious questions regarding the
agenda and vision of the Education for All global initiative. Is UNESCO
promoting the commoditization and homogenization of human learning? How could
it suggest that the multinational corporation McDonald’s is a good model for
the world's education systems (particularly those in the Global South) to
emulate? What is UNESCO and EFA’s
stance regarding the Global Economy?
What is perhaps most disturbing about
Mr. Daniel's note is the lack of critical analysis about the long-term harmful
effects of McDonaldization – not as a chain of fast-food restaurants, but as a
larger process of rationalization of society.[1]
Mr. Daniel’s key premise is that McDonaldization brings prosperity, freedom and
wider choice. Yet, as members of civil society, we feel it is precisely this
claim that needs to be more critically interrogated.[2] In this spirit, we would like to take the
analogy of McDonald's a bit further in order to explore its implications for
education and local communities in more detail.
What
is the effect of McDonald’s on our health and well-being?
The food on McDonald’s menu may fill
one's stomach quickly and cheaply, but its impact on our health is dubious at
best. High in fat, low in fiber, hamburgers and fries (the food McDonald’s is
famous for) have contributed to rising cholesterol rates and growing obesity —
the tickets to a slow demise via heart disease, diabetes or cancer. Plus, given how hamburger meat is produced
(through factory farms and squalid slaughterhouses) there also exists the
serious threat of tragic death from Mad Cow Disease or infection by the E. Coli
bacterium. The fast-food lifestyle does not bode well for our social or
emotional health either. Food-on-the-go sadly signals
relationships-out-the-window. It suits those who have little time to be with
their families or friends, much less to engage in meaningful conversations or
creative expressions. McDonaldization thus spreads sickness and undermines both
healthy individuals and vibrant communities -- the public is left to bear the
costs of the industry’s private profit.
In relation to education, we must ask,
if the commoditization of learning materials (even if they happen to be from
MIT) can lead to imagination, to holistic analysis, to deep ethics, to greater
self-awareness? Or does it simply mean feeding people more decontextualized
information (which is irrelevant at best, and neo-colonizing/debilitating at
worst)? While being able to buy commodified degrees on the open market,
alongside cell phones and personal computers, will surely benefit the
middle-men of the Global Economy and those who run open universities, it is
highly doubtful that it will really nourish and inspire most individuals and
communities in the Global South.[3]
What
is required to sustain the McDonald’s model?
To more fully evaluate the McDonald's
model, it is important to understand what is required to keep the golden arches
standing. The McDonald's menu does not function in isolation, it requires an
entire sub-structure to fuel it and an entire super-structure to manage it.
Though it is true that McDonald's only feeds a small portion of the world's
population, its footprint on the planet is quite significant.
Internally, the fast-food industry has
been shown to dehumanize its own employees, leaving them with little mobility,
few benefits or security, and no chance of organizing for change. The
assembly-line fragmentation, mechanized technologies and surveillance
techniques eliminate individual uniqueness, judgement and creativity (and the
natural mistakes that emerge from these), which is what guarantees the “same
look, taste and quality everywhere.”
Consumers fare no better -- they are counted only as “numbers
served.” Like the cows and chickens at
factory-farms, customers are coldly and efficiently herded through McDonald's
superficial system without being touched by it. Little or no emotional bond is allowed to develop among
customers, employees, managers and owners. Indeed, McDonaldization intent is to
take the "human-ness" of human beings out of the equation altogether.
Externally, McDonald’s and its
like-minded clones have devoured diversity in both local economies and the
environment. Roughly 75% of the money spent at corporate franchises like
McDonald's is immediately sucked out of the local economy, thus further
impoverishing many communities.[4]
Small family-owned restaurants have gone bankrupt when forced to compete with
deep-pocket fast-food corporations. The small farmer has been crushed by the
growth of "factory farms", where livestock is raised in horrifying
conditions, fed the dismembered parts of their own species, pumped full of
antibiotics, and murdered in massive slaughterhouses. Global control is
centralized in the hands of McDonald’s and its few “certified” suppliers.[5]
They see no harm in clear-cutting rainforests (hundreds of acres of land a
day), or in contributing to a worldwide water crisis, in order to meet the
demands of industrialized livestock production. Transporting food across the
world, as well as elaborately packaging it, further adds to global
pollution.
If one accounts for the hidden costs of
McDonaldization, it becomes clear that the model is anti-diversity,
anti-creativity and anti-democratic. We must ask what else would be killed — in
terms of diverse ways of knowing, languages, dynamic roles and
responsibilities, local cultures and contexts — if education continues to
follow the same violent and unsustainable course?
What
about vegetarians, vegans, diabetics, heart patients, slow food activists,
those who do not like greasy food, etc.?
One must also question the
"fact" that people like
McDonald's processed food. Lest we forget, the fast-food industry spends
billions of dollars a year on advertising to convince us of this. They
manipulatively market to children (preying upon their sense of loneliness,
insecurity and boredom) and to parents (preying on their sense of guilt) to
secure a captive audience for generations. And what about those of us who
really don’t want to eat fast food?
Must we all be forced to eat it, even if we believe it is unethical
and/or harmful to us? Do we have the choice to say no, or better yet, grow our
own organic foods? Or will we be
ostracized as "fundamentalists" or “impractical health freaks” if we
try to exercise this basic aspect of human dignity?
The same queries apply to education and
its lack of respect for diverse learners. Commoditization pro-actively creates
a situation of artificial scarcity in order to establish and maintain a niche
in the market. This requires devaluing the spontaneity and multiplicity of
learning spaces and learning styles, intelligences, expressions, worldviews,
etc. that exist in the world and instead, marketing a single homogenous
commodity called “education” that all must consume.
The McDonaldization of education must
be exposed for what it really is – a techno-fascist imposition that gives the
illusion of free choice and equality. It represents a lack of faith in each and
every human being’s capacities to decide upon and create their own learning
communities, and assumes they cannot learn (or eat or create anything) without
a pre-determined set of institutionalized options forced upon them. Worse yet,
it holds in contempt those who do not like its homogenized options – labelling
these resistors as “uneducated”, “superstitious”, “backward”, etc. At its core,
it is inherently anti-learning.
It is time for us to face the harsh
reality that much of the schooling (formal as well as non-formal) process is
already McDonaldized i.e., run according to a highly centralized,
one-size-fits-all, assembly-line mass production model which views human beings
as “capital” or “human resources”. For the vast majority of people, such type
of factory-education has become a mind-numbing, relationship-numbing and
soul-numbing experience. It does not and cannot bring about profound forms of
learning in the world. Rather than further hyping and expanding the reach of
the fast-food solution, we invite you to join us in a much-needed process of
fundamentally rethinking the Education for All global initiative — particularly
its core assumptions around the purposes and processes of learning and its view
of human beings vis-à-vis the Global Economy.
Meaningful learning, deep knowledge,
collective wisdom and innovative action do not come from slick, pre-packaged
course materials and efficient one-way transmission of information. MIT knows
this, every lifelong learner understands this, why doesn't UNESCO and the EFA
global initiative? The time has come for us to move beyond having dehumanizing
solutions continually imposed upon us by distant experts (who do not know us and
don’t really care to know us) and, to work together to co-create more diverse
and nourishing learning opportunities for ourselves and our children. We should
not be afraid to reinvent the wheel again and again. Indeed, that may be
required if we wish to reclaim and regenerate the essence of learning in the 21st
century, and to create a more just and peaceful world for all.
-
SHIKSHANTAR ANDOLAN
Shilpa
Jain and Manish Jain
April
10, 2003
“At the
turn of the 20th century, a profound social thinker in France named
George Simmel wrote a remarkable book called The Philosophy of Money. In
it, Simmel said that money contained a powerful internal contradiction build
into the foundations of its abstract existence: by robbing things of their
innate identity and replacing that core identity with a money identity, money
often cheapened things and removed their significance! Simmel said that
whenever genuine personal qualities like services were offered for money,
[they] tended to gradually become degraded, to lose distinction… The sale of
compassion, the sale of concern, even the sale of a helping hand in many
instances, lead to the same destination.
At some point, pricing eats away the intangible quality of service and
the central value of what is offered will be destroyed…”
- John Taylor Gatto
“Beyond Money: Deschooling and a New Society”
Reading “Higher Education For Sale”
proved to me, again, that the education establishment is so slow on its feet.
Using McDonald’s as the model for creating a successful and efficient
educational system to deliver generic “basic content” is an insight that may have
been sensible in the late twentieth century, when McDonald’s expanded into a
worldwide business and made gobs of money.
Now, at the dawn of the 21st century, McDonald’s has posted its first loss
ever. It is shutting down stores and tinkering with its menu. Burger King, by
the way, is not in much better shape financially. People’s diets and
perceptions of hamburger fast food have changed, but the big corporations
didn’t realize it until recently. Educators are excited about this model in the
public sector now that it is showing its obsolescence in the private sector!
The one-size-fits-all hamburger has reached the point of diminishing returns.
Attempts to “personalize” the burger, to give people “choice,” to “have it
their way,” have finally stopped fooling people. These are not “choices,” just
condiments and dressings that any decent restaurant would give you without
making it a sales point. No matter how you dress it up, you’re eating a
hamburger, not exercising personal freedom. Ivan Illich referred to this
confusion of process with substance in Deschooling
Society, when he wrote, (I think) “The mandatory selection of pre-packaged
commodities is hardly a choice.”
But people’s tastes change. People grow up. Diets change. To keep up with the
changing market, McDonald’s and Burger King are offering more choices on their
menus, increasing, not limiting their range of dishes. The editorial misses the
boat on this point too.
The editorial states that McDonald’s restaurants account “for only a tiny
portion of the food that people eat.” However, the author’s proposal to
“commoditize learning material [as] a way to bring education to all” is a vast
program no matter how you parse that sentence. This has many important
implications. For example, there will have to be government resources devoted
to keeping charlatans out of the business, so there will probably be FDA
(Federal Diploma Agency) labels for content levels of individual courses. For
instance:
This
serving of Accounting 101 contains:
90%
Math
5%
General Reading
This
serving also contains less than 5% of the following subjects the FDA deems
vital to a well-balanced education:
Foreign
language, Science. Social Studies
Trace elements of philosophy, literature, art, music, and poetry are at levels
well below those considered dangerous by the FDA.
McDonald’s
Education:
Bringing
a smile with every course served. u
A Recipe for Wiping
Out What Is Left of Diversity and Humanity, And a Call for a Fundamentalist and
Lazy Attitude
Munir Fasheh, Arab Education Forum, Palestine
<mfasheh@yahoo.com>
I keep hoping that educators would some
day heal from some of the assumptions that have controlled the thinking and
practice in education for the past few centuries. One would think that (after such a long time) educators would
realize the harm that these assumptions inflict on teachers and students
alike. But, I guess I am assuming too
much. Educators in general seem to be
the least able to learn.
When I read what John Daniel wrote, I
felt very disturbed and sad. I will
highlight some of the embedded assumptions to clarify why I felt the way I did.
First: the assumption that there are
people who can think and people who can, at most, apply or adapt what
“thinkers” come up with! Mr. Daniel
tells us that people (especially teachers) in most cultures do not have to think
for themselves, and that he wants to free them “from the chore of reinventing
the wheel… [and instead] concentrate on adapting the best material, helping
students to study it and assessing their competence and knowledge.” It is very hard to think of anything more
humiliating to human beings, and particularly teachers, than relieving them
from doing what I feel is the most fundamental human right and duty: to think;
i.e. to create meaning, understanding and knowledge. Despising people is not the invention of Mr. Daniel of course; it
has characterized the past 500 years at least.
What Mr. Daniel is doing is continuing and spreading it. For an educator in a responsible position to
look at teachers as mere implementers and adapters, and still call them
‘teachers’ and still call the process ‘learning’, is very disturbing.
Second: the assumption that people in a
place like MIT can know what is good
for people and countries in Africa or Asia, without knowing Africa or
Asia. Even when such people visit these
places, they stay in a Hilton, talk with graduates from MIT, and – in order to
sound authentic – they may go to a street and talk with some “ordinary folks,”
and they may even quote them! If Mr.
Daniel did not yet discover that the main characteristic of institutions is
deception, he probably needs to think again, but more honestly. Believing that a person or a group in a
place like MIT can “cook” something that is good for all the peoples of the
world is a very frightening attitude. Most professors at MIT hardly know, or
talk with, the person in the office next door. They are mainly interested in
their careers. And Mr. Daniel believes
that they know what is good for people in Africa, Asia, and South and Central
America?
Third: the assumption that people can
really be measured. It is very hard for
me to think of any idea, throughout history, that is more degrading to human
beings than the invention of grading.
Fourth: the assumption that there is
“best material” that is good for all, everywhere, and that the role of teachers
is just to adapt it, as Mr. Daniel claims.
Although the term fundamentalism usually refers to religion, but I think
that its most successful – though subtle – form is education. Mr. Daniel’s call falls under the category
of fundamentalism at a level which is deeper and, thus, more dangerous than
what is usually referred to in common discourse. If believing in something that is good for all people, and that
someone at MIT knows it and someone at UNESCO can impose it, is not fundamentalism
par excellence, I don’t know what fundamentalism is.
Mr. Daniel does not have to tell
educators to follow McDonald’s.
Historically speaking, it was the other way round. It is McDonald’s that
emulated education and followed its model. However, because education is supported
by governments through compulsory laws, it did not need to be as inventive as
McDonald’s in marketing and selling its junk; it relied on enforcing the
law. McDonald’s had to be more
inventive in marketing its commodity. Cooking and packaging information and
selling it to students all over the world was first done at a universal level
by education. Since McDonald’s was less successful in convincing governments to
pass a law concerning “compulsory eating of junk,” they had to package their
product in an attractive and deceptive way.
Schools, as usual, lag behind in such matters.
My understanding is that UNESCO was
created to respect and protect the diverse cultures that existed for thousands
of years. UNESCO is one of the few
organizations that remain to protect diverse ways of living, learning, and
knowing. Using it as a forum to claim
that all what teachers can do is to be imitators and/or adaptors is a very sad
situation. It is an abuse of the
mandate of UNESCO. UNESCO is supposed to protect spaces where people can live
according to their own ways, and not be forced to “develop” according to a
prescribed formula or ready recipe.
Please, let us not repeat one of the most notorious deeds in history,
where the major institutions (the state, the church, the law, and education,
supported by the financial sector and the police) collaborated to finish what
armies were not able to finish – the killing of cultures and ways of living and
learning and relating within indigenous communities in the Americas and
Australia. And that was done, of course, claiming that the purpose was to help
indigenous peoples develop and become knowledgeable and civilized!
What Mr. Daniel is advocating is to
repeat this, but this time in a more subtle way and worldwide! UNESCO was created to protect cultures and
peoples from all forms of destruction but, especially, from forms that claim to
be “universal.” Please, Mr. Daniel,
keep UNESCO outside this path. Thank you. u
The
McDonaldization of Education: Colonialism Revisited
Paige Raibmon, Simon Fraser University, Canada
<praibmon@sfu.ca>
Assistant
Director-General for Education at UNESCO John Daniel urges us to “reach for our
critical faculties” when evaluating the so-called “McDonaldization” of
education. Yet his own brief statement on the question is at best impoverished
and at worst misleading. Rather than
elaborating further on the analogy so usefully extended by Shikshantar, I’d
like to offer a historical analogy to the “McDonaldization” process that Daniel
espouses.
Daniel anchors his editorial note
around the twin notions of commoditization and commercialization. As a historian, it was another “c”-word that
came to mind when I read his note: colonialism. His proposition is a profoundly colonialist one. This is not the first time that we have
heard the benefits of homogeneity and standardization touted. Colonizers have sung variations on this
theme many times over. Daniel’s certitude
that the standardization and mass production of education will bring “greater
freedom and wider choice”1 evokes an era when people spoke – some naively, some
self-servingly – of the benefits that the “rest” stood to gain from the
“west.”
It is impossible today to uncritically laud the benefits of empire for
colonized populations. For indigenous
peoples of the Americas, as for populations of the Global South, colonization
by European powers resulted in death from epidemic disease, dispossession from
land and resources, and the destruction of local social, economic, political,
ecological and cultural orders. All of
this occurred on a scale that falls well within the definition of genocide as
defined by the United Nations convention. And, all of this occurred within an
ideological context that uncritically accepted the assumption that these
so-called peripheral populations had nothing to lose and everything to gain
from the globalization of community, the homogenization of values, and the
commodification of resources.
Educational policy was a cornerstone of colonial projects around the
globe. In Canada, for example, Christian missionaries walked in stride with the
earliest fur traders to offer religious instruction. Indigenous children became particular targets of educational
transformation, as they were seen both as less recalcitrant and less prone to
“regression” than were adults. The
erroneous assumption that an absence of schools signalled an absence of teaching
and learning blinded colonizers to the long-standing practices of local
education that had sustained indigenous communities for generations. In this context, it seemed as though these
untrained, undisciplined children – these “wild Indians” – would do nothing but
benefit from the rigours of an English-style grammar school. This educational ideal – this McDonaldized
orientation – involved children spending days, months, and sometimes years away
from their families and communities; but, this was hardly a drawback, since
indigenous homes were viewed as educational deserts.
From the 17th through 19th centuries colonial
educators experimented with various prototypes: mission schools, day schools,
on-reserve boarding schools, off-reserve boarding schools. By the end of the 19th century,
the preferred mode of colonial education in Canada had become the industrial
training school, in which children lived far – sometimes hundreds of miles –
from home, separated from their extended family as well as from siblings of the
opposite sex. They ate foreign food, wore foreign clothes, spoke foreign
languages. Their names were replaced
with identification numbers. They
learned a foreign curriculum that all too often left them alienated from their
home communities, at the same time as it left them unprepared to live
independently in non-indigenous communities.
Half the day was spent on half-hearted academic subjects and the other
on manual skills training that most often amounted to hard physical labour that
subsidized the school’s operation. The
system was standardized across the country and ran from the 1880s through the
1980s. Here perhaps is the true
fore-runner to commodified education.
Daniel’s self-assured comment that commodified education “is a key
process for bringing prosperity to ordinary people by giving them greater
freedom and wider choice” may well echo the words uttered by residential school
principals to parents desperate to spare their children this educational
assault.
The very logic by which Daniel asks us to “reach for our critical faculties”
is the same by which the children of the First Nations of Canada were in
practice kidnapped from their homes and, for all intents and purposes, interned
at “schools.” Residential schools did
more to slam shut the doors of opportunity, freedom and choice than they did to
open them for indigenous children. The
schools became hothouses of abuse and suffering. Federal Department of Indian Affairs records show that in the
late 19th century, a quarter of all residential school students died
while on the school rolls or shortly thereafter. This death rate rises to 69% where post-schooling health is
factored in.2 Children were
the victims not only of illness but of widespread physical and sexual abuse
too.3 The emotional toll of these ordeals is, of
course, nearly impossible to tally. It
most certainly extends across generations and has been considered under the
rubric of intergenerational trauma comparable to the Holocaust.4 Physical and emotional ill-health have been
the legacy, and for this the Canadian government and several churches have
formally apologized. Today, the schools
are widely regarded one of the most tragic products of colonialism’s
conceit.
Education was a commodity in residential schools, and indigenous
children were likewise treated as such: they were products to be scrubbed clean
of their individual selves, as they passed through the factory institution,
emerging uniformly neat, subservient, and assimilated. Indigenous peoples suffer the devastation of
this process still. Any sincere injunction to “reach for our critical
faculties” cannot shrink from historical investigation. And, any sincere historical investigation
reveals that horror more than health and happiness has been the legacy of
earlier attempts at “McDonaldization.”
The questions hangs: why ought we to expect anything different in the
future? u
Newe Sogobia: The Western Shoshone People and
Land
“In Indian terms
there is no equation in dollars for the loss of a way of life. … There is a story that the old people
tell about the white man. They are
like children. They want this and
that, they want everything they see, like it’s the first time on
Earth. The white men have all
these tools but they don’t know how to use them properly. The white people try to equate national
defense with human lives. There
can never be an equation between dollar bills and living things – the
fish, the birds, the deer, the clean air, the clean water. There is no way of comparing them…”
- Glen Wasson
McDonaldization
and Historical Myopia
Vivek Bhandari, Hampshire College, United States
<vbhandari@hampshire.edu>
It is deeply disturbing to see decision
makers at UNESCO's "Education for All" campaign argue that the
McDonald's Corporation's approach to commodification is an acceptable, indeed
laudable, model for those thinking about the future of education in the new
millennium. This is not only because John Daniel seems to have missed the
voluminous literature on the horrors associated with what George Ritzer has
called the "McDonaldization of Society" – aspects of which are
effectively outlined by Shikshantar – but also in the fact that his approach to
education suffers from a myopic and uncritical belief in the hopelessly facile
"trickle-down" view of the world.
I say these things in large part because Daniel's perspective — that
commoditization is good for society since it allows large sections of the
world's population to "benefit greatly" from the products once
accessible only to the elite — completely fails to take into account the
contested history of market capitalism and "Development." For someone
to say that "when products become commodities there is fierce price
competition," and to assume that this is inevitably a good thing, is far
too simplistic, as is the notion that "commoditizing education need not
mean commercializing education." The history of the entrenchment of many
modernist institutional structures and practices (such as those associated with
the state, corporations, civil society, etc.) IS the history of commodification and McDonaldization. This
history, in turn, is comprehensively intertwined with the history of Empire,
the contradictions of nation-state formation, and the increasingly hegemonic
forms taken by the neo-liberal consensus that has been emerging in the
post-Cold War period.
Perhaps most disturbing is Daniel's inability to recognize that the world has
already gone through centuries of dehumanizing institutionalization
masquerading as “educational reform”, “development”, or “liberalization.”
Daniel's view, that price reduction as a result of competition is a good thing,
might make sense when interrogated through a purely theoretical economistic
lens, but is utterly inadequate when this perspective is juxtaposed with the
very real exploitative history of state and corporate power. Put briefly,
socio-economic inequalities in the world have emerged not only because of
economic reasons; they are as much the products of those cultural attitudes
that have tried to reduce the complexity of the human experience to a narrow,
statist/capitalist consensus that sits well with the modernist impulse to
discipline and order. The same critique
needs to be applied to the pollyanna view of technology as a panacea for the
redressal of the world's problems, a view the people at MIT are well aware of.
Technology, if its primary purpose is to serve the interests of
commoditization, can only act as a divisive force. Unless the discordant voices
that make-up the cacophony of our world are respected, and allowed to
articulate alternative modernities, I’m afraid that instead of progressing, the
world may well end up regressing.
My argument here is not that we should
allow ourselves to slide into excessive relativism or the token acceptance of
diversity (as has unfortunately happened in many parts of the world). What I am arguing for is the recognition
that a “one size fits all” attitude has the effect of curbing the creative,
regenerative, and dare I say, human impulses of people. Discordant voices are everywhere, and
instead of viewing them as source of indiscipline, or primordial resistance (as
many policy makers are wont to do), I believe that such voices have to be
engaged, and respected. The articulation of alternative modernities is a
fundamental part of society as we know it. To treat such voices and attitudes
as a problem is at best escapist. The
success of McDonald's (and many such symbols of corporate power) is
inextricably entangled with those structures and institutions of modern life
that have ordered our social world to "manufacture consent" and
stifle dissent. These institutions, that we have uncritically come to accept as
a part of our shared landscape, such as the government, schools, the media,
etc, do have some practical value, but in their current configuration, are
entirely ill-equipped to redress the high levels of disenchantment, alienation,
and disempowerment that people feel. This is because they are being used,
despite claims to the contrary, to program and institutionalize, not engage and
liberate.
The McDonald's paradigm is among the worst available to us precisely because,
as Daniel's note points out, the reason for its success is that it offers
"a limited range of dishes as commodities that have the same look, taste
and quality everywhere." It is frightening to think that decision-makers
at the highest level are uncritically equating the depth and complexity of
learning processes with the practices associated with mass production, i.e.,
standardization, commodification, and capital accumulation.
As I write this from the United States,
a society that has turned commoditization into an art form, it is apparent to
me that at this point in the world's history, there is an urgent need to evolve
regenerative mechanisms that allow people to learn, work, and live freely. In my own work I try to identify those
social spaces where people create, share, or debate ideas of a political
nature. Such spaces, or “publics” as I
like to call them, exist in all kinds of nooks and crannies, many of which are
not considered viable sites of organizing or political regeneration. In this sense, these publics exercise
critical surveillance over the government as well their own social
constituencies, without being tied-down to the normative practices of modern
liberal democracy. This flexibility has allowed disempowered groups to subvert
the exploitative institutions of the liberal/capitalist order, and in such
situations, these “publics” have become the loci of resistance, and are
reincarnated as “counterpublics” that take-on the abuses of power. I mention
them here because the McDonaldization of education can only perpetuate the
abuses of power, and perhaps more pertinently, will always find itself at odds
with the potential for regenerative learning embedded in all of us. u
The
(Neo)Liberal Impasse in Public Education
Yusef
Progler, Multiworld Network, United Arab Emirates
<yusefustad@hotmail.com>
John Daniel seems to be advocating a
sort of supply-side system of schooling, in which "courseware" is
produced by academics and technocrats and then consumed by teachers and
students. Seeing teachers and students as consumers is not a new view, and in
many ways education in the emancipatory/technocratic liberal model has always
seen teachers and students as consumers of one or another system or curriculum.
The novelty here is that the neo-liberal business gurus have hijacked that
outlook into a more economist framework, and so Daniel illustrates an
interesting hybrid of (neo)liberal technocracy.
While the general surface message is
that teachers and students are passive, educational administrators and
technocrats are active, there is another, subtler, problem with the Daniel
plan. He sees courseware as the main site of knowledge exchange, not the human
relationships at the heart of true teaching and learning. Teachers and students
do not really have much of a role in this outlook, which is a severely
reductionist prospectus that squeezes virtually all the humanity out of
learning, by separating off teachers (as hidden producers, increasingly
underpaid laborers, the new sweat shop workers) from students (as hapless
consumers, in need of technocratically-mediated emancipation). In the end, the
system is not questioned, only the means of its administration. Daniel is
offering a loose managerial rule for schooling, typical of both liberal and
neo-liberal true believers.
Using a framework of commoditization
suggests business and profit, completely in line with the corporate bid to
siphon public services for private gain. At the same time, holding aloof the
open source movement implies some sort of socialized access to courseware. So
which is it, Mr. Daniel, or can we have both? Or are you leaving a loophole in
this liberal sounding game for the neo-liberals to leap in and rule? If that
happens, we may really see teachers reduced to data keying the prolific palaver
of the professorate — themselves elevated to superstar status by the same
corporate machine that positions everyone as consumers of iconic hot-shot
hero-profs, media savvy yet verbose.
Daniel suggests that courseware can be
translated and customized for local use. This is tragically oblivious to the
metaphorical basis of language and ignores that language "thinks" us
as much as we use it to think. Like other (neo)liberals, Daniel sees language
as transparent, not carrying meaning in itself, only transmitting meaning, a
conduit. This obscures the distinctions between what language denotes and
connotes, and it is completely naïve as to even the most pedestrian insights
from anthropology, linguistics, and psychology, or even commonsense wisdom, on
the topic of language in the construction of meaning. Besides that, translation
is often just a colonial tool to fool us all into thinking we are simply
getting "pure" knowledge, when in fact we are getting a particular
worldview embodied in the language and thought system used to construct that
knowledge in the first place.
The digital networks necessary to
administer and distribute Daniel's courseware menus themselves are selective of
what is and what is not knowledge, since that which cannot be effectively
digitized and packaged over networks will not make it into the chute. Maybe
that's a good thing, and maybe it isn't, but Daniel and the (neo)liberals
advocating information-age fantasies of boundless knowledge for humanity, are
redefining education as consumption, with a new rallying call: "The global
fast course shopping mall is at your fingertips" (just make sure not to
get any greasy fast food on your keypad). Such are the sad dreams of detached,
free-floating ghosts, drifting aloft in an illusory world of commodities,
computers and courseware, a cyber-purgatory from which they cannot escape, and
into which they wish to entice others in the name of "education for
all." u
For
more on the Multiworld Network, see www.multiworld.org.
<lisa_aubrey@hotmail.com>
The McDonaldization of Education for
All is not an anomaly. McDonaldization
fits squarely into the current global trend of nouveau neo-exploitation,
reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s satirical and sadly prophetic Brave New World.1 Adapted to the 21st century,
human beings, with advanced technological speed, are becoming more and more
quickly transformed into mere atomotons with robotic functions serving an
unholy, almighty, hegemonic power via their labor. The numbing of mental
faculties of individuals and communities who differ with this current, but yet
classic, modus operandi because they desire more just, creative, organic living
is imperative to the McDonaldization project.
The numbing effect of (mis)education ensures that there is no effective
resistance to this hegemon. Numbing, non-emotive, objective (mis)education is
part and parcel of creating a non-resistant climate around deepening
exploitation during this wave of globalization. Effectively brainwashed, we are welcoming this exploitation to
and of ourselves, as we are universally learning and teaching domination and conditioning as we have been taught to
do. The remuneration we receive, as proletariat and petty bourgeoisie, is mere
pittance compared to the profits and power of the global hegemon.
“McDonaldization” is but the latest,
and perhaps the most sexy lexicon used for prescribing and enforcing the
domination of Eurocentric epistemologies and axiologies in a so-called
“universal” education. This universal
education, which also purports to be multicultural and reflective of diversity,
is nothing but the classical homogenization of all other alternative views and
ways of living into the dominant mode.
More critically, the creation of this universal education mandates the destruction of local knowledge
systems and other ways of knowing.. The
French have called it “assimilation, other Europeans “civilization,” social
scientists, “behavioralism” and “rationality”, computer techies who prescribe
education via the net ”advanced technology,” all of us “globalization.” Did I
use past tense?
John Daniel of UNESCO suggests that the
commoditization of learning material can bring education to all by teachers and
institutions making their courseware and learning materials freely available on
the web to be translated and adapted for local use.2 Some key questions ring clear: What does Daniel mean by learning? Is it memorization and
regurgitation? Is it passive
acquisition without critical thinking? What does Daniel mean by education? Is the mastery of repetition of the ideas and interpretations of
phenomena of noted others? Who are the teachers and institutions who are to
make their “courseware and learning materials” available? Whose values are grounded in the courseware
and learning materials? Who deems those teachers and institutions worthy of
universalizing education? Will they be other “elite” schools like MIT? Will schools that teach the ideologies of
resistance of Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Biko, Assata Shakur, Martin
Luther King, Fidel Castro, Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela be prescribed? How
many individuals and communities will have access to the web to engage this
courseware? Is Daniel’s assuming that
all individuals and communities have equal and free access to the technology
that will provide universal web education? Is Daniel aware of the ever widening
digital divide? More fundamentally, is Daniel aware of the thousands of
communities who still struggle for potable water? For these communities, water
may be a more basic need, prioritized much more highly than internet and web
access.
Moreover, is Daniel suggesting, that in
trans-literate translation, language has no social or political context? Is Daniel presuming that there is a
universiality of epistemology and axiology equally embraced, owned, shared, and
utilized by all people throughout the world reflecting all peoples
ontogologically on an even keel? Is
Daniel presuming that there is a value in knowledge when it has no practical
reference, relevance, and utility? Is
Daniel’s view of education “knowledge for knowledge sake”? Is Daniel suggesting
an education for freedom and choice for all through McDonaldization, or is what
he is suggesting a masters’ education for servants to learn to better serve
their masters?
To ask these questions is not to assume
that Daniel, as Assistant Director-General of Education of UNESCO, has not
thought profoundly about these issues or does not know the answers. Assuredly,
someone of his stature within an institution which pledges good global
governance is astutely aware of the probable outcomes of McDonaldizing
education. This problematique is intriguing. Daniel perhaps, is living in a
house with no windows inside the UN bureaucracy; and, in a resurgent
modernization thrust in this
increasingly conservative neo-liberal environment, he is merely thinking
of what is best for poor societies that have been trying to combat material
poverty for decades. At the same time,
within this magnanimous bureaucracy, Daniel either is not really listening or can
not really listen to voices of the many people he believes he is trying to
help.
Daniel’s views run in concert with
countless elites in governmental and non-governmental circles, who in their
benevolence, undemocratically make global development policy, which includes,
(mis)education policy, affecting all of us.
Their policy making is dictatorial, and appears not to have space for
reflective internal evaluation of its own methodology. Otherwise, how can they continue to make the
same faux pas, unless faux pas are really intentional
consequences? If so, then the
McDonaldization scheme is certainly diabolical, classic and conspiratorial. It
is yet another scheme to ensure that the poor stay poor, and the richer get
richer. In global divide terms, it
means that the Global South, with its servitude-style McDonalized education, is
yet to stay subservient to the Global North, while the latter cooks up yet more
altruistic schemes that keep the former in its dependent position.
For modernizationists, the fact that
McDonald’s brings manufacturing and industrialization (however small), fast food
and food choice (however unhealthy) is a sign of progress. Further, the fact that the McDonald’s model
brings mass commodified education (however sub-standard) is a sign of progress. Increased supply is what matters, not the on-the-ground realities. To
modernizationists, it does not matter how many local farmers lose markets,
harvests, animals, or do not re-coup capital inputs; nor does it matter how
many farmer workers lose their jobs; nor whether or not the local economy
plummets; nor whether or not McDonald’s food causes health problems. Moreover,
it does not matter if there is a local demand for the McDonaldization of food
and education or not. McDonald’s public relations and advertisements will
seduce, and its grand design of making profits for the benefit of the already
rich will prevail against local will. To modernizationists, the existence of
the foreign and the multinational is progress, and local people’s rejection of
these is not a sign of the
undesirability of McDonald’s, but instead their rejection in a sign of their
own backwardness and short-sightedness.
The former’s rationalizations and interpretations would run like this:
We tried to modernize and “develop” them; they just refused to develop themselves. They can’t even see the potential of foreign
investments and foreign firms in their county.
It’s because of their backwardness that they reject all modernity,
progress, and development.
In decrying slavery in all of its forms
after the US civil war and the passage of the Civil War Amendments in 1865,
1868, and 1870, African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass makes a
statement relevant to the nouveau neo-exploitation that the McDonaldization of
Education for All threatens today: “You and I and all of us had better wait and
see what new form this old monster will assume, in what new skin this old snake
will come forth.”3 Even a
snake shedding its skin finds it impossible to become a “Big Mac with Cheese.” u
Commoditization:
Freedom of Constrained Choices
Sanat
Mohanty, The South Asian Forum, United States
<sanat_mohanty@hotmail.com>
Let us first analyze this phenomena of
mass production and reduction in prices of computers, cell phones, etc. Silicon
processing is a very highly intensive process requiring highly clean
environments and very large amounts of water. A number of toxic chemicals are
used in silicon processing. One big reason that computers cost as little as
they do is because the computer industry is engaged in significant pollutant
dumping. In facilities across East and South East Asia, the industry does not
clean up the water it discharges, nor does it pay for its pollutants.
Similarly, the cost of disposing products that have silicon-based devices are
expensive. Cell phones, besides using silicon-based electronics, also use an
extremely rare metal named tantalum. Mining processes for this metal, in Congo1 and elsewhere, have already put local
ecologies at risk.
Now, if I rent an expensive auditorium
in the USA and during the course of my activities, dirty it, then I am expected
to pay for the clean up. Fair enough. By the same argument, companies that
pollute the environment owing to their activities should be paying for the
clean up. Unfortunately, this would add to the cost of their products. In
reality, companies do not pay for clean up. The computer I buy is so cheap, in
part, because the clean up costs are being paid for by the health of the
communities that live in the vicinity of these activities.
This is true not only with the silicon
based high-tech industry, but with the pharmaceutical industry (a number of
precursors to the pharma industry are manufactured in Gujarat and in Korea with
high levels of dumping involved in the process2),
the chemical industry (remember Union Carbide?), the oil industry, the food
industry, among others. A significant portion of this economy of scale is based
on the ability of a large financial lobby being able to get around the costs it
should pay in order to conduct business ethically.
However, my critique of McEducation
goes beyond problems with mass production. In his first paragraph, John Daniel
says, “offer a limited range of dishes
as commodities that have the same look, taste and quality everywhere”. One
sentence later, he adds that commoditization “is a key process for bringing
prosperity to ordinary people by giving them greater freedom and wider choice.”
It is an obvious contradiction, and yet the Assistant Director General of
Education does not see it. While I could argue how this contradiction
completely invalidates his arguments for commoditization of education or of
McDonaldization, I will focus on showing that such contradictions are in fact
the basis on which commoditization is propped up.
Having decided to manufacture products
or provide a service, what will an organization do to maximize its economic
profits? In Bangladesh, millions of people are affected by water with arsenic
levels thousands of times over the allowable limits.3 Despite such a large need, no company
has stepped in to provide a solution. One would find that unusual, given that
companies are fighting tooth and nail to provide “clean water service” in
countries around the world. It is not unusual since there is no money to be
earned in Bangladesh. Commoditization of a product or a service is feasible
only when there is money to be made, AND when alternatives to the solution the
company provides are limited or can be made inaccessible. This implies that
commoditization is based on limiting the choices that are to be had.
Options can be limited by changing laws
or regulations, or by advertising strategies that convince the consumer that
the other choices are not really choices, or by making the other possibilities
inaccessible. For example, at cricket matches in India, it is alleged that the
staffs of various stadiums have been bribed to turn off drinking water
facilities so that spectators are forced to buy water from private vendors.
Similar instances have also occurred in railway stations in India. By making
the choice inaccessible, the consumer is forced to buy the commodity.
Advertisements limit choices by convincing the consumer that “coolness” depends
on owning a car. Traveling by public transport therefore is not a real choice.
Similarly, drinking sugarcane juice is not a real choice; one needs to drink
bottled beverages.
Even further, with billions of dollars
backing them up, large organizations usually have the ear of the lawmakers of
the land. They are in a position to influence laws to make certain choices
illegal and hence place their products favorably in the market place. One
familiar example was the ruling on iodine content in salts. Based on “research”
that claims that 20% of the Indian population is at risk of iodine deficiency,
the government of India placed a ban on common salt. Only iodized salt was
allowed to be sold on the open market. A number of groups questioned this
research, pointing out that as low as 0.2% of people are affected by iodine
deficiency. They argue that a ban on common salt is not necessary, that those
who need iodized salt can obtain it, while those who do not, can use common
salt. However, such a law changed the marketplace. All small businesses
involved in salt-making could not sell their salt; and a $60 million market is
now almost completely owned by three multinationals. A similar incident is the
presentation of literature by Nestle that initially claimed that Nestle baby
food was superior to mothers’ milk and subsequent variations of a theme.4
Consider the privatization of “Prison
Services” in the USA. The profitability of this industry depends on increasing
the number of people put in prison. Clearly then, this industry will attempt to
affect laws so that people are placed in prison for the smallest misdemeanors.
The US is already seeing an increase in its population in prison – at two
million now – far higher than any other country. The choice of a society
regarding how it deals with misdemeanors or crimes is now limited. How a society
works with individuals who do not want to follow the rules it lays down, or
even how it lays down such rules, begins to change under the influence of
companies.
Consider the insurance industry. The
profitability of this industry depends on the levels of fear that the society
has. Following 9/11, the insurance market in the USA showed the following
trend: “The Council's quarterly Market Index showed premium prices across all
lines of commercial business continued to march upward for the period ending
Sept. 30, 2002. Respondent brokers — all among the sector writing 80% of
commercial property/casualty coverage — showed more than 60% of medium-sized
and large accounts continued to experience price increases from 20% to 50%.
Respondents said half their small accounts saw premiums rise from 10% to 20%,
and 20% more went up between 20% and 30%. The increases are consistent with
previous “hard market” findings.”5 The
more a society feels fear, the more this industry will profit. Thus, it has a
vested interest in increasing fear in society. Michael Moore’s movie “Bowling
for Columbine” discusses the implications of a society built on fear. Such a
society cannot be a healthy society. When a society is driven by fear, its
choices are already limited. Insecurity makes a society closed; a feeling of
peace and security increases freedom.
Consider the food industry. Increased
commoditization has seen the growth of industrial farms and the dying of family
farms. The number of species of food products – from potatoes, to corn, to rice
– have all decreased. Agricultural products have large amounts of chemicals. A
choice to use food without chemicals does not exist for most people in the USA;
such choices are much more expensive. The same is true of the milk industry; levels
of steroids and antibiotics have increased to a level where they can be found
in the milk one buys. Individuals have little choice; organic milk is much more
expensive. Besides attempts to fudge the laws that define organic food have
resulted in a situation where one is not sure what one is eating any more. How
has commoditization resulted in greater freedom?
What has commoditization of education
resulted in? Standardization of learning has led to one size fits all.
Different values, traditional knowledge, other means of knowing and
non-western/non-Aristotelian logic have all been left out. A very large section
of the educated believes that reductionist-mechanistic ways of knowing are the
only valid forms of knowledge. That such methods leave out the knowledges of
significant sections of the world and validate only one worldview, that they
are completely untenable in understanding systems or communities, and in
formulating policies at this level, is ignored. The only kind of analysis in
such a method of knowledge is cost-benefit analysis. Mechanistic methods of
knowing are used to bulldoze communities into oblivion, and used to justify it
as an appropriate, even necessary, price to pay for development. Laws are
already in place to ensure that the only kind of education is the one Macaulay
formulated to evolve clerks for the British bureaucracy. Other forms of
learning have been considered useless by the government – thus there is no
choice (except for the very rich) but to consume this commodity called education.
Such commoditization does not only
reduce the choices of a community and its freedom but in fact is violent. It
makes into outcastes those that do not consume this commodity. It marginalizes
those who cannot fit into this set of structured choices. Notice how those who
cannot speak English interact with those who can; or even how those who cannot
speak English with a certain urban accent interact with those who have a more
clipped accent.
While John Daniel hopes that
commoditization will reduce costs of education and make education more
accessible (like burgers, perhaps?), he probably knows at the back of his head
that a steeply rising education cost in the USA has not been able to “educate”
its children. Reading and comprehension rates continue to fall. Just like while
burgers at 49 cents might help to feed people, diseases – like obesity, heart
problems – continue to grow. John Daniel’s solution is not much different from
Mary Antoinette’s: if they do not have bread, give them burgers. u
|
<samanvaya@vsnl.com>
I read Mr. Daniel’s note and
Shikshantar’s, and don't understand a few things...
1. Commoditization
- What gives a person the right to declare that the world consists of
“ordinary” people? I find the word
“ordinary” used rather casually to be very objectionable. Why should my people,
society and country taken to be ordinary?
Who are the “non-ordinary” people who would reject the MIT material
(other American universities, of course)? Does it mean anyone who is
non-American is ordinary? Who declares who is ordinary and who is not? If Mr. Daniel does it, then who gave him the
mandate? UNESCO, UN, the Pope, who? I remember words from the introduction of a
mediocre report written once by a few Harvard students on rural ICT. They had
mentioned, “This report could be a guideline for rural ICT implementation for
any poor country other than America.” They had spent 1½ days in an Indian village getting sick! The audacity!
2. If Mr. Daniel
equates education (or education material) with tools such as computers and cell
phones, he may be excused as a product of some worldview that explains
education as a tool. However, we in India believe that learning shapes a person
– that it is not a "tradable" commodity but a "creative
process" in which the students and teachers are the co-creators. In our
worldview, it is valid to re-discover the wheel every once a while so as to not
forget the process of discovering.
3. The part about
justifying investment through mass production seems to be at the core of Mr.
Daniel’s argument. Maybe MIT is guzzling up lot of money, but that should be
looked at from the average productivity of other American institutions – they
all guzzle large sums of money. Why does one need to use "high quality
learning material at low unit cost" to justify it? Who said it is
"high quality"? Whose quality? What is quality? Recently, a group of panchayat leaders here have declared
that whatever education system gives priority to local content is "high
quality." Does the MIT material stem from such a philosophy?
McDonald’s is cheap, plastic,
non-natural, irresponsible and exploitative in its products and processes.
“Americans” everywhere (regardless of their nationality) desire it. However,
the resources of the world can only support certain amount of McDonald’s – that
is why it has been stoned, burnt, looted and forced to shut down in many
places. Bringing McDonald’s to education might appeal to a certain kind of people.
Maybe there is a limited market for them too (hopefully, a well-quarantined
one). But the real danger is to give McDonald-"ization" some form of
philosophical space. If it is bad
enough as food, to bring it to education, welfare, health, family...is to
legitimise the “American Way of Life.”
We don't want that, do we? u
<zaid@pioneersofchange.net>
Richard Stallman, the
founder of the Free Software Foundation, explains that when he uses the word
“free” in relationship to intellectual property, he means it in the sense of
“free speech, and not free beer.” There
is a fundamental conflict in calling for both McDonald’s and the open source
movement to be models for education. McDonaldization is about extending the
reach of a few highly centralised corporate entities. The open source movement
was created in order to counter corporate practices of ownership and its
restrictions on innovation.
How are these two
models opposed to each other? McDonald’s is a corporation that operates on a
franchise model. As an organisation, it works from a traditional centre, on a
command and control basis. Every aspect of a franchise, from its operating
structure to the design of its space, is specified at McDonald’s headquarters
in Illinois, USA. The operation of a McDonald’s franchise is precisely planned
and dictated, with no room for innovation or local diversity. It is part of a
monoculture dedicated to making money. Every aspect is driven and controlled
from the center, and at all times McDonald’s owns the intellectual property,
such as handbooks and training manuals that are used by franchisees. This
intellectual property is not accessible to those who cannot pay. The logic of
such a market based regime means dividing the world into McDonald’s (and its
franchises), the competition and consumers with money (the key to access). Each
of these relationships is necessarily characterized by dehumanizing power
imbalances.
The open source
movement is radical in that it directly opposes such practices, by
demonstrating an alternative, communal and free way of organising the
production of knowledge-based products. At the heart of the movement’s
opposition to a McDonald’s model is its notion of ownership of intellectual
property, from which follows a certain freedom to innovate. A pure open source
license allows anyone to take code, or material, innovate on it and do as they
please with it, as long as others can do the same with their work. An
individual could choose to add value to an open source package, repackage it
and sell it, without asking anyone for permission. A company can take a piece
of open source software, radically alter it and adapt it for use within their
organisation. An infinite variety of innovations are possible with open source
products. This allows a product to “fork” in unplanned and un-imagined
directions. There is no centralised ownership and there is certainly no
centralised control, as the McDonald’s model would demand, rather there is
community control.
This editorial makes
the serious mistake of assuming that open source simply means “free as in free
beer,” where someone is simply giving away freebies (like toys with Happy
Meals) for people to use, without essentially giving up core control.
Let’s be clear that
the two models are in direct opposition to each other. We are making no less a
choice than between a fundamentally free model and a fundamentally un-free
model. We need to be courageous enough to choose a model where we radically
democratise decision-making to the point where people have the power to not
just choose but also to create their own paths.
In our age of
complexity and inter-connection, the open source model teaches us two key
lessons about innovation in learning. The first is that true innovation in our
age requires a relinquishing of control, something that is traditionally
anathema to the McDonald’s of this world. Secondly it teaches us that, given
freedom from control, individuals will organize themselves in creative and
effective ways – ways which no central controller could ever devise. In fact no
other way of organization can conceivably succeed in our times.
Within our own
learning community, Pioneers of Change <www.pioneersofchange.net>, we
recognize that there are no easy answers. Learning by its very nature is a
messy process and we have learnt to sit in this messiness without needing to
control it. Learning is not about designing a single, totalizing model and then
replicating it across the globe.
We need to recognize
that what stops most people from taking control, and responsibility, of their
own learning are the prevailing myths of modern education, the myths of “factory schooling” which McDonaldization is
a natural extension of. People who are effectively indoctrinated to believe
that the only legitimate learning takes place inside the classroom under the
control of a teacher cannot learn for themselves and vast domains of learning
are closed for them. Our challenge as educators should involve the opening of
such domains and the legitimation of diverse ways of learning.
In our work with
Pioneers of Change we have learnt that in order to support genuine
self-organised learning we need to cultivate the conditions for learning, as
opposed to say, defining a programme for learning. In practice this means
espousing and living principles such as; inviting people into spaces where they
can be themselves, listening to the edge, having the courage to experiment and
being channels for opportunity.
Surely we know enough about learning to
know that we absolutely need to move away from needing to control, design and
impose learning? Rather let’s ask ourselves how we can support a plurality of
experiments in learning, rooted in diverse and creative contexts, free from the
synoptic control of any single entity. u
Sense and
Nonsense of the McDonaldization of Education:
A Response to John Daniel’s
“Higher Education for Sale”
Jan
Visser, Learning Development Institute, and
Member
of the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and
Instruction, USA and Mozambique
<jvisser@learndev.org>
John Daniel’s editorial note in Education Today, the newsletter of
UNESCO’s Education Sector, of October-December 2002 on “Higher Education for
Sale” is shortsighted. The fallacy of Daniel’s claim that McDonaldization is
good for education lies in its generalization. It does not attend critically to
the larger picture of which phenomena like McDonald’s — whether the real chain
of fast food restaurants, or a metaphorical equivalent in some other area,
providing a readily available and affordable commodity — is a part. It also
errs in that it assumes implicitly that the learning human being can be defined
as the consumer of a product. From a human development perspective, the latter
assumption is a dangerous proposition.
It is well-known, from the vast
literature on research into the cost-effectiveness of distance education, that
significant economic gains can be derived from spreading the cost of the
labor-intensive process of design and development of high-quality instructional
interventions and materials. Gains can also be had by running supporting
educational infrastructure over a large number of potential beneficiaries. In
fact, this argument has been used extensively – and with increasing success –
in positioning distance education as a viable, and sometimes preferred,
alternative to more traditional forms of educational delivery. A similar
rationale drives the current trend towards standardization, continual
improvement, and reuse of so-called learning objects. As long as people make
wise use of such possibilities to economize, by reusing available educational
resources and spreading the cost of their use (by making them fit the learning
needs of many), there is no problem. There is a problem, however, when such principles
are being unwisely advocated as a major opportunity to solve the world’s
educational problems. As much as McDonald’s is not a major contributor to
solving the world’s food problems, commoditization of education is not a major
response to the learning needs of the world. Nor is it necessarily appropriate
to the nature of today’s most prominent learning needs. In fact, one should
apply great caution when using the principles of commoditization, if one wants
to ensure the integrity of human learning. By comparison, the occasional visit
to a McDonald’s outlet may not damage anyone’s health, but the proliferation
and generalization of McDonald’s-like eating habits definitely will.
Another serious problem lies in the
underlying assumption of Daniel’s editorial note: that all that needs to be
done is to expand access to materials and processes that were hitherto in the
hands of the traditional schooling systems. No questions are being asked about
the appropriateness of those schooling systems for today’s world; neither are
questions being raised about the meaning of human learning in the context of
our turbulently changing planetary society, as distinct from the much more
linearly conceived world of the past. No prompts are offered that might
generate thinking about possibilities to radically change the educational
enterprise, while we attempt to bring education to all.
Daniel largely misses the point when he
responds “yes” to the question he himself poses in his editorial note: “Is the
commoditization of learning material a way to bring education to all?” His
affirmative response reveals a vision of human learning that gives little
attention to what human development should focus on, namely the capacity to
constructively interact with a world in change and to creatively contribute to
how that world evolves as a place for all of humankind to feel at home. Such
human development would focus on exploring diversity instead of feeding
ready-made pieces of content.
Daniel’s response also reveals a vision
of the educational process that is dangerously narrow, as it sees learning as
the consequence of the provision of materials. I believe this to be wrong.
While I am aware that the availability of high quality learning materials is
often a crucial ingredient of an environment that encourages and facilitates
learning, the mere presence of such materials is frequently not a sufficient
condition. The learning process – if it is to lead to any reasonable depth of
understanding and thus to the development of abilities that allow people to
think and act autonomously, contributing to the well-being of their communities
and society – is infinitely more complex than what Daniel surmises.
To summarize, I thank John Daniel for
having provoked my passion. I hope he and his colleagues in UNESCO will be
ready to look beyond the narrow metaphor he proposes in his editorial note, and
beyond the often too narrow rationales that have driven the EFA movement,
contradicting some of the better thinking that emanated from the 1990 World Conference
on Education for All. A more serious look at what actually happens in schools
and different alternative structured learning environments around the globe is
urgently needed. Learning materials, schools, distance education systems, or
teachers are not ends in themselves. They are means that serve social and human
development purposes that require a more serious exploration – not by the
experts but by the citizens of this planet at large – than what is proposed in
Daniel’s editorial note. u
A Learning
Burger with French Fries, Please
Vachel
Miller, Center For International Education, United States
<vmiller@educ.umass.edu>
In the film Pulp Fiction, one of the
characters laughs about the "Royale with Cheese," the name of the Big
Mac hamburger at McDonald's in Paris. Being cross-culturally sensitive, for
McDonald's, means changing the names of the same products, or, in some cases,
even offering slightly modified of its menu to suit local tastes. But
McDonald's is always McDonald's: hungry gut meets alienated worker heating up
processed food trucked in from some distant place.
Modern schooling, as Shikshantar points
out, shares similar characteristics. Adapting schooling to local culture often
means changing some of the pictures in the textbooks or re-arranging the
"menu" of standard curricular choices. Yet the fundamental
relationships remain the same, school after school. The school is a franchise
of the state: teachers operate the franchise, serving up the material they're
given; students are fed the pre-packaged stuff, as they come to accept that
learning tastes rather bland and that their they can only "learn"
what's in the Happy Meal lesson of the day.
When educators begin to think of
quality in the same way that McDonald's does, then they inevitably accept the
logic of efficiency and mass-production, choosing a narrow bottom-line and
abdicating control of structural choices to a central authority.
In his brief essay, John Daniel
suggests that UNESCO is thinking along these lines. More specifically, he is
arguing for expert collaboration on the production of learning materials for
wide distribution. I do see some value in this point: to the extent that there
is standard content which people want to learn, then it seems useful to make
that content available in as effective a manner as possible.
If I want to learn French, for example,
(and I choose to do so via my computer), then it's helpful for me to have
inexpensive, high quality software available. And if many different educators
and French speakers from different nations have contributed to creating that
software in a collaborative manner, than all the better.
But of course, that's only one mode of
learning, a mode in which I want to acquire competency as efficiently as
possible — I position myself here as a consumer of knowledge produced by
distant others. In some instances, that
may be an appropriate role. But if we believe that learning is much larger than
a mode of consumption, much more than a matter of efficient acquisition; if we
believe that learning is a matter of dialogue, of reciprocity, of creativity
and contribution to others — then it's probably more appropriate to think about
educational metaphors of community gardens and cooking dinner with friends,
rather than driving up to fast-food restaurants.
The metaphors we use to understand the
world have powerful implications for our actions. McDonalds and the modern
school are institutions affiliated with industrial metaphors: assembly line,
mass production, hierarchies of control, separation of humanity from nature,
etc. Industrial metaphors ignore or devalue human relationships and the
unpredictable, non-linear, overlapping, multi-level processes by which the
natural world organizes itself.
When metaphors change, new possibilities
of thinking and action open. If the learning environment is thought of as an
eco-system, rather than a factory; if teaching is thought of as nurturing a
garden, rather than managing a fast-food restaurant; if learning materials are
thought of as flour with which we make bread together, rather than as french
fries to be served by a worker to a customer — then we can begin to re-imagine
what we mean by education.
To explore this topic in more depth, I'd much rather share a meal at John Daniel's house, instead of sitting down to unwrap a Royale with Cheese at his neighborhood McDonald's in Paris. u
McDonaldization vs. Humanization
Vineeta Sood, Mirambika Free Progress School, India
<vineetasood@hotmail.com>
Wait! What are we talking about? Please help me understand. Are we talking about applying McDonald’s restaurants marketing strategy to education?
As Daniel himself has written, “First, McDonald’s restaurants account for only a tiny proportion of the food that people eat. Second, McDonald’s is successful because people like their food. Third, their secret is to offer a limited range of dishes as commodities that have the same look, taste and quality everywhere.”
Let’s translate these factors to education.
First, it will account for only a tiny proportion of the education that people seek. Second, it will be successful because people will like whatever is served to them in the name of education. Third, the secret will be to offer limited information that is universal in its approach and range.
He further says, “commoditization […] is a key process for bringing prosperity to ordinary people by giving them greater freedom and wider choice” out of “a limited range of dishes…” I see a lot of inherent contradictions here.
And what shall we keep as free gifts to promote the education? One coke free with each module? Or one diploma free with each degree? How can one commoditize education? What about the individual needs of the learner? What about the human touch in the process of learning? No. This can’t be serious. My first reaction was that of shock and disbelief. This is perhaps a joke and a satire on the existing mess within our educational system.
If all this has been said with the slightest of seriousness, then coming from Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO, this is a frightening development.
I think education is a very important aspect of our life and we need to go much deeper into every aspect of it. We really need to understand:
¨ What is the purpose of education?
¨ What is the relationship between our educational practices, learning, the growth of the individual and the growth of the society?
¨ What is the root cause of the problems we face in today’s world?
¨ What would help us make this world a sane place to live in?
Does education mean just imparting a piece of information followed by evaluation or is it something beyond it? Only if education can be directed towards humanizing the human race – creating sensitive, compassionate, and loving people – can we eliminate the possibility of another Godhra/Gujarat, September 11/ Iraq happening. From where did all this violence really originate and from where would sensitivity, love and empathy come? We really need to reflect upon this very seriously before considering any form of education for our children.
The use of the internet as a supplement to the main system is an acceptable idea to me. In this sense it is not commoditization of education but simply making information available to be put to the best use whenever required. However, I am not comfortable with the idea of using the internet as the main source of learning.
I believe that what we need to do is to create humane and natural learning environments that protect the child’s innate sensitivity, understanding, compassion, initiative, creativity, originality, problem solving attitude… and all the qualities we would like to see in our children.
Isn’t it ironic that today we need to “create” “natural” learning environments? Technology can be helpful in many ways but I am sure it can’t take the responsibility of developing this kind of learning environment. This is where the parents, the teachers and the members of society become instrumental.
Real education has to preserve the core of humanity and life that exists in each one of us. u
"Our
system of education is, to a large degree, a closed system. Students are tested and classified in
terms of two kinds of abilities - their ability to memorize information
and, to a lesser extent, their ability to analyze it. They are also taught
in ways that emphasize memory and analysis. As a result, we label students
who excel in these patterns of ability as smart or able. We may label
students who are weaker in these abilities as average or even slow or
stupid. Students
may, however, excel in other abilities that are at least as important as
those we now reward. Creativity and the practical application of information
- ordinary common sense or 'street-smarts' - are two such abilities that go
unappreciated and unrecognized. They are simply not considered relevant to
conventional education." - Robert J. Sternberg "What Does It Mean to Be Smart?",
1997
Education
and the Context: Where are we coming from? and Where are we going to?
Linda Mbonambi, eThekwini
Municipality Durban, South Africa
<mbonambil@iwcc.durban.gov.za>
Reading
through Shikshantar's response to John Daniel's note, I am reminded of the time
when I was in college. We were told that higher education is a privilege, not a
right. As students, we were bombarded with numerous arguments, reasons, or
excuses of why this is so. I guess with a view to make us feel important and
different.
I recall that
in my first year, I took a course which had 700 students. So many were the
students that the class had to be divided into two sessions of 350 students.
Basically each lesson and everything that went with it had to be replicated. It
felt like we were sardines getting hooked in the net of `knowledge'. Lecturers
encouraged us to consult with them on specific dates and times. I had noticed
that a few of their notes had yellowed with age. This was not seen as a
problem, or something to worry about.
In fact, it was seen as an indication of years of experience — something
that we all needed to be proud to know.
We were told
the purpose of a higher education is to teach, research and be of service to
the community. Although a number of the projects that existed at the University
sought to address the community service component of the University mission,
many courses in the curriculum were weak on reflecting this. Needless to say
that the material used was predominantly researched and produced in the west. A
sense of alienation from this pre-packaged education content was evident in the
quality of learners that the system produced. Many of us invariably came out
with the idea that ours is to learn, get degrees, get well-paying jobs, and
consume, consume and consume as much of our fruits of education, and
continually aspire to amass personal wealth and personal power. I am not
however saying that University education was silent on the relationship between
education and service to the society. All I am noting is that it was fairly
implicit, and didn't go far enough.
I should also
mention that during my college student days, to get a good grade depended on
your ability to know and adopt the thinking or ideological persuasion of a
lecturer. No avenues existed to stimulate each student's intellectual gifts,
interests and goals, in spite of numerous assignments to get us to think
critically. Many in higher education experience this, even up to this day.
It seems to me
that we need to press for change on the whole purpose of education. Education
should be about self discovery — especially in societies in the global South,
where forces of colonialism, racism and, in mine, apartheid, left indelible
marks in people's appreciation of themselves, their culture, their ways of
knowing and relating, their languages, their wisdoms, their values, their
development, as defined by them, etc.
My questions
are: (1) What role can social movements and people's organisations play to
promote different of forms of learning, with a view to transform the existing
credential-based, certificate-based system? (2) What should be done to create
recognition for other forms of learning while ensuring wider access? u
<gustavoesteva@terra.com.mx>
Last year, we were able to prevent
McDonald’s from invading the historical center of Oaxaca. A very creative
mobilization, which included the free distribution of samples of our rich
gastronomic diversity, like tamales, and a very democratic open forum,
forced the local authorities to cancel the authorization for the establishment,
in spite of strong pressure by the company and federal authorities. We are
doing the same with schools and education.
In suggesting McDonaldization of
education, UNESCO is just doing its job. Education is the commodification
(economization) of learning, transmogrifying it into a commodity, i.e. creating
scarcity. Economic scarcity is not real shortage. It assumes, as an organizing
principle for society, the foolish idea that man's wants are very great, not to
say infinite, but his means are limited, although improvable. This separation
of means and ends creates the "economic problem": the allocation of
resources, the allocation of limited means for alternative, infinite ends. In
our communities, such separation of means and end is seen as immoral and
foolish. If learning is defined as education or schooling, we suffer severe
scarcity of teachers, schools, etc. In reclaiming our own definition of
learning, as a free expression of our human condition as living beings, we are
enjoying the affluence of our own ways, through alternatives to education.
As Claude Alvares says, "modern
education" has been creating "mental, cultural or spiritual
clones...much before a cloned Dolly sheepishly crawled out of the lab".
Internet and the "knowledge packages" now being produced in the
"global campus" extend the threat farther than ever before. But as
solid and strong as the threat is, so is the resistance to it. Today, in
encouraging human beings to escape from education, we seek to dismantle the
most oppressive of the class divisions of modern society. u
Round 3
"In our present civilization we
have divided life into so many departments that education has very little
meaning, except in learning a particular technique or profession.
To attempt to solve the many problems
of existence at their respective levels, separated as they are into various
categories, indicates an utter lack of comprehension.
Education should bring about the
integration of these separate entities; for without integration, life becomes a
series of conflicts and sorrows."
- J. Krishnamurti
Education and Significance of Life, 19
Why
are we still forgetting issues about fairness, access,
content
and education for sustainable living?
Dania Quirola,
Sustainability Practitioner, Ecuador
<daniaquirola@andinanet.net>
McDonaldization
does not only generalize models and contents, but also avoids a core issue in
education: the concept of fairness. This starts with widespread limitations to
the basic right to information, learning, discovery and co-creation. This value
of fairness goes beyond opportunities to enter into formal education and
“one-size-fits-all model” that corresponds to the framework presented by
UNESCO. It is important to recognize that education does not only happen in a
classroom, but even there, fairness is an issue. The reality in developing
countries is that even those students who access to formal education, and who
want to have an opportunity in the labour market, have to purchase prestige by
paying tuitions higher than the average monthly salary of a farmer or any
worker who has the chance of a paid job.
Learning is not like buying a burger. We should not be obligated to buy
our capacity to be exposed to learning in any form and even less when being treated
as simple recipients of “one-size-fits-all” models. Furthermore, we should not be forced to participate in a system
that promotes the homogenisation of our diverse ways of thinking, because
sameness is not equal to fairness. It actually reinforces inequities and
discrimination in our societies!
Access
to research is a core aspect. I come from South America and there is more
research about my country done by Ph.D. and masters students from US, Canada
and Europe than in my own country. Starting from the fact that we do not have a
Ph.D. degree in our universities and cannot afford four years of research in a
specific topic. If we consider issues such as biology, the largest collections
of endemic species from South America are not in our museums but abroad. Basic
access to information that has been produced in our countries should be
available. Furthermore, research done at universities should be available at
least on the Internet. Even to simply know what has been researched about our
culture and environment. Being part of an international programme for my
masters' degree, it is amazing that anytime I needed research related to the
courses I took in Sweden, I had to use personal contacts to access it instead
of just going to our website. The other way around, if I generate new learning
I face restrictions to present it in the formal educational system. We should be empowered to apply our right to
know and to share!
Another
threat is an educational model that, beyond the intention of “education for
all,” does not focus on access to information; but rather imposes learning
methodologies and contents that prepare us for a diploma, but not for a
life-affirming future. By 'life-affirming', I mean that our learning and
interactions should really contribute to better knowing ourselves, to cooperating
in creating alternatives that benefit society, and to living in balance within
our selves and with our environment.
Being
an economist by education, I feel a deep lack of learning in matters that could
better prepare me to face the economic problems of my society. I am conscious
about theories and expensive technologies that simply do not work in my local
context. Following my curricula, I had studied and was scored based on dozen of
North American books about Macro and Microeconomics. All these models would
never consider basic problems such as corruption, inequities and the lack of
full employment. My good sense of simplicity tells me that something needs to
be changed with this homogenisation of learning. Solutions cannot be imported from Boston!
A
first step to engage in a life-affirming learning process has to deal with
personal reflections about who I am and what is my role in creating a better
society? Can you remember an occasion when you were truly asked to answer these
basic questions?
The
futures of our civilisations rely on diversity and creativity. We cannot be the
same taste, the same look everywhere. We as human beings are diverse, and we
have diverse ways of learning and living. This right to be different and
respect these differences should be a basis for our educational system, if it
is to open sources for co-creation.
Access
to information, yes; access to learning, yes; access to options, yes. But, let
us be careful when trying to impose our way of living on other communities. It
might be that we both lose! And, furthermore, the model that is being imposed
as “the way to be” is proven to be harmful for people all over the world and
the planet that sustain us. I expect from those involved in global governance
(such as UNESCO) a deep understanding of diversity and indeed, the realisation
that we need to create multiple means of learning and living in more
sustainable ways! u
Rick Smyre, Center for
Communities of the Future, USA
<rlsmyre@aol.com>
After
I read John Daniel’s editorial note on “Higher Education for Sale” and also
many responses to his comments, it felt as if I were in a personal time tunnel,
moving at mental and emotional light speed back to the mid-1980s. This was a
period of transition for me in many ways as a result of many shifts… from the
corporate world of textiles to a director of a community based foundation; from
traditional educational ideas as a school board member to an interest in new
forms of learning; from a world- view based on industrial age ideas to a new
world view that seemed to be emerging but which I could not see with any
clarity.
Thus,
the mid-80s were a time when I began to realize I didn’t have the answers and,
in fact, was not sure I was able to ask appropriate questions. I was a product of a system of education
which provided the right answer, treating most knowledge in a standard,
commoditized way, requiring evaluation in true/false, multiple choice
questions. Yet, the more I experienced our changing society and world, the more
I sensed that, at best, I was being offered partial truths, and that many old
ways no longer worked.
So
I began to read articles and books that were about the future, books that were
never of interest to me before while a traditional business manager. I decided
to read material that was out of the mainstream. I found these new ideas always
make me uncomfortable, leaving me with a feeling that I couldn’t quite grasp
what was being said…and, for me, that was a difficult emotional experience
because, for years, I had been expected ( or so I thought ) to provide nothing
but answers as a CEO.
As
I read John Daniel’s editorial note, I thought of a story I had read in the
1980s that began to help me change my thinking about the role of education in
the US and in general. According to the story, a delegation of businessmen
traveled to Japan to talk to those involved with making the Japanese system of
education the envy of the world. One of the key individuals interviewed was
Naohiro Amaya, a key official and philosopher at the Ministry of International
Trade and Industry at Osaka. During one particular meeting, a question was
asked of Dr. Amaya, “what would you suggest we do in the US to model what you
have achieved in Japan.” With a look of surprise and almost incredulity Dr.
Amaya responded, “with all respect, you ask an inappropriate question. If you
Americans would look beyond tomorrow, you would realize that we are approaching
a new type of economy and society, one that will require continuous innovation.
Our system of education is structured to provide narrow skills that are
standard to insure the best workforce in the industrial world. Your society is
much more open and responsive to change than ours. You should link the natural
advantages of your culture with a learning environment where all people are
capable of creating new ideas to support a 21st century world that
will demand continuous innovation. (I searched the Internet in vain for the
exact quote knowing the limitations of my memory. Not finding it, I offer my
apologies for providing a quote which gets at the essence of the meaning of Dr.
Amaya’s brilliant observation).”
I
remember stopping and thinking about this story in 1985. If Dr. Amaya was on
target, our educational map for the 21st century was ill-conceived
because it assumed knowledge ( a McDonald’s hamburger or Starbuck’s cup of
coffee ) is all that we need to be prepared for the future….and standardized
knowledge at that. This started me on a journey of thinking about the needs of
the future of education that continues to this day. If we needed the capacities
to innovate continuously, we would always need core knowledge modules. However,
a world in constant change would need so much more for all individuals to
learn, no matter where they lived in the world.
If
we are to collaborate economically, politically and socially in a constantly
changing, interconnected and increasingly complex world, we need to appreciate
diversity in culture and thinking, and we need to see more than one answer to
everything. We need to be able to ask appropriate questions so that we can
identify trends and weak signals and see new connections and patterns important
to creativity and innovation.
I
believe that we are in a time of transformation that requires a parallel
strategy of developing short-term competencies while seeding longer-term
capacities for transformation. In a Wisdom Society, continuous learning will be
central to insuring vitality and sustainability of an endangered globe. Not
only do we need to insure more quantity of literacy and basic skills, we need
the emergence of a new framework of transformational learning that looks to the
future, develops connective thinking and creates safe havens for continuous
innovation.
This
will not be done, in my opinion, by taking a McDonalization approach to
education, although core types of knowledge will be important for everyone. We
will be living in a increasingly complex world that will require both basics
akin to existing ideas of UNESCO, as well as new capacities for continuous
innovation, which will require a transformation of thinking and acting. It is
not either/or. It is and/both.
As
someone who didn’t begin to see the need to change and transform my thinking
until the age of 49, I know how difficult it is to shift perspective. I have
empathy and appreciation for someone who is trying to do the right thing, yet
is focused within a context of traditional thinking. The best of all worlds
would be for John Daniel to become a champion of both basic education and
transformational learning. UNESCO is in a perfect position to be the harbinger
of a new system of learning that takes the best of existing educational methods
and, in parallel, adds a new genre of learning aligned with the needs of
continuous innovation that will assure a balance of diverse human, spiritual,
ethical, economic and moral values.
There
will always be commodities and a need for standardization in certain sectors of
our world economy. However, our transforming world needs human beings that are
more than customers. We need human beings that are collaborative neighbors,
good stewards of ecology and concerned and involved citizens. We need citizens
that think of more than themselves. We have seen what occurs when education
limits our thinking to that of commoditization. We begin to focus inwardly and cease to look for connections.
This not only prevents communication and collaboration so important to world
peace, but prevents the ability to innovate effectively, so important to vital
and sustainable economies and communities.
We
are in a time of historical transition in so many ways. None is more important
and more difficult than in the arena of education….requiring a transformation
of thinking to help learning/education align with the needs of newly emerging
and transforming societies. It was the insight and leadership of Naohiro Amaya
that helped establish Japan’s position in the world in the 1980s. At this time
of historical challenge and educational transformation, there could be no greater
legacy for someone in John Daniel’s position than to transform his thinking and
to help others shift their perspective… from a standardized approach of
education to one that integrates core 21st century competencies,
local experiential learning, and the creation of new connective capacities
consistent will an emerging and increasingly innovative world. u
Jennifer Gidley, Spirit of
the Times International Educational Initiatives, Australia
<jgidley@scu.edu.au>
“Commoditization
of learning material’ as a way of bringing ‘education to all’. The very word commoditization brings a
shudder to the souls of educators who see education and learning as creative
processes, fostering the development of human wisdom.
This
ideal – that education is related to the development of human wisdom – has been
the driving force behind many of the great Western educational figures
(Steiner, Dewey, Montessori, Pestalozzi).
That someone of John Daniel’s education, experience and position, could
ever consider the analogy of McDonald’s as a way of bringing ‘education to
all’, shows just how far removed from the ideals, the concept of ‘education’
has become in mainstream Western educational discourse.
Tragically,
the ideals of last century’s educational visionaries have become buried in
recent decades behind the frenzy to develop ‘vocational skills and
competencies’ so as to be competitive in the new global markets. In this economic rationalist climate,
efficiency has become the new guiding philosophy of mainstream public education
in the West. Instead of guiding the
young towards wisdom we have ‘customer service’, ‘delivery enhancement’ and
‘outcomes’. In a sense the business
mentality that drives the McDonalds of the world already drives mainstream
Western education.
And
yet, anyone who is familiar with the educational research in the West in recent
years will know that there is a groundswell of resistance among progressive
educators to economic rationalism as the underpinning philosophy of Western
higher education. It is becoming clear
that the mass education model is in effect failing our own children and young
people. Youth futures research suggests
that many (mainstream-educated) young people in the West are negative and
fearful about their futures, disenchanted and disempowered by their education,
and have a sense that there is a spiritual vacuum in their society.1 Educational futurists have suggested
for decades that more artistic, integral teaching methods, using imagination,
visualisation and prosocial skills, would enhance confidence and creativity,
and better prepare our young people to face an uncertain future. Interestingly, this was supported by
research with young people educated in Steiner schools in Australia. Compared with mainstream educated young
people, they were found to be more able to envision positive preferred futures,
and to have a strong sense of empowerment that they can work towards creating
their preferred futures. Interestingly,
their visions also placed human agency at the centre of a transformed world,
unlike the techno-fix solutions found in much of the mainstream research.2
It is believed that the Steiner approach, which provides an integral mix
of intellectual, artistic, and practical education, can also balance the strong
negative messages that bombard young people from the media.
So
it seems that the latest educational research in the US and Australia suggest
that the Taylorist assembly-line model of mass education with its mechanistic
assumptions about human nature is failing our own kids. Leading edge educational thinkers the world
over know that this industrial model of education is no longer applicable to
the post-industrial age. While
educational entrepreneurs may argue that what they are intending to commoditize
is the latest high-tech educational packages, which they believe will lead us
into a new golden age of educational equity.
However, if the educational model the West is promoting is failing our
own kids, why on earth would we want to import it to other cultures?
Perhaps
it is partly because of the West’s own lack of courage to throw out the
outmoded factory models of education that educators like Daniel attempt to
promote them as suitable ‘for all’.
Perhaps it is a feeble way to convince ourselves that ‘the educational
product’ we have on offer is still viable.
It is true that although there has been increasing outcry in the US
against the commercialisation and commoditization of education, the growing tip
of educational innovation and transformation has been slow to get off the
ground. Yet the quantity and variety of
alternative higher education approaches is increasing.3 The emerging integral education
movement represented by a number of dynamic creative centres around the US, is
also gathering steam.4 Ironically, some of the insights that they
are beginning to introduce were already being developed almost a century ago by
people like Rudolf Steiner in Europe and Sri Aurobindo Ghose in India.
Learning
is not a commodity. It is a creative
process, with the development of human wisdom as its goal. u
Reclaiming Personal Responsibility for Our
Shared Learning
Bob Stigler, New Stories,
USA
<bob@berkana.org>
I
remember, last year, listening to the father of a friend of mine in
Croatia. The father had been a crusader
and freedom fighter for years. He was
filled with sadness as he shook his head and said “you know, what we need is a
strong man for five years who will come in and set this country straight, then
we can get on with things.” He knew it
wouldn’t happen. I knew it was not what
should happen. There were alternatives
he was not even able to see because they were so different than his world.
Mr.
Daniels reminds me of my friend’s father.
Undoubtedly well intended, but missing a sense of how the world is
shifting.
What
is learning? What processes enable it?
What is knowledge? How is it
shared? How is this changing? What new stories are possible?
New
things are possible now. The Internet’s
capacity to support connectivity is a critical part of the new
possibilities. For a fraction of the
investment needed to support the kind of scheme Daniel suggests, we now have
the technology that would allow us to create an internet-based global idea bank
of learning resources and materials.
Using the same kind of open-source orientation Zaid Hasson talks about
in his response, learners and those who support their learning from all over
the world could contribute to this bank.
User rating systems where people who use the materials created and
offered by others could quickly help in sorting the most frequently useful
materials to the top.
But
the challenges involved in moving into this new story are not primarily of the
technological variety.
The
challenges are really about how we think about ourselves and each other. And how we choose to connect with and
support each other on our separate and common learning journeys.
If
we want to move beyond a world of classrooms populated by teachers and learning
materials which are mass produced by a dominating culture, individually and
collectively we must begin to exercise higher and higher levels of personal
responsibility as the producers of our shared learning...
Each
of us, in this journey through life, has been blessed by deep and powerful
learnings as both learners and teachers.
Some who serve now as teachers have developed new ideas, processes and
methods that help others learn things more successfully. Others who serve as parents have found
creative and innovative ways to help their children. People who work on the farm and in the factory have developed new
ways of doing things and new ways of sharing their knowledge with others. In reality, most of us spend part of every
day as learners and as teachers. In addition, we’re called upon from time to
time to get more organized so we can share particular skills, concepts, ideas,
and ways of thinking with others.
However,
much of what we each 'organize' gets lost – quickly. To ourselves, as well as others.
We don’t tend to see ourselves as 'teachers'. We don’t tend to value what we’ve developed in our own
contexts. We certainly don’t see
sharing what we’ve learned in our roles as teachers with others as a critical
responsibility.
But
it is a critical responsibility. One of
the things I have always admired about Shikshantar is that it has seen this
responsibility. It has had an ongoing
commitment to organizing its learning and sharing it with others.
The
world Daniel describes is the one that will emerge by default unless two things
happen. Now.
Back
in the last century many of us speculated that investment in nuclear power
plants was more "manly" than investment in solar, wind and
geo-thermal energy. After all, it takes a real he-man to split an atom! And,
incidentally, nuclear power plants provide a centralized point of production as
well as distribution grids which can be used to justify whatever the market
will bear in terms of profits. Alternatives sources were owned by the folks who
generated them on their rooftops and in their fields or on their coasts. They
were small scale and were locally used to make life a little better – not to
make an economic profit.
Developing
the systems that let us share our power – be it electricity or learning
resources – is a clear, viable and necessary alternative to commodification. u
|
<davidwolsk@shaw.ca>
As
disappointing as it was reading John Daniel’s Editorial Note, it was
encouraging reading the replies. . . all of them excellent, well stated and
saying what needs to be said.
For
this dialogue to advance, it is also important to examine McEducation in light
of current research from neurological and cognitive sciences. Although there are about 1000 research
reports summarised in the National Research Council book, How People Learn:
brain, mind, experience and school, edited by John D. Bransford, et al.,
2000, the conclusions for me reduce to the following:
1.
Self-directed,
experiential education is the most effective approach.
2.
Learning how
to learn and metacognitive lessons are also important.
3.
Each learner
needs their own uniqueness recognised, by the teachers, fellow students, and
the learner.
4.
Learning
from exposure to the real adult world, and then encouraged to be analytical
about what is experienced, is important.
5.
Most
learning disabilities are an outcome of teaching errors and easily become
self-fulfilling prophecies. The brain is enormously capable of repair and
re-organisation, but it needs continuous challenges to drive the process.
I hope as many of you as possible will
join the Nov 20 – 23 2003 international conference in Victoria, Canada where
these issues can be discussed in more detail (www.WorldWeWant.ca). We will also be doing some action planning
around a global system for local responsiveness based on self-directed
experiential learning -- without commoditization. u
Ashish Kejriwal, Learning
Environments and Possibilities, India
<leap_today@rediffmail.com>
I
want to be a part of a learning community. Where am I centered? Reading and
writing are important tools of communication.
It is an art. I can read and look for all the possible errors. I can
read beyond the errors and see ‘what is’ being communicated. I can read to
learn the new or to teach what I already know.
I
have had many children in my classroom who expressed their deep feelings with
wrong words and sometimes wrong suggestions.
I have always fought with teachers who criticised words and their
meaningful implications instead of acknowledging that the child has created a
possibility for a meaningful creative dialogue.
It
seems to me that Mr. Daniel has clearly stated that he would like teachers to adapt
to the best materials, help students learn them, and assess their competence
and knowledge, in the last paragraph.
One possibility he has suggested is described with the words ‘McDonaldization’
and ‘Commoditization’.
What
he wants is separate from how he thinks he is going to get there. I see a
meeting point between ‘what we want’ and I see the possibility of having
meaningful interactions which can invite the different ways to achieve this
goal. I want what he wants - Real
Prosperity, Freedom, Choice. I want some standard discipline in creating
materials which will enhance intelligence across the globe.
In
my mind, what comprises the ‘basic content’ for the materials?
a) Curiosity
b)
Courage
c)
Confidence
d)
Independence
e)
Resourcefulness
f)
Resilience
g)
Patience
h)
Competence
i)
Understanding
We should get
people together to think and create material with the above roots in mind. The
matter can be built according to the issues, conditions and value system of
different lands. But in this case, the basic food is standardized. One has to
clearly understand what is to be standardized and how can we bring diversity
and harmony in our material.
One
thing that I can clearly see is the necessity today for people to find spaces
where they can engage in a meaningful way. Give them space to be. I am not
interested in selling pre-determined lessons in these spaces but I can provide
some tools and have resourceful educators who will give people a great
experience of learning in togetherness.
Are
there any people, entrepreneurs, groups, etc. willing to build such learning
spaces? For all you know, a small cooking facility in such a Learning Space
would divert a good amount of youth away from McDonald's just because they will
have the opportunity to choose, cook and just have fun with food.
I
am not interested in criticizing Mr. Daniel’s words. I still think that if all
of us come together and take a stand for creation, we can enroll him into
understanding our viewpoint and make a committed team worldwide.
Sylvia Lee, World Initiative for Lifelong Learning and
Knowledge Management International, Canada
Jan Visser notes that
John Daniel’s editorial note is shortsighted because it is generalized, and
that is true. But Visser also states that wise use of mass produced learning
materials does not pose a problem. Again, he is right. It is not so much a
question of whether commoditization of learning materials is right or wrong,
but whether it is appropriate or not for a particular situation.
Before addressing the
main issue, though, it is critical to note that Daniel’s editorial note refers
to commoditizing learning materials.
Nowhere in the note does he mention, let alone promote, commoditization of
learning itself. That difference is critical, and responses to Daniel’s note
should address the idea stated, not confuse learning materials and education
with learning. Daniel states that learning materials should be readily
available. He doesn’t state that every single learning situation should require
the use of a particular learning material or set of materials. The problem lies
not so much in the materials themselves but in "teachers" who do not
teach, but rather merely present the information in the materials and
"learners" who have learned to absorb such materials without
questioning, analysis, or even thought. The real problem, then, is rooted in
the practise of teaching and our commoditization of teaching. Producing
cookie-cutter teachers guarantees an education system that stifles deep
learning, focusing instead on superficial learning that is readily measurable
through things such as multiple choice tests.
That said, the question
then becomes, "Are there times or situations in which commoditized
learning materials are effective?" The answer is yes, but a qualified yes.
It depends what is commoditized. If the learning materials attempt to prescribe
learning (content, context, techniques, etc.) then is unlikely to be of any use
to anyone. But if the learning materials focus on underlying concepts and
principles, and leave the teachers and learners to build on that foundation to
develop the best approaches to learning, and achieve the best outcomes for learning,
then it can be very effective.
Some of the concerns
raised about Daniel’s note seem to revolve around the idea that commoditized
learning materials, by definition, force people into a box. They can — the
classic example of that would be indoctrination. But they don’t have to. A
great teacher is not one who needs to have learning materials that set out
exactly what to say and do at what point in a lesson — she uses the materials
as a resource to foster and nurture exploration, synthesis, and evaluation in
learners.
Commoditization of
teacher training is what suppresses great teachers. Great teachers can use
freely available materials well. Even if we were able to produce the
"perfect learning materials" (I know, I know, I don’t believe in that
either!) that wouldn’t make mediocre teachers into great teachers. It’s not the
tools that make the teachers.
There is another problem
with Daniel’s note, though. I believe it is the wrong analogy. He calls it
commoditization, but what he actually says is that learning materials should be
freely and readily available. The two are, by definition, incompatible.
Commoditization means the same learning materials for all. Freely available
means teachers and learners have a wide choice of materials and the ability to
choose to meet specific needs, or to create their own materials, or to not use
any at all.
McDonaldization is based
on the same ingredients or components being put together in a rigidly structure
way, resulting in uniform outputs. Even then, there are some differences — no
two Big Mac’s, for example, are exactly alike. The buns will be slightly
different shapes, the size and shape of the lettuce leaf on the hamburger will
be unique to each hamburger, and so on. To assume that the same information or
experience poured into a group of human beings will result in uniform learning
and uniform behaviour is ludicrous. We all know it cannot possibly happen. Even
with indoctrination, no two people will gain exactly the same understanding
from each learning experience, because, again by definition, learning is
something that happens within the context of prior experience, personality, and
many other things unique to each human being. Making learning materials easily
accessible when and where they are needed is not McDonaldization unless those
materials attempt to prescribe what and how every single person learns, and
assumes that humans do not have the capability of, or capacity for, driving
their own learning.
As
Visser says, learning materials alone do not lead to learning. There has to be
a teacher and a learner (and those two, of course, might well be the same
person!) and there has to be interest and need, and desired outcomes. While
Daniel’s statement is extremely narrow in focus, those of us around the world
active in the lifelong learning field must not respond with a knee-jerk
reaction, but look to the broader picture, and continue to promote learning —
not just education. Education is what teachers do. Learning is what the
learners do. Learning is an internal process. No teacher, however great, can
make a person learn unless by using methods that destroy individuality, such as
making people learn through fear.
Questions of Learning and Unlearning
Jamie Schweser, Active
Element Foundation, USA
<jamieschweser@yahoo.com>
After
reading the collection “McEducation for All?” I have a few questions about
where the discussion of the commoditization of education could go next. It seems to me that many people in the NGO/
educational advocacy world lack a holistic understanding of the educational
systems that they support and create.
1.
I would like to believe that John Daniel and others mean to make the world a
more beautiful and healthy place for all, but that their perspectives and
experiences make it hard for them to see the problems inherent in their
approach. So I would like to explore
personal stories that highlight the kind of unlearning that people in similar
areas of work have done, in order to change or broaden their perspective and
approach to “education” (and to find out how that unlearning has affected their
work).
2.
Within the socio-economic framework that UNESCO educational work exists, the
open source curriculum suggested by John Daniel seems doomed to promote and
enforce culturally-specific values and information upon others. But are there
examples of open-sharing of information and learning materials that have been
broadly useful and non-colonial in nature?
How are people successfully sharing the results of their experiments and
learning across cultures and nationalities, while maintaining the dignity and
humanity of all involved?
These questions seem important to me, because it seems that those of us who are most blind to the negative effects of McEducation (and also who stand to gain the most materially speaking) have a lot to learn about learning, and the unique and important ways it happens and benefits people in situations and cultures different than our own. u
McEducation,
Prosperity and Homo Economicus
Venkatesh R. Iyer, University
of Delaware, USA
<viyer@udel.edu>
That
the Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO should call for a
"worldwide movement to commoditize education for the common good" is
a sad reflection of the times we live in. But then again, if we truly understand
what the nature of these times are, we would rightly cease to expect any better
from those in such exalted positions; and go about, calmly but diligently, with
our work of helping create and preserve pockets of sanity in a world that has
been driven to the point of orchestrated mass madness.
Let
us have no illusions: 'education', as it has come to be promoted by the
high-and-mighty during the past few generations, is by-and-large a process of
efficiently mass-transforming unsuspecting ‘homo sapiens’ into ‘homo
economicus’, by the time that they are of the
‘eligible-to-die-fighting-for-your-country’ age. One cannot overemphasize the
vital nature of this truly 'modern enterprise' for the continuation of the
materialist barbarism ushered in by colonialism, industrialism and militarism
over the past five hundred years.
That
our champion of “commoditization” at
UNESCO should also hail it as the “key process for bringing prosperity to
ordinary people by giving them greater freedom and wider choice”, ought to be
well noted. “Freedom”, “Prosperity”,
“Choice”, and of course
“Democracy”, are popular words in the lexicon of the
apologists of modern tyranny, to be
used freely for concealing its dependence on the world-wide organization
of violence and misery. Though this has
become ever more stark in recent years, the signs were already plainly visible
to Mahatma Gandhi in the first decades of the twentieth century. Speaking at a students’ meeting at Agra in
late 1920, he observed:
"We are dazzled by the shining lustre of our
chains and look upon them as the symbols of our freedom. This state [of mind]
bespeaks slavery of the worst kind."
― in Navajivan,
8-12-1920
A
few years later, Gandhi wrote again lamenting this human tendency to be easily
dazzled by glamorous outward appearances, while failing to recognize the
violence that sustains them.
"Today, the superficial glamour of the West
dazzles us, and we mistake for progress the giddy dance which engages us from
day to day. We refuse to see that it is surely leading us to death. Above all
we must recognize that to compete with the Western nations on their terms is to
court suicide. Whereas if we realize that notwithstanding the seeming supremacy
of violence it is the moral force that governs the universe, we should train
for non-violence with the fullest faith in its limitless
possibilities." ― in Young India, 22-8-1929
More
recently, this social phenomenon of being “dazzled” has been documented
carefully by the astute student of American life and history, David Nye, in his
book “American Technological Sublime”.1
As scientism, technicism, militarism and industrialism grew by mutually
reinforcing each other, the ‘technological sublime’ rapidly displaced the
traditional ideas of ‘sacred’ or
‘natural sublime’ as the source of the dominant values and institutions in the
Europe and the neo-Europes. With the
rapid appearance of a whole host of electrical trinkets and electrification in
the late 19th century, the ‘technological sublime’ assumed an even
more alluring character. Nye calls this the ‘electric sublime’.
Electrification2, accompanied by the phenomenal rise
of chemicals corporations during the
same period3, not only launched the era of global
mass-production, and what I like to
call the ‘global mining civilization’, but it also helped create the global
mass media and mass advertising, which have been the key agents of
‘McDonaldization’. Writing about the growth of electrical communication
technologies, Carolyn Marvin rightly identifies this period as crucial to the
growth of ‘cognitive imperialism’. In the epilogue to her book, “When Old
Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Later
Nineteenth Century”, she writes:
“Electric media were central to this work of
cognitive imperialism, in which Western civilization was the center of a stage
play for which the rest of the world was an awestruck audience”.4
Much
as I would like to elaborate on these themes, it would be inappropriate for me
to take up more space than I already have in what was intended to be a brief
comment. Instead, let me quickly summarize.
While
we let the Assistant Director General of UNESCO know what we think about his
proposals to encourage the commoditization of education, let us also redouble
our efforts to understand the sources of such commoditizing impulses, as also
warped notions of “freedom” and “prosperity”. As I have indicated above, the
phenomenon of “technological sublime”, and how it has been manipulated by the
mass media, ideologues and opinion makers over the past hundred years, needs to
be well understood if the ‘McEducation’ process is to be stoutly challenged. Also needed, I would offer, are deeper
insights into the methods in the madness of the twentieth century, that are
still very much with us. I hope we can
work collaboratively on all these fronts, even as we are trying to help create
and sustain alternative learning environments. u
McEducation: A New Tool of Subjugation
Arif Tabassum, Institute for Development Studies
and Practices, Pakistan
<ariftabassum@yahoo.com>
The
term “McDonaldization” is not just limited to the McDonald’s restaurant chain;
it is a process that leads people towards a homogenized culture, promotes
uni-lingual mass communication and even makes profits by selling indigenous
cultural values, humanistic sentiments, learning processes and interactions as
commodities. It is basically a Trojan horse, the most modern and fastest tool
for spreading imperialism, to further subjugate indigenous spaces of learning
and reflections to dominant socio-cultural and economic circumstances. The schooling system has been the most
trusted and tested ally of this imperialism for the last two hundred years. It
has prepared the ground for imperialism by colonizing the minds of the masses.
But
(fortunately or unfortunately) in last two hundred years, this schooling system
could not enslave all six billion people of the world. Many people resisted it
in different ways. Therefore,
“ideologues” of imperial powers [MNCs] strategized a new way to sell their
products, to indoctrinate the next generation as ‘efficient’ consumers. ‘Education
For All’ was introduced with “innovative” approaches for commoditizing
learning. By the co-option and support
of international organizations and government institutions, all the energies of
‘civil society’ organizations have been re-focused to implement this agenda all
over the world. In this situation, we should not be surprised if someone is
proudly sharing the idea of commoditization of education.
Let
us be clear: EFA is not about the promotion of learning. It is about increasing
consumers and developing markets along some of following terms:
¨
Giving
literacy on a mass level, so that neo-literates can read the “made in ---“
brand name marks on products of corporations and can buy them.
¨
In
EFA, the emphasis on computerization is just to increase compu-consumption
market. Distance learning approaches
[online course, etc.] are also supporting the marketing of computers and
Internet services and are promoting the advertisement industry.
¨
Killing
indigenous mode of expressions: linguistic and cultural imperialism by trying
to mainstream everyone into the education system and/or literacy classes.
¨
For
McEducation, every learner’s eagerness to learn is important only insomuch as
it can be converted into a profitable commodity. It has nothing to do with
their socio-economic and psycho-cultural context and circumstances. It never
cares about their indigenous cultural assets but only uses them as consumable
decoration pieces.
The
devastating consequences of McEducation outweigh any of its short-term
benefits. McEducation may be able to create new opportunities [of enslavement],
but these will be only for those who can afford it. We should never expect learning from this process, whether MNCs
or UNESCO promotes it.
What can we do?
We
can resist these approaches at all levels and protect our learning rights,
especially from pseudo-intellectuals, mal-practitioners and so-called experts
of education. It is very easy to sit in an air-conditioned halls of five star
hotels, having lavish lunches and mineral water bottles and, in the din of
ringing cell phones, to discuss the learning needs of the communities, living
hundred of kilometers from these hotels. But it is not easy to go to these
communities and learn ‘learning approaches’ from them. Because these schooled
people cannot relate their mal-intellect to the living learning of communities.
Again, the enslavement of the schooling system is at fault.
So
we have to counter such ‘visions’ of education and schooling, which are purely
based on the promotion of McWorld, a World where just one language, one culture
and one taste is desired to make more and more profit. We should counter such agendas on two
levels: 1) We should de-intellectualize these notions and ‘visions’ on every
forum organized at the national and international levels. 2) We should engage our communities in
reflective learning processes to strengthen and articulate their own visions of
learning, so that they can build their own ozone layer to protect their natural
learning processes from the severe effects of pseudo-intellectuals’ artificial
visions. u
"The
complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to
change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an
industry, and its proper use in not to serve industries, neither by
job-training nor by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to
enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially,
and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or
'accessing' what we now call 'information' (which is to say, 'facts
without context' and therefore without priority). A proper education
enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what
things are more important than other things; it means putting
first things first. The
first thing we must begin to teach our children (and learn ourselves) is
that we cannot spend and consume endlessly. We have got to learn to save
and conserve. We do need a 'new economy', but one that is founded on
thrift and care, on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An
economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is
its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy." - Wendell Berry "Thoughts
in the Presence of Fear",
2001
From
Consumers to
Co-Creators…
Nitin Paranjape, Abhivyakti Media for Development, India
<abhivyakti@sancharnet.in>
While
reading the McEducation dialogue several concerns came to my mind:
We
need to understand this relationship between creators and consumers. In the
modern world, the relationship is marked by a divide, which separates the two
and mostly brings them together in a space controlled by the Market. The
relationship is also based on the assumption (fueled by the many institutions
that shape our life) that there is limited space for only few creators. It is by design that the majority are
converted into consumers, which serves the commercial interest of a few. We
therefore need to understand this relationship, its underlying hierarchy, and
ask questions about its present status.
Creation
in the modern world gets de-linked from its core purpose and gets enmeshed in
the net spun by the entertainment-consumer market. Why do we create? That is
the question we all should be asking ourselves. Or, rather why are we not
involved in creating -- a process which that is so intrinsic to our life and
collective well-being? The danger in
McEducation is that we are made into such numb receivers, that we never think
to ask these questions.
I
ask myself about the purpose behind my expressions, my creations. When we
create something why does it have to be placed on the menu in the public
domain? What is our need to seek public approval? Is it appreciation? Assessment from experts? Commercial
consideration?
At
the core of my need to create is to communicate, to share my beliefs and
perceptions, to express my concerns and ideals. On another level, it is to
satisfy my inner need of creating meaning, exploring my thoughts and feelings
so that they mesh together into a fine web of my own and act as a mirror for
discovering myself. The process is of healing, and of learning. When I share it
with others it is not in order to please them, as is the condition today, but
to generate dialogue.
Dialogue
is crucial for my own growth as a creative person, and to understand what it
means to others. Does my creation
strengthen my relationship and contribute towards my communities’ well-being?
Dialogue also helps me in reflecting about the process, and makes me aware of
my limitation. Dialogue on my self, my creation and the community opens up
several possibilities. Possibilities of co-creation, partnerships,
apprenticeships, governance and other engagements which I never considered
important. The act of sharing is also intimate. It opens up my private world to
others, dynamically merging the public and private spheres, a vital process
missing from today’s impersonal world, and invites others to do the same. When
I am ready to start the dialogue based on my experiences and reflections, the
conversation is natural. The interaction transcends competitive concerns and
becomes rooted in human spirit and nurturance. While McEducation may
efficiently spread “information”, it effectively destroys this possibility of
dialogue.
The journey of self-discovery, finding meaning
through one’s own efforts and taking control of one’s creation, is an
irreversible, joyous and spiritual process. Such insights over the years have
convinced all of us at Abhivyakti <www.abhivyakti.org.in>, where I work,
to spread the value of becoming engaged with the creative process. It is what
we call promoting producers over consumers. We are convinced that a society
that stresses the importance of having a producer in each of its citizens would
be a dynamic society. A society different from the present, which has more
consumers than it has producers. More producers would mean variety in art
forms, stories, innovation in design.
Most importantly, this diversity wouldn’t be solely for commercial
purposes; the reason for its birth would be much more complex and organic. For
creators self-motivation is crucial. Motivation will provide energy to engage
with the process of creating over energy-draining consumption. It would also
mean all living spaces would throb with creative energy, making them vibrant
and alive, and thereby lessen the focus on a few urban centres, which are today
hotbeds of media activities. An environment of producers would mean that all
systems would be creating meaning. It would mean ourselves, our children,
families, our communities would be involved in the process of creation. Being
in the environment that nurtures producers and not just materials would mean
evolving our thinking, emotions, and relatedness.
<fode@pioneersofchange.net>
McDonald’s
model is not a bad one. It’s actually very good for what it wants to do. I understand the views of John Daniel. Do I
agree? That’s another story. Unfortunately, I doubt he will understand the
fierce criticism regarding his idea.
Why?
The
issue at stake is the premise behind the way we see and experience the world,
as well as how we relate to each other. He is (implicitly) for the status quo,
for preserving the systems and the assumptions about how life is currently
organized: mainly, for continuous growth and profit, irrespective of the
aspiration that counters this ideology.
Consequently,
he merely responds to the impetus of how best to educate the population where
quantitative measure is the absolute. This implies (unconsciously, since he
does hold ‘good intentions’) preparing and educating the population for
consumerism, and limit critical thinking to the efficiency of the system rather
than challenging the system itself.
Christopher
Lash, in ‘Culture of Narcissism’ writes:
“Mass
production,” said the Boston department store magnate Edward A. Filene in 1919,
“demands the education of the masses; the masses must learn to behave like
human beings in a mass production world…They must achieve, not mere literacy,
but culture”.
Lash
notes:
“In
other words, the modern manufacturer has to ‘educate’ the masses in the culture
of consumption”
In
my view, it is clear that the McDonald’s model requires the vision of Filene.
And I doubt anyone with common sense (unless they have a narrow sense of
economic dogma) would genuinely believe education should serve this purpose.
But, we may reach this outcome indirectly through the support of this model.
However,
let’s look beyond this model and see how futile and biased the arguments
against it have become due to the vested interests involved in supporting such
an unsustainable model in terms of quality of life. I read an article in the
Washington Times recently. They were quoting a study from the US Chamber of
Commerce stating that the fast food industry should not be blamed for obesity
problems: the cause was rather related to the eating habits of individuals,
such as eating a snack between meals. ‘Incidentally’, the report appeared while
the Fast-Food industry came under fierce criticism and faced numerous libel
suites.
Why
is the result predictable and how is it related to education?
For
one, let’s look at who owns the Washington Times newspaper. It’s a
self-proclaimed Messiah named Sun Myung Moon (he believes he is the incarnation
of God fulfilling the mission of Christ) whom immigrated from Korea years ago.
Who supports this Messiah? Former President Reagan, and Father and Son Bush
(Rev. Moon was a VIP guest at the inauguration of Reagan and Bush Sr.)
In
fact, Bush Sr. supported the “Messiah” to spread his paper in Latin America
during a launch in 1996, calling Moon “…the man with the vision…” and about the
Washington Times: “'The editors of the Washington Times tell me that never once
has the man with the vision interfered with the running of the paper, a paper
that in my view brings sanity to Washington DC.''
If
that is so, it’s brainwashing at its finest.
Ironically,
Moon professed on a number of occasions that he was an ‘ordinary’ guy because
he went to McDonald’s (I had to throw that in without intending to put much
weight on this fact).
This
brief account is no coincidence, and the reason why the Washington Times can
write such ‘news’ as serious rather than in the humorous section is because a
large part of the population is lead to believe this. Regrettably, there is
truth in their distorted integrity: with the lenses of a profit-making machine,
you can avoid cognitive dissonance by seeking the tiniest argument and
extrapolating on a grand scale. For example, eating snacks between meals may
well contribute to obesity. But does that argument hold as a significant weight
compared to the grease, fat, and other chemicals in the processed food eaten
regularly? Of course not.
It
doesn’t take much discernment to see it through. Or does it? Or could it be a matter of education? If so,
what kind of education?
What
is required is a kind of education that serves primarily the interest of the
learner with a critical appreciation of the world. Without a discernment
process to see what lies behind the scenes, we are merely actors regurgitating
the script written by a few while thinking we are particularly brilliant (e.g.
John Daniel). Education should give us the ability to read between the lines.
I’ll
be the first to admit that I admired McDonald’s when I was at university. Who
wouldn’t? (provided their opinion came from textbooks and Fortunate magazine).
We heard about how McDonald’s was great in marketing (pointing out the use of
children in their publicity stunt and saying it with a straight face), that it
didn’t have a union, etc. Basically, we were unconcerned and not given a
perspective regarding the consequences of the McDonald’s industry, especially
regarding lifestyle and appreciation for healthy habits (isn’t it being healthy
uncool?). And surely we didn’t hear about the lobbying made to reduce the
minimum salary of teenagers (16) because they were a source of cheap labor.
So
here we have it: schools prepare for industry. School loves McDonald’s.
McDonald’s loves school.
So
yes, John Daniel is a genius.
Whether
it should be this way or not, who is it to decide? Citizens? Consumers?
Investors? u
Time for an Uprising Against Global
Corporatism
Paul Cienfuegos, Democracy
Unlimited, USA
<cienfuegos@igc.org>
-->John Daniel's comments are a perfect
example of the sorry state of this world, where the commodification of just
about everything is now complete. Corporations are artificial entities. Yet
corporations are given more rights by our governments than are given to We The
People: they have unlimited terms of
existence, their owners have limited liability, their managers are rarely held
responsible for the harms they do, corporations are treated by the courts as
citizens with civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. If
corporations break the law, they cannot be imprisoned. They are allowed to
dominate our social and political life through far-reaching decisions affecting
products, investments, pollution, safety and jobs, as well as through their
manipulation of elections, laws, and the media.
Large
corporations no longer have to lobby politicians, they make sure the candidates
they support have all the money they need to win, and then they virtually own
them. Large corporations no longer need to control the mass media — they now
own it, and thus can shape the parameters of almost any public debate. Large
corporations no longer have JUST television advertising to reach the lucrative
market made up of children — they now produce the academic materials that end
up being used by many schools in our increasingly (and purposefully)
under-funded public school system. (The above is true here in the US at least.)
People
don't eat corporate food because it's tastier or better than locally produced
foods. They eat it because of the constant barrage of advertising they're
subjected to. You need go no further than the testimony under oath of various
McDonald's executives during the infamous McLibel trials in Britain years ago
for proof of this <www.mcspotlight.org>. When a McD's VP for marketing
was asked about his work for the company, he stated, "If we didn't
advertise, no one would buy our food." Now THAT'S quite an admission, eh?
Mr. Daniel's should be ashamed of himself for writing such tripe. He has
committed one of the greatest crimes in any democratic society — turning
"citizens" into mere "consumers", where producers of goods
are magically transformed into a totally different group of people from those
who consume the goods — all neat and tidy (but ridiculous). Consumer choice
does not a democracy make! People power is collective power. The choice whether
to buy or not buy a product (be it an educational "product" or a
burger) is false power, yet it's exactly the kind of power corporate leaders
want our social movements to focus our work towards building, as it
marginalizes our effectiveness.
In the summer of 2002, UNICEF's Executive Director Carol Bellamy announced her
organization's "partnership" with McD's to raise funds for children's
charities, including UNICEF, and to launch "McDonald's World Children's
Day" to commemorate the anniversary of the UN adoption of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child. An international outpouring of opposition attempted
to change her mind but was unsuccessful (see following page).
What we are witnessing is the final stage of the corporatization of all of our
institutions, our cultures, our very lives. Now UNESCO. The UN is even
considering giving individual corporations delegate status at the table, as if
they were nation states or NGOs. What is needed to turn this abomination around
will be nothing short of a global democratic uprising against corporatism in
all of its guises. No small task to achieve, but in my opinion, we have no
other options left. u
Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (DUHC) is a grassroots
effort to reclaim citizens' historic authority to define and govern the
formation and operation of the corporation. We lead 'First Steps Toward
Dismantling Corporate Rule' workshops. <www.monitor.net/democracyunlimited>
In
July, Commercial Alert and 57 public interest groups, health professionals,
elected officials and child advocates asked UNICEF to end its partnership with
McDonald's Corp. and cancel "McDonald's World Children's Day." Last
Wednesday, we received a dismissive response from UNICEF. Our reply to UNICEF
Executive Director Carol Bellamy is below.
Dear Ms. Bellamy:
We
are unsatisfied with your August 13 letter dismissing our request that UNICEF
protect children’s health by severing its partnership with the McDonald’s
Corp., and canceling “McDonald’s World Children's Day.” McDonald’s is the
world’s largest fast food chain. It peddles precisely the kinds of high calorie
meals that children should avoid, given the international epidemic of childhood
obesity and soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes.
You write that you are “proud” of UNICEF’s “tradition of eliciting corporate
support.” But serving as a public relations prop for McDonald’s, along with the
predictable harm to children’s health, is nothing to be proud of. Your
partnership with McDonald’s will likely damage UNICEF’s integrity, good name
and long-term fundraising prospects far more than any pittance McDonald’s may
offer.
McDonald’s exploitation of children is well established. For example, a 1997
decision by a British judge, The Hon. Mr. Justice Bell, found that McDonald’s
“exploits children” through its advertising. It is hard to understand how
UNICEF could justify partnering with a firm that exploits children, or why
UNICEF would abet this exploitation.
We
are alarmed that UNICEF has become a marketing tool of the obesity lobby. As if
“McDonald’s World Children’s Day” is not enough, this year:
*
UNICEF endorsed the so-called “Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition” (“GAIN”)
which is a coalition to promote market access and consumption of unhealthy
processed foods across the planet. Members of GAIN include Kraft Foods Inc. (a
subsidiary of Philip Morris), Procter & Gamble Co. and H.J. Heinz (a
violator of the baby-food Code, according to the International Baby Food Action
Network).
*
The U.S. Fund for UNICEF endorsed the “Coca-Cola Unity Chain,” providing a
public relations boost for the Coca-Cola Co., which aggressively markets its
high-sugar, caffeinated soda pop to the world’s children.
UNICEF’s support for the junk food industry seems to be part of your
longstanding insensitivity to the toll of corporate marketing on children. For
example, a 1990 internal Philip Morris USA memo recounts your comments about
the company: “I like Philip Morris…I think it is a great company.”
Does UNICEF have standards that a corporation must meet to be a UNICEF partner?
Or will UNICEF rent itself out indiscriminately as a public relations tool to
the highest bidder? Is there any corporate conduct that UNICEF finds too
unacceptable to partner with?
We ask you, once again, to drop your partnership with McDonalds, cancel
“McDonald’s World Children’s Day” and to stop acting as an agent of the global
junk food industry.
Sincerely,
Gary Ruskin, Executive Director, Commercial Alert
Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy. For more information, see http://www.commercialalert.org
Education: A Commodity for Sale
Nesar Ahmad, Center for
Budget Accountability, India
<ahmadnesar@rediffmail.com>
“Higher Education for Sale” makes for ironic
reading. Writer John Daniel, UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Education,
advocates ‘commoditization’ of education materials in the same way the
McDonald’s has commoditized its food products. He tells us the qualities of
McFoods: a “limited range of dishes as commodities that have the same look,
taste and quality everywhere” and “McDonald’s is successful because people like
their food.”
Now
we try to understand the implications of this proposal. Education is a cultural
and social phenomenon. It is one of the major factors shaping our (those who
have access to the present education system) lives. The education materials,
which are to be taught to the children, have to be chosen carefully to suit the
pupils’ social and cultural environment. Just imagine the study/reading
material prepared by some American Institution/Company on Indian cultures or
social systems. Why should students in India read material prepared by some
alien about the caste system in India? Should some executive of a MNC in the
West prepare study material for Indian students on India’s political system?
(As if the World Bank, IMF and the WTO are not already ‘teaching’ us more than
enough about everything, from drinking water to poverty alleviation, to fiscal
management, trade and good governance.)
Even on the subjects like science, which might be considered by some as
‘universal’ in terms of content, there has to be examples and experiments taken
from the daily life of the society the children come from.
If learning materials are commoditized, what will
happen to the diversity of ideas? If the students from every country will study
the courseware prepared by the same company/institutions, will there be any
space for thinking something new or fresh on any subject? How will study
material, as a commodity, present the different points of view that exist on
any given issue?
The fact is, education is now a service to be
traded both within a country and internationally. This suggestion for the
commoditization of education could have not come at a better time. The General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been enforced in the WTO, and
education is part of it. So TNCs, big universities and research institutions in
the West and their mentors, the World Bank, IMF and the WTO, have discovered a
trillion dollar business. Daniel’s suggestion should be seen in the light of
GATS.
GATS
suggests four ways of trade in education: study abroad (Consumption Abroad),
education delivered by foreign teachers (Presence of Natural Persons),
long-distance learning between countries (Cross Border Supply), and creation of
foreign establishments (Commercial Presence) and, quite obviously, emphasizes
the privatization of education. GATS does not specifically mention trading in
education materials, except for the materials that go with long-distance
learning (“Cross Border Supply” in WTO jargon). But Daniel’s suggestion that
commoditized books and other educational materials prepared by some institution
can become standard courseware for teachers all over the world is quite
dangerous.
As
we know, trade in education services does exist even now in India, probably in
all four forms. Indian students do visit abroad for higher education (their
number is increasing); and our universities get students from neighboring
countries (though much less in number). We have seen more and more institutions
from abroad, mainly the West, setting up shop in India, or offering their long
distance courses. What GATS is going to do is pressurize governments to promote
these activities and remove any ‘obstacles’ in free trade of education. We have
already seen the decrease in public investment in education and opening of
private universities. GATS is going to take all this to the higher level. Lest
we forget, the primary objective of GATS is to increase economic growth through
increased trade in the service sector.
Daniel
claims the commoditization of education materials will help universalize
education, by providing standard, high quality education materials at large
scale. However, he defends that this will not necessarily lead to the
commercialization of education, and also suggests that these materials should
be made available on the net for everyone. Two questions are important here:
One, why would institutions/companies, which have created these materials as
commodity, provide it to all for free?
After all commoditization means business (and money), and prevailing
market rationale demands that these institutions would want their investment
back plus profits. Two, even if some of these companies decided to provide
information to everyone for free on the internet, what proportion of the world
population’s will actually have access to it?
Maybe we should start the McComputers for All global marketing campaign?
u
"Love
your children, enjoy their freedom. Let them commit mistakes, help them to
see where they have committed a mistake. Tell them, 'To commit mistakes is
not wrong -- commit as many mistakes as possible, because that is the way
you will be learning more.'" - Osho The New Child, 1991
The Tragedy of Commoditization
Manish Bapna, Bank Information Center, USA
<mbapna@care2.com>
The
basic assumptions underlying John Daniel’s editorial on the ‘McDonaldization’
of education require critical examination – particularly given the prevailing
(though misplaced) faith in the Millennium Development Goals and Education for
All global initiatives. The thoughtful
and passionate responses to this editorial, collected by Shikshantar, not only
highlight the serious misgivings many individuals have on the validity of the
underlying assumptions but also raise fundamental questions on the ultimate
objectives of these two global initiatives. It is therefore disappointing,
though not surprising, that Daniel's/UNESCO’s advocacy for the commoditization of
learning fails to challenge the existing orthodoxy. The absence of creative, life-affirming responses to the
challenges facing society today reflects, in my opinion, our consistent
inability to foster a meaningful ‘culture of the commons’ around learning. The
‘McDonaldization’ of education – which is premised on a culture of competition
– stands in stark contrast to what a culture of the commons should truly
represent.
It
may be useful to draw from literature on the commons which was originally
developed in response to understanding the inter-linkages between people and
common-pool natural resources such as water or forests. Elinor Ostrom, in her seminal research on
common-pool resources, identified design principles that are characteristic of
robust, self-governed local institutions.
These principles can be bundled into two broad categories: minimal
recognition of rights to organize and collective choice arrangements. The adaptation of these principles to
fostering a learning environment that supports the multiplicity of worldviews,
objectives, styles, expressions, etc. inherent in human learning would suggest
the following:
* Right to organize and the
legitimacy of local institutions
– Local communities have the right to organize and form their own learning
spaces and institutions. Local
institutions would not be challenged by external authorities such as national
governments or international donors.
The commoditization of learning materials, however, establishes a
standardized knowledge set to be systematically disseminated around the
world. History has repeatedly
demonstrated that such standardized rules often empower existing state agents
(in this case, in the delivery of education) and undermine the legitimacy of
self-created and self-governed local institutions. Daniel’s prescriptions fail to acknowledge the primacy of local
institutions and the debilitating effects of standardized rules.
* Creating and modifying
rules for the commons –
Collective-choice arrangements require that all
participants are involved in creating and modifying rules for developing a
commons around learning. Daniel would
assign the construction of these rules to the powerful elite – the McDonald’s
in the education world – without recognizing the power hierarchies that exist
between participants in the learning commons.
The open source software movement recognizes these imbalances and
attempts to overcome them, although admittedly with limited success. But neither the original learning material
nor the methods of how this material may be used, according to Daniel, would
involve the active, meaningful participation of people. Disenchantment with the learning commons at
best or imposition of standardized rules at worst would naturally follow.
It
seems intuitive that a learning environment should be based upon a culture of
the commons and not a culture of competition – given the complex and personal
nature of learning and the humanistic values supported by the ‘commons’. However, Daniel’s editorial suggests the
opposite. The commoditization of
learning materials and ‘McDonaldization’ of education advocated by Daniel would
result in a 'tragedy of the commons' – the grim and barren outcome described in
social science literature when the principles underlying the commons are subverted.
u
Prashant Varma, Engaged
Buddhist, India
zoetrope4@hotmail.com
This
is what I feel after being exposed to such an idea, or rather proposal, of
evolving a paradigm of universal education drawing "inspiration" from
a symbol of global violence and injustice: McDonald's.
It
gives rise to such sadness in me to see what we are creating and for what
purpose…even to divorce education from learning is a grave error in human
experience. It may be worth contemplating life experience, and the many ways in
which we seek to understand and define it.
The
present state of the education system is attempting to erase all possibilities
of being human… It is inextricably linked to forces of market, power structures
and all such conditions which are uprooting us from our experience, and
imposing upon us a systematic view fueled by greed, desire, hatred and
jealousy… The nature of the education
system rests upon beliefs that view life in fragments, in hierarchy, in a mind
stream habituated to dualism (i.e., of human vs. nature, of good vs. evil,
etc.).
How
can we confine a collective learning journey to formal spaces like the school
or college, or degrees? It is only the fundamental ignorance of modern
education processes, which enflames the arrogance that assumes superior roles
and inferior paths. Education cuts dynamic traditions into parts to serve as
show-case items or as escapes/antidotes to the urban life.
Learning,
on the other hand, is a sacred endeavor which should not be commodified. To many
ordinary beings, learning is a process of constant interaction with the natural
elements, with life forms, in human relationships, with happiness and
sadness. It is a contemplation of life ¾ a process which is incomplete and that
continues through many lives and forms. It constantly provides us a glimpse
into the nature of reality, which if felt, would naturally thrust our efforts
towards goals that are not defined by the very gross appearances of human
needs. Learning is to enable us to reclaim our simplicity and to nourish our
inherent goodness that is veiled by clouds of destructive emotions. By continuing to give legitimacy to such
violent spaces of education, we seem to be serving certain systemic interests,
to churn out masses of desensitized professionals to keep structures of greed
and hatred running sound. Yet we are all victims of this fragmented view…
The
only way out is to create and regenerate conditions for learning, where the
human experience is valued, where there is a natural interaction with the
living world, not in zoos or manicured urban greenery… It is about facing a
mountain to be reminded of our fragile experience, and to feel both immensity
and humility. Or to be in a forest and
feel vulnerability, because there you know what interdependence and looseness
of self really implies. We need to create learning conditions where there is
always self-reflection and self-analysis of our way of being and functioning,
where more emphasis is on developing a sense of warmth and responsibility,
above veils of self-interest and loyalty. Where we rediscover the importance of
the cultivation of qualities, like compassion, humility and service. Where the textual/ rational mind gives way
to the heart…
Metaphors, Words, and Models of a Wiser
World
Jock McClellan, Quinebaug
Valley Community College, USA
<jock.mcclellan@snet.net>
Metaphors matter.
They channel the flow of thought in each learner. In groups, they affect the flow of
dialogue. In organizations like UNESCO,
they control where money flows. And
what holds for metaphor holds for words (ancient metaphors) and for models
(metaphors for action). If our goal is
a model of a wiser world, let’s not stop at McDonald’s.
Let’s
instead go to that global feast of wisdoms, to that pot-luck party of
home-grown meals, that history of recipes handed down and added to by countless
generations, that sharing of breads as gifts of friendship not as exchanges of
commodities.
Commodities
have their place. Markets work. The signals of price help a learning world
adapt. But markets are motivated by
money, and not all learning will sell.
It will be easy to commoditize lessons that increase earning power, but
harder to sell lessons in wisdom. Can I
interest you in a few shares of McWisdom, Inc, anyone?
Commoditized
distance learning can work, delivering materials cost-beneficially, as Jan
Visser notes. I know - I’ve
participated in online courses as both 'teacher' and 'student'. In both cases, participants have inched
toward wisdom. But we have done so
because the structure was dialogic, interactive, and exploratory. We were not consuming pre-digested
education. We were constructing
knowledge for ourselves.
Words.
The phrase “Education for All” makes me wary. Although I am an educator, I fear the word “education” has come
to connote the transmission from a central source of knowledge to passive
recipients. I prefer the word
“learning.” But that too is misleading;
it conjures a process happening in individual brains. But learning is a collective process as well. We are not wolf children; we learn
together. So “Co-Learning for All”
comes closer to what I would want. But
even that is off. The co-learning is
not just “for” beneficiaries; it is also “by,” “with,” and “via.” “Co-Learning by All, with All, and for All”
comes closer to my own vision of a wiser world.
Models.
What would a co-learning world look like? It would not be a McDonaldized monopoly, pushing one form of
learning. We need everyone’s wisdom,
not just that which is shipped from Ohio.
Discourse would be unconstrained, whether by governments, corporations,
or cultures. Diversity would be
treasured, not buried. Diverse
ecologies survive; monocultures do not.
There is reason to suspect the current prevailing global culture so
badly ignores the environment which sustains it that it will collapse as did
Mayan civilization. We need
alternatives, and a wise world will nurture them. A co-learning world will listen to life on the planet, something
the current commoditized culture is slow to do.
A
world of good judgment will recognize that lessons which fit for one
environment may not for another. The
complexity of today’s problems cannot be addressed with McSimple solutions. A just world will reject cultures that
conquer by force of arms rather than the force of argument. A wise world will not get its ideas in
drive-throughs, but by reflection and dialogue in afternoon cafes. Not fast food, but sustenance that lasts.
A
wiser world will not be a utopia of seven billion sages. Rather, its collective wisdom will emerge
from the limited efforts at understanding by everyone doing their best to make
sense of their own local worlds. But those understandings must be communicated,
so that lessons learned by individuals can rise to the level of collective
learning, to the level of a change in the shared lessons to better fit
environing realities. And here literacy
matters. We need everyone’s participation, and if some commoditized materials
can help in certain situations, fine.
The
Internet can help in the sharing of lessons, and the Web is already a copy
machine for “open source” software and courseware. Copyright or copyleft, the more the better. But a web of wisdom will not just be a
network of bits. It will be a living web
of learners continuously sharing understandings and questions, a vibrating hum
of collective human meanings. The sound
will not be reduced to a single McDonald’s jingle.
All
life can be seen as composed of networks which adapt to change in the environment
by a change in their pattern of connections, a change in the “connection
weights between nodes.” The emerging
wiser world will be a vast, adaptive network of learning networks. Such an emergent, self-organizing network
is beyond the control of any education czar.
But what emerges does depend on which local “rules” of interaction are
followed by individual learners. So we
need to ask if we want those rules to be economic rules only, or rules of a
different kind. If learning follows
utilitarian, economic rules only, the danger will be that educational
commodities may be designed to sell, not to enlighten. If education is about more than mental
materials, but also about relationship to others and the world, a growth in
closeness could emerge. If the state
of heart and mind that gives rise to action is one of compassion, there is a
better chance that what will emerge will be a world of mutual happiness. We would be wise to strive for such a world. u
ASPECTS OF THE CULTURE OF SCHOOLING
The
Culture of Schooling...
1) Labels, ranks and sorts human beings. It
creates a rigid social hierarchy consisting of a very small elite class of
‘highly educated’ and a large lower class of ‘failures’ and ‘illiterates’,
based on levels of school achievement.
2) Imposes uniformity and standardization. It
propagates the viewpoint that diversity is an obstacle, which must be removed
if society is to progress.
3) Spreads fear, insecurity, violence and
silence through its externally-imposed, military-like discipline.
4) Forces human beings to violently compete
against each other over scarce resources in rigid win-lose situations.
5) Confines the motivation for learning to
examinations, certificates and jobs. It suppresses all non-school motivations
to learn and kills all desire to engage in critical self-evaluation. It
centralizes control over the human learning process into the State-Market
nexus, taking power away from individuals and communities.
6) Commodifies all human beings, Nature,
knowledge and social relationships.
They are to be extracted, exploited, bought and sold.
7) Fragments and compartmentalizes knowledge,
human beings and the natural world. It
de-links knowledge from wisdom, practical experiences and specific contexts.
8) Artificially separates human rationality from
human emotions and the human spirit. It imposes a single view of rationality
and logic on all people, while simultaneously devaluing many other knowledge
systems.
9) Privileges literacy (in a few elite
languages) over all other forms of human expression and creation. It drives
people to distrust their local languages while prioritizing newspapers,
textbooks, television as the only reliable sources of information.
10)
Reduces the spaces and opportunities for ‘valid’ human learning by demanding
that they all be funneled through a centrally-controlled institution. It
creates artificial divisions between learning and home, work, play,
spirituality.
11)
Destroys the dignity of labor; devalues the learning that takes place through
manual work.
12)
Breaks intergenerational bonds of family and community and increases people’s
dependency on the Nation-State and Government, on Science and Technology, and
on the Global Market, for their livelihoods and identities.
[1] Sociologist Max Weber described that the Western world
would become increasingly "rationalized" – that is, dominated by
efficiency, predicatability, calculability and nonhuman technologies that
control people. An important aspect of rationalization is that it allows
individuals little choice of means to an end. Institutionalized rules,
regulations and organizational structures are given full power over human
beings in order to produce optimal results (Ritzer, 2000).
[2] Several critiques have been launched against the McDonald's
model which must be taken seriously. See McDonaldization of Society
(2000), Fast Food Nation (2002), The Food Revolution (2001), and Jihad
vs. McWorld (1996), for example.
[3] See David Noble’s Digital Diploma Mills (2002),
where he describes commodification as the “disintegration and distillation of
the educational experience into discrete, reified and ultimately saleable
things or packages of things.” Commercialization and profit-making is very much
linked to the process of commodification.
We must question Mr. Daniel’s claim that commoditizing education could
be done along the lines of the open source software movement. Precisely to
challenge control and uniformity, to de-legitimize the monopoly of Microsoft
and to create space for diversity and sharing, did that movement begin. It is totally at odds with and
irreconcilable to McDonald’s philosophy and approach. We only wonder how Mr.
Daniel proposes to handle all of the commercialization (in terms of tuition
courses, textbooks, uniforms, degrees, etc.) that is already taking place in
education today as a result of commodification.
[4] See Bringing the Food Economy Home (2000).
[5] Here we find that the Global Market's mantra of competition
rings hollow. Virtually every industry (ranging from beef to poultry to
potatoes) related to McDonald's is dominated by a handful of corporations.
McDonald's (oftentimes in collusion with the American Government) sets the
rules and only the big-boys are allowed to play in this monopolistic game.
1.Daniel’s
assumption that prosperity and freedom are positively correlated with greater
consumer choice should really make us
reach for our critical faculties.
2. Robin Brownlie and Mary-Ellen Kelm,
“Desperately Seeking Absolution: Native Agency As Colonialist Alibi,” Canadian
Historical Review 75, no. 4 (1994): 550.
On residential schools across Canada, see J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s
Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1996). On disease and
health issues relating to residential schools in British Columbia, see
Mary-Ellen Kelm, Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British
Columbia, 1900-1950 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1998), 57-80, and Maureen K. Lux, Medicine that
Walks: Disease, Medicine, and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880-1940
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).
3. In 1994 the First Nations Health
Commission for the Assembly of First Nations reported that physical, sexual and
emotional abuse had been almost universal in the residential school
system. J.R. Miller, “Reading
Photographs, Reading Voices: Documenting the History of Native Residential
Schools,” in Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History, ed.
Jennifer S.H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert (Peterborough: Broadview Press 1996),
460-482.
4. Bonnie Duran,
Eduardo Duran, and Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, “Native Americans and the
Trauma of History,” in Studying
Native America: Problems and Prospects,
ed. Russell Thornton (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 60-76.
1 A Penguin Classic, Brave New World By Aldous Huxley
was first published in 1932.
2 “Higher Education for Sale” from Education Today: The Newsletter of UNESCO’s Education Sector
(October-December 2 002).
3 Frederick Douglass’s Speech to the Thirty-Second Annual
Convention of the American Anit-Slavery Society, May 10, 1865.
1 http://www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news/sep_02/news_2489.shtml,
http://www.leonardodicaprio.org/gorilla/articles2.html,
http://www.cellular-news.com/coltan/
2 http://www.indiatogether.org/petitions/hchem.htm,
http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/AL17Df02.html,
http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/toxics/2000oct19.html
4 http://www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/nestle.html,
http://www.breastfeeding.com/advocacy/advocacy_boycott.html
5
http://www.insurance-canada.ca/refstat/other/CIABcomm200210.php
1
Gidley, J. and S. Inayatullah (2002). Youth Futures: Comparative Research and Transformative
Visions. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger.
2
Gidley, J. (2002). Holistic Education and Visions of Rehumanized Futures. Youth
Futures: Comparative Research and Transformative Visions. J. Gidley and S.
Inayatullah. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger.
3
Inayatullah, S. and J. Gidley, Eds. (2000). The University in
Transformation: Global Perspectives on
the Futures of the University. Westprt, Connecticut, Bergin and Garvey.
4
The Integral Institute, Boulder, Colorado; The California Center for Integral
Studies; The Community for Integral Learning and Action, Massachusetts.
1
David E. Nye. 1994. American
Technological Sublime, published by M.I.T Press (Cambridge, MA and London:
1994). Also see, David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a
New Technology: 1880―1940, published by M.I.T Press (Cambridge, MA and London: 1992).
2
Thomas P. Hughes, 1983. Networks of Power: Electrification in
Western Society: 1880―1930, published by Johns Hopkins University
Press (Baltimore and London: 1983).
3
Ludwig F. Haber, 1971. The Chemical Industry: 1900―1930,
published by Clarendon Press (Oxford: 1971).
4 Carolyn Marvin. 1988. When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century, published by Oxford University Press (New York and Oxford: 1988).