Social change or social domination?

Education = social change.

I always took this equation to be an axiom. It made perfect sense. In fact, in my mind, the equation expanded to even more: 

Education 

= reading and writing 

= being able to avail of different kinds of knowledge and view points 

= betterment of the self and the family 

= eventual SOCIAL PROGRESS.

It was like a hallelujah moment. Social progress would be achieved if education was administered. My constant belief. And hence, I became (and still am) obsessed with the idea of bettering education, making education more accessible to the masses, etc. 

However, I never took a more cynical view about it. I never even looked at education from the Marxist school of thought, despite having studied in detail their ideas on the media and 'cultural hegemony'. I know. I'm stupid for not having made the connection. (Especially when you follow the link on cultural hegemony and read the very first few lines on Wikipedia).

This quite obvious idea actually dawned on me when I was reading Seeking Common Ground: Public schools in a diverse society, by David Tyack. He wrote about how, throughout the years of American Independence, the founding fathers devised a system of education that would "Americanize" the diverse population that made up the United States of America. Not only were subject matters designed to follow this agenda, but even moral education was set up that had a set of morals that best suited their interests. In a way, they were brainwashing the public into believing some things were "un-American" while others, were completely "American" so as to promote their own agenda. The next book I read was To Remain and Indian: Lessons in Democracy from a Century of Native American Education by K. T. Lomawaima and T. L. McCarty. This book talked in even more detail about how Native American Indians were subject to extensive cultural cleansing through education to once again "Americanize" them and mainstream them into the society. In order to maintain their democracy, the founding fathers turned the United States into an almost dictatorship.

Reading these two books made me think about how education in the United States was always about brainwashing and how it was similar in our own case in India. Thomas Babington Macaulay, a British Minister during the British control of India devised a system of education which, sadly, is still followed today, called Macaulayism. 

I agree that in order for order, it is required that the people be educated and know their rights, duties and all that fun jazz. But it scares me to think that what I was thinking to be a medium of social change was actually a tool of domination all along. A method of bringing the people under control. "Brainwashing them". History has always been the story of the victor. 

But can we change that? Can we make education about something other than submission the a higher authority? Can we make education about learning that which is required for living rather than that which is required for living (in submission)? 

I think we can.

I think the extensiveness of globalization will make it so that there wont be just one highest power that will be the be all and end all of education. There will be standards set by other countries, or by our own that would keep raising the bar in terms of education. That will, I hope, remove the domination factor and allow for education to be about learning to be the best one can be. 

'A' for... ?

As a media student, I have to learn about various media and mass communication theories and their effects. One theory that really caught my attention was called the Agenda Setting Theory. This theory states that though the media doesn’t turn people into mindless robots who can be brainwashed through media messages, it can set an agenda for what is talked about among the people. So, if the media covers a particular issue extensively, the people will automatically talk about. But if there is not enough media coverage on something, people will not talk about it as much.

Now, this theory talks about the media. But I wondered how much this theory held true even for education, since the first messages that we are made to think about and talk about are those of education; the medium being the teacher. This too was mass communication, albeit on a smaller scale. I wondered to what extend do people’s minds and voices get standardized due to education. To what extend to do we end up talking about the same things over and over, generation after generation; thus causing us to talk of nothing new? This could mean that archetypes would not just be of people. They would be with everything.

I decided to try something. I asked a few people to tell me the first thing that came to their heads when I said “A for?” Almost without exception, every single person said “apple” immediately. Can’t A also stand for “actor” or “animal” or “Australia”? But our minds have been so trained think immediately A stands for apple and B stands for ball.

This is of course not a bad thing. But how does this affect the inventiveness of our people? How many inventions have actually come from our country, since the zero? How many children today are taught to think outside and beyond the box? How many are told to forget the box completely? Sure, having a structure is good thing. I like structure too. But how restrictive should the structure be? Must it be solid walls through which nothing can penetrate? Can’t it be just a network of strong bamboo? Something that allows for free winds to blow, despite being so strong as to not get blown away in the wind?

This is just something to think about. I don’t have the answer myself, and am completely open to your ideas on the subject!Cheers!