Second Screening, Kevicc High School, Totnes, May 2012
Iteration process 2
The second screening took place at Areal Cinema Theater, at Kevicc High School in Totnes. The event organization was supported by Earth Inheritors, a group of young inspiring students from Kevicc High School.
Approximately 40 people attended the screening, ranging from college students to adults in their late sixties. The event was introduced by doctor Robert Cook from University of Plymouth. Dr Cook worked on his research in Ladakh, together with Helena Norberg Hodge and later on for SECMOL (The Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh). Dr Cook was looking at the cultural changes in connection to sustainability and education.
More on SECMOL: http://www.secmol.org
After watching the documentary we invited participants to express their experience through art and drawing. This time was used for self reflection, before engaging in group discussion.
Following issues were raised during our discussion:
- Importance of localization
- Negative impact of standardized educational system
- Negative impacts of excessive, unsustainable form of globalization
- Importance of knowing one’s own cultural identity and background
Questions:
- How to identify a good teacher?
- What is the purpose of education?
- Are we educating people for jobs or to help them recognizing who they are?
- How to educate for the place you live in – educating for the ecosystem?
- What are the signs of indoctrination within educational system?
- How to marry traditional and modern ways of thinking – how to marry traditional culture and technology?
- What is the appropriate size of the school and classrooms?
Conclusions
- Importance of educators to develop a “midwife” attitude.
- Learning from successful, non conventional examples, such as SECMOL (The Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh)
- Recognition of local characteristics, learning from the local environment
- Educational system should first and foremost be the space of self discovery through freedom of expression, with individuals being supported on their journey.
The event was successful, very much appreciated by the participants and very insightful.
Schooling for Future is a documentary on education I’m working on. I will be adding the second part by the Mid October.
SCHOOLING FOR FUTURE – PART ONE – ITERATION no1, at KEVICC HIGH SCHOOL
YOUTUBE LINK
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WHY
I have chosen to create “Schooling for Future” as a part of my final project on a postgraduate program I’m currently finishing. This project came out as a result of 6 successful screenings of documentary “Schooling the World” (directed by Carol Black) and discussions among participants, which were held after watching the film.
The work you are about to see is a first part of a documentary about purposeful education. The second part will be completed by the Mid October.
Through the process of my academic research I was aiming to find the connection between thoughts of radicals thinkers in the realm of purposeful education such as: Rabindranath Tagore, Maria Montesori, Krishnamurti, Ivan Illich, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Sir Ken Robinson, Alan Watts, Nikhil Goyal, Noam Chomsky, Paolo Freire, Gregory Cajete, Allan R. Wallance, Rudolf Steiner, Satish Kumar
and between the thoughts of participants who came to the screening of the documentary “Schooling the World”.
Main reason for choosing “Schooling the World” as a foundation for my research are the challenges that educational system represents for society today. Stories in this documentary point out to those challenges in a very clear, somehow provocative, but engaging way.
Challenges I am referring to:
– current educational system is not encouraging individuals to learn directly from our greatest teacher – the nature itself;
– current educational system is not encouraging creativity and freedom of expression;
– current educational system is not fully supporting individuals to discover and develop their own potentials;
– current educational system is becoming increasingly standardization across the world
– educational system is being used to support global economy, for the price of one’s own unique cultural identity and value system;
– current educational system is result driven and lacks the important recognition of process focused education.
These are few thoughts I was interested to look into and to find out how and if they were seen by some of the greatest thinkers as far as 100 years ago. I also wanted to find out what members of society think today.
I have also been asking myself a question, how to support those great noble thoughts to become more wide spread. I discovered that most of participants who engaged in discussion after the screenings share those same thoughts. Thoughts, which can lead towards creation of a more sustainable education and have a positive impact on society and life on Earth.
Hopefully I can make a humble contribution with the composition I am sharing with you here.
I am very grateful to Satish Kumar for his words of heartfelt wisdom, to dr. Robert Cook for sharing his experience in Ladakh and to everybody who joined this unique “Journey of Exploration through the Process of Education”.
Thank you for being the change you wish to see in this world!
