Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Education: Keys to the Cellblock?
Version 1.0

Part I: Artfully Done

Art allows for the kind of education that formal (classical?) schooling lacks. Art being capable of a mind-expanding project free from the constraints of the rigid conformity required to “pass” and “achieve”, the idea of “competition” becomes less equipped to fascinate and dominate the pupil, and monopolize his/her space for growth. True growth is not measured by an increased capacity for memorization and regurgitation. It could perhaps be well argued that it is quite impossible (if not futile and degenerative) for there to be a standard measuring stick for growth at all! Thus indeed the universalism of formal education obliterates the very individualism that, in Enlightenment ideology and its continued spoils, it proudly claims to uphold.

The child who cannot concentrate and “perform” within these structures is outcast by the system, society and her/his peers. Deemed “deviant”, “slow”, “stupid” or perhaps worse, “uncontrollable”, she/he may grow up believing that she/he does embody some or all of these things. Complacency from internalizing these fallacies may profoundly stunt the growth of the individual so that she/he actually becomes what society has labelled her/him. Fulfilling the prophesy of her/his scarlet letter.

The sort of education that is capable of such destruction (and I do not believe that I am over-dramatizing in the least) is more effective in alienation than in the purported assimilation (into the “real world”) that is the rationale for its existence.

I do not wish to discredit formal education systems completely. Indeed, the fact that I can sit here and write this, I owe much to my schooling. However, the fact that I can sit here and write this. I owe more to extra-curricular inquisitiveness and discovery of mostly “mainstream-subversive” literature, film, performance and visual art (sometimes there is a thin ridge between the mainstream and the great “rough” and often-uncharted ocean). Ideally there would be no reef at all and swimming far and wide would be an afternoon delight.

The arts require innovation, perhaps more than any other field. Or perhaps it is that the arts allow for great measures of unbridled creative thinking. Success in formal schooling (up to a point?) does not ask for nor necessarily nourish innovation. And if these are not sought elsewhere, the pupil may be destined to a life of intellectual subservience or, as is observed more frequently, megalomaniac perpetration of old (and plagiarised) or empty (and useless) ideas.

In effect, it may be argued then that the pupil her/himself must have an interest. But where do interests come from? Arguably, culture. The home environment. The community. The society. Exposure to life uncovers resonances and affinities; excitement and passion rise out of experience. And what constitutes this culture? Music, dance, drama, storytelling, images, poetry, film, spectacle (including installation), sport (which could be conceived as being a kind of performance art)…

The pupil is enriched and begins to realise the endlessness (temporal) and limitlessness (spatial) of possibility. In them is sparked a thirst for exploration, discovery, challenge and the kind of enlightenment (small ‘e’) that no curriculum alone can teach. The journey becomes a personal one, whose destination and itinerary are determined on a uniquely individual basis. This is what takes the idea of growth to a transcendental level.

And precisely because of the “anti-social”* nature of this task, many are intimidated to take it on (* in parentheses because it is activity that hegemonic society sees as adverse/antagonistic to its project of control through conformity, despite the fact that it is only very rarely malevolently anarchic). Those daring few are discouraged from the outset and from every level and angle. Fittingly with society’s ideological perspectives, economic reward or even basic subsistence is difficult to come by for these betrayers of the holy social grail (ironically, it is often a mark of financial success and high status to indulge in consumption, observation and patronage of the arts). Hopefully these setbacks will “reform” the deviants and re-assimilate them back into the mainstream working world. “Less innovation!” preaches The Manager up in his panopticon-like tower.


It would do us the opposite of harm to rethink the merits of (and carefully-contrived intentions behind) sticking to the “straight-and-narrow”.

Now is always the time to (a part of me wanted to say “rebel”)… express

© Lulu Kitololo

11 comments:

frederick kambo said...

Some very important business people are starting to view a Masters in Fine Arts as just important(if not more) than the traditional MBA. Even for a career in business. Interesting huh?

And it is all about innovation. We as a society are engaged in the greatest period of innovation and creativity in human history. And of course, this means that the traditional,regimented, "one right way" of doing things is forever doomed.

The fascinating (and sad) thing is this.With all this innovation going on - in business,the arts,technology,medicine - the school system itself has not changed for centuries.

But of course, the eternal optimist within me takes note of the fact that despite this dire situation, the innovators keep coming thick and fast. It's pretty awesome....

Kishawi said...
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Kishawi said...

It would be interesting to dissect these innovators and find exactly what makes them exceptional and what nurtured it. How they, as it were, flew the conformity coop. (I know this has been done far and wide with "successful" people in biographies, how-to manuals and the like, but I'm thinking more of with a collective and theoretical structure in mind). And what the consequences would be if this were a common rather than exceptional phenomenon. Anarchy or extreme elevation?

frederick kambo said...
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frederick kambo said...

That indeed would be very interesting.
I would suggest however that there are two things at play here. One is the fact that these innovators did not "make it" inspite of what school tried to do to them. Rather, they made it because of something in addition to what school gave them.
Sure....the famous school drop-outs get all the press and accolades. Richard Branson,Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. But, these are all people who were actually enrolled in some of the best schools in the world who then decided to leave when they were ready. Not because the schools failed them per se. And also, they are the tip of the ice-berg. The exceptions to the rule. Like you point out Kishawi, you still need a formal education to even be where you are. And this is true for the vast majority of us.
Second, the enterprises that these famous drop-outs run are not run by these guys on their own. Rather, they are run by an army of very succesful,accomplished and of course, well educated, MBAs, Engineers, Marketing specialists etc who don't seem to be hurting too badly from their school days.

But even so....I still think our school system sucks.

Kishawi said...

"In addition"— precisely!

As for formal education and how far it gets us. Perhaps its significant role is to teach us how to survive in society, in the sense that it instills in us the amount of conformity necessary for the basic runnings or day-today life. Enough to get a job to pay rent and buy food and clothing.

Then there are those who pursue formal education to its highest levels. The MBAs, Engineers, Marketing specialists who want to cover those basic needs and then some, ascending Maslow's hierarchy to the point where hardly anything is "hurting" at all.

Then you have the drop-out types such as those that you mention. Dissatisfied with "mere" sustenance, they seek to revolutionize, to innovate and they see that formal education, while necessary to a point, is not going to fly them to their respective moons.

Like in Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha, there is a point where the truth-seeking pupil discovers that only he himself can discover/uncover/reveal the answers that he seeks.

Kishawi said...

“The modern conception of education is that of guiding and training natural individual growth rather than of giving formal instruction… It must be a vital education fitted to the needs of those who seek it, so as to make them useful members in their own community life.”

Thomas Jesse Jones in his book “Education in East Africa”

Has this “modern conception of education” fitted to those needs he discusses. Does it address their community life at all or does it address lifestyles borrowed from elsewhere so that they become (unrealistically) aspirational?

MOTHUFARE said...

Interesting that you shoud say "unrealistically aspirational." Parenthesizing unrealistically suggest that the thought is a digression, a by the way piont. Actually I think you are right on. Read how Marcuse echoes this profoundity: "The intensity, the satisfaction and even the charachter of human needs, beyond the biological level, have always been preconditioned. Whether or not the possibility of doing or leaving, enjoying or destroying, possesing or rejecting something is seized as a need depends on whether or not it can be seen as desirable and necessarry for the prevaliling societal institutions and interests. In this sense, human needs are historical needs and, to the extent to which the society demands the repressive development of of the individual, his needs themselves and claim for satisfaction are subject to overiding critical standards."
"We may distinguish both true and falsle needs. 'False' are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression: the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice." - One Dimensional Society.
If I read your comments correctly, the "borrowed lifestyle" is what Marcuse calls false needs.

Anonymous said...

education: the filter for breeding the "like us" so that our "way of life" can perpetuate after we are gone. education: the altar of worship of our great god - Our Culture (Who art in Heaven). education: the DE-HUMANIZER. self-re-education (with the help of the inspired and the unexpected): freedom's only access to the modern educated mind. we, think, respond ("interestingly", and "intelligently" according to us) alike because we learnt the familiar language, the filter, that allows us to interface and interpret each other - that make us little caricatures of one another with our set agreed ideas of what is intelligent, interesting, original. the language? ED-U-caish-ON!

Kishawi said...

Sonnon you have hit the nail on its head. Hopefully hard enough to break it down so that we may be free of its ominous influence! Any education cannot cover everything that needs to be known and because this education may purport to be an authority, we are at a danger of believing it is all that is to be known. End of the day, too much is marginalised, ignored, rejected, neglected, belittled… intolerance festers in its absence. And yes, academia, as revolutionary as it can attempt to be, falls in to the trap; 'trapped in theory' i call it. Self-important, regurgitating and trying too hard to appear knowledgeable, insightful, in-the-know. Highly self-conscious. It's all too rigid and that's in conflict with the fluidity of life!

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