SCHOOLING THE WORLD - THE WHITE MAN'S LAST BURDEN [REVIEW]

‘People go to school so that they can have a lot of money,? a big house and drive a nice car.’? a Ladakhi woman remarks on modern education while conversing with the other women.

While listening to this conversation at the very beginning of the documentary, the viewers are compelled to reflect on the most fundamental belief that "education is the solution for all the problems in the world" and ask themselves what if education is the nub of some of the most critical problems! What if things were different, rather better if the idea of education wasn't propagated! And has education really given what it promised??

Schooling the World-The White Man's Last Burden, a documentary by Carol Black, takes a dig at the modern education system and its hidden agendas and impacts on different people and their cultures. The documentary not just raises a lot of critical questions itself but compels us to ask even more questions to ourselves. It follows a discourse of conversation with and in between the Ladakhi people and the panel which has Wade Davis,? Helena Nonberg-Hodge,? Manish Jain and? Vandana Shiva.? Throughout the movie, we see contrasting visuals which help us to draw a parallel between modern schooling and a culturally rich environment.?

The documentary beautifully captures the Ladakhi people,? Ladakh’s culture and the impact of education on it. It shatters the common perspective through which we look at education and forces us to rethink our ways. From the very beginning, the viewers get into understanding the white man's burden and then move into the conversation of Ladakhi women discussing how educated children are now more inclined towards materialistic values and have no compassion for other people, their culture and nature. Wade Davis also reiterates that by looking at the economic growth through GDPs, we only consider the money that a person makes through working in a factory and completely undermine the living standards and cultural shift and eventually, these "educated" people are meant to be a part of the global economy. Later in the documentary, the women also discuss that the children even after graduation do not get jobs and even if they get it, it's not good enough. Through the dialogue between Ladakhi women, we realize that the education system that claims to develop people has destroyed their culture, natural resources and even their way of being. However, it is hard to point out anyone main objective and message of the movie as it poses multiple questions about "Modern Education" and our obsession with Western culture. But why are people obsessing over western culture in all spheres of life? What has the education to do with it? Is education responsible for the way we feel about western culture? In the wake of these questions, a very popular phrase "Education leads to liberation" seems completely meaningless as we are still bound to the colonial mindsets, deprived of intellectual freedom! The documentary, in detail, tries to give an insight into the matter. The brief description of Macaulay's minutes, visuals of painting called "American Progress", quotations from people like General Richard ("Let all that is Indian within you die") describe the intentions, agendas and psychology behind introducing the education system. As Vandana Shiva puts it, "the education system, especially after the industrial revolution was developed only to create the elements to feed into an industrial production system and create products with partial knowledge." The education system was meant to cater to the needs of "elites" and the "superior". The result of this century-long process is that western culture has been standardized in a way that people from other cultures feel inferior and want to be like the west!?

One very interesting and important take is on the people who claim to be helping and trying to develop and uplift people from various indigenous and remote cultures.? In the documentary, the principal of missionary School sounds extremely optimistic about his way of running a school and speaking in English being compulsory in his school. Another example is of a woman named Heidi, who is from Germany and has settled in Ladakh to work for Lamdon school.? She is very proud of the work that she has done and the construction of a girls hostel.? Generally, these conversations would sound noble, but the critical perspective that the documentary introduces us to is very different and significant. Though these people might have genuinely good intentions they fail to look at broader perspectives and long term impacts. Julian Schweitzer, director of human resource development at the World Bank remarks that education is important for "sustained poverty reduction." Though he mentions not to interfere if the people don't want it, he says that "we should be there to help". The panelists' take on the matter helps us understand this perspective better. In general, they said that people from the west or influenced by the west feel it imperative to help the people from remote cultures. People are moulded in a way that they consider western culture to be superior and as the only way to be. They are made to fall in line with the urban consumer culture.? Wade Davis also talks about cultural myopia and calls education "indoctrination" or "enculturation".

Education has always been looked at as something important for growth and development. But if this is the case, why is the environment degrading every day? What kind of development has education led to?? The documentary also aims at demonstrating how modern education and schooling has separated the young generation from not just their culture but also from nature. The education system today caters to the industrial needs of the urban consumer market and fosters only materialistic values where children are not attached to nature.? They see nature as merely a resource to be used for development.? The children are confined to classrooms for a long period, cut off from the environment and told things which they need to see and learn practically, probably with a different narrative.

The documentary shots and the pattern of the display are intriguing and sarcastic at times.? The documentary even shows a split-screen to bring out the parallels in culture in Ladakh and its people which is contrasted with the developed cities. Another very interesting feature of this documentary is the music used and the way it is used.? The song, ‘Youth of the nation’ plays while showing the visuals of uniform training of students in school and then the adverse condition of the educated youth in the urban cities. The visuals compel us to think about the grave situation of the current education system.? Another interesting use of the song is "We Live In America" while the visuals depict the facts and figures associated with the American education system,? specifically High School where children suffer from depression and poverty in large numbers.? The most interesting is the ending song "Little boxes" which refer to school classrooms as little boxes and the song itself remarks critically on the education system. The music used throughout the documentary makes it more catchy and interesting. The songs also sum up the theme of the documentary as discussed above. Throughout the documentary, a lot of visuals are of the advertisements and a huge amount of display of manufactured products in modern society. It helps us to draw the relation between education, industrialization, consumerism and the increasing global capitalism.

But it seems that the documentary emphasizes only one aspect of the whole scenario. Through the documentary, the effect of education on culture has been shown negatively while it is quite vivid that culture is given the utmost importance. The documentary fails to acknowledge a very important aspect related to cultural change through education. The patriarchal, casteist, sexist and even some dehumanizing practices across cultures have been fought through Education. Though culture is subject to change but for determining the course of change, there have to be some directive principles and education helps in determining these principles.

As much as sometimes it appears that the documentary is criticizing education in general, it is criticizing Modern Education or the colonial system of education which has been institutionalized throughout the century and trying to make a point that it is not the only way people can be educated or developed. It does not leave us with just the questions but also tries to introduce us to possible solutions. Helena talks about "deeper dialogue" that needs to take place across cultures and the media which portrays western culture to be the most superior. We need to analyze and reflect, more critically, on our own of being, thinking and acting.?