The Call to Hack the Education System
THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES: HACKING THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
Let us start with a story about the state of our education system to help set a context for this larger vision…
Many years ago there lived a wicked and greedy Emperor who cared only about his designer-labelled clothes and about showing them off. One day he heard from two swindlers that they could make the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they said, also had the special capability that it was invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not fit for his position.
Being a bit nervous about whether he himself would be able to see the cloth, the emperor first sent two of his trusted men to see it. Of course, neither would admit that they could not see the cloth and so praised it. All the townspeople had also heard of the cloth and were interested to learn how stupid their neighbors were.
The emperor then allowed himself to be dressed in the clothes for a procession through town, never admitting that he was too unfit and stupid to see what he was wearing. For he was afraid that the other people would think that he was stupid.
Of course, all the townspeople wildly praised the magnificent clothes of the emperor, afraid to admit that they could not see them, until a small child said:
“But he has nothing on”!
This was whispered from person to person until everyone in the crowd was shouting that the emperor had nothing on. The emperor heard it and felt that they were correct, but held his head high and continued with the procession…He was afraid to admit to everyone that he had been bamboozled. So he carried on pretending that everything was alright.
***
“The modern factory-schooling education system is one of the greatest crimes against humanity. One hundred years from now, we will look back at the violence of schooling and ask how we could we have done this to innocent children?” — Manish Jain, Shikshantar Andolan
We are issuing a call to rise up like the child in the story and expose the Naked Emperor of Formal Education and Factory Schooling. This is a fradulent system of learning whose purpose is to convert beautiful diverse human beings into robot-like “human resources” and into stupid global consumers. It is time to stop pretending that schools are spaces for meaningful learning or that they can be fixed. It is time to break the myth that learning only happens in institutions and as a result of a trained teacher. It is time to free our imaginations about learning and living from the suffocating monoculture strangle-hold of factory-schooling and the global economy. It is time…
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HACK THE EDUCATION SYSTEM?
Hacking means: to playfully deconstruct, break into, to cut to the core and expose, disrupt, dismantle, decolonize, provoke, playfully make fun of, help escape, co-create new experiments, re-imagine, change the story…
Some examples of potential hacking projects include:
- make videos, plays, music, presentations, art, comics, etc. critiquing the system and sharing ideas about deschooling our lives
- highlight stories of self-designed learning and other ideas of intelligence, wisdom, other ways of knowing
- organize meetings, gatherings, roadshows or unconferences around the country with hackers, unschoolers or people who are critical of schooling
- promote gap year, bridge year concept
- help kids escape compulsory classrooms and get involved in their communities
- help kids cheat/make fun of the stupidity of the examination system
get teachers to expose the violence of the education system and apologize for their crimes
- undermine, make fun of or cheapen the degree/certification system
- challenge areas where people without degrees/certificates are being discriminated against
- help students default from their school-college loans
- help challenge culture of surveillance and CCTV cameras
- research how tribal schools are destroying tribal culture and build campaign exposing it
- create opportunities for kids to re-engage with their traditional knowledge/culture/land/elders
- promote local languages, creative expressions and dialects
- promote the value of free play
- research nature deficit disorder and promote more learning opportunities in nature
- create the space for ‘uncertified’ community mentors in local communities to re-validate their knowledge, voice and role
- create interesting livelihood opportunities for those without degrees
- develop tool kits and resources for self-designed learning
- develop tools to engage parents and homes in self-designed learning
- create unschooling community learning spaces/camps/gatherings/unconferences for sharing learning resources
- create processes to reconnect head with hands, heart, home
We are open to many more new ideas as well. This list is just to help get your radical and creative juices flowing :)
Here are some great hacks:
