with Manish Jain & Helena Norberg-Hodge
5th Global to Local Webinar Recording
In this webinar, Manish Jain, co-founder of Shikshantar: The People’s Institute For Rethinking Education and Development, joins Local Futures’ Director Helena Norberg-Hodge for a close look at education as if people and the planet mattered.
Few people question the concept of formal education. On the contrary, governments, charities, NGOs and the well-intentioned public see education as the best way for individuals to prosper and for countries and communities to ‘develop’. ‘Education for all’ is the clarion call, while educational reforms ensure that children spend longer hours and more years in the classroom. Yet increasing numbers of ‘educated’ people – even those with advanced university degrees – end up without a job, and often deep in debt. Meanwhile, rather than disseminating the skills needed for a just and sustainable world, education has become closely aligned with the needs of corporations.
If we want real change, we must therefore ask education for what? before we promote education for all.
During the webinar Helena and Manish address the following topics and discuss some new learning initiatives from across the world:
Corporatization of education
Globalization of mind and culture
Unlearning and changing mindsets
New models of learning
Creating alternatives wherever we are
PRESENTERS
Manish Jain is co-founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Re-thinking Education and Development in Udaipur, India, where he has also served as coordinator for the past 17 years. Manish is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse knowledge systems and is the co-founder of Swaraj University and the Creativity Adda, convenor of the Ecoversities Network and a founding member of Giftival Network, Vikalp Sangam, Learning Societies Unconference and Berkana Exchange.
Manish has a Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University and a B.A. in Economics, International Development and Political Philosophy from Brown University. Before co-founding Shikshantar, he worked as a principal architect of the UNESCO Learning Without Frontiers transnational initiative and as a consultant for UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and USAID, and as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. He has spent numerous years unlearning and relearning. He and his wife Vidhi have been unschooling themselves with their 13 year old daughter, Kanku.
Helena Norberg-Hodge (Australia) is the founder and director of Local Futures/ISEC. A pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than thirty years. She is the producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness, and the author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, described as “an inspirational classic”. She has given public lectures in seven languages, and has appeared in broadcast, print, and online media worldwide. She was honored with the Right Livelihood Award (or ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’) for her groundbreaking work in Ladakh, and recently received the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.”
Recorded April 26th, 2016.
RESOURCES
Articles by Manish Jain
Towards an organic learning community, By Manish Jain and Shilpa Jain
The culture of schooling, by Manish Jain and Shilpa Jain
Seven deadly sins of schooling, by Manish Jain
Videos
Manish Jain: Western-style Schooling, Unemployment, and Cultural Breakdown at Local Futures’ 2015 Economics of Happiness Conference in Portland, Oregon, USA
Manish Jain: Localizing Knowledge, Decolonizing Our Minds at Local Futures’ 2013 Economics of Happiness Conference in Byron Bay, Australia
Manish Jain: Modern Schooling and the Corporate Agenda at Local Futures’ 2012 Economics of Happiness Conference in Berkeley, California, USA
Related Resources
The Ecoversity Initiative
Transforming learning into a process of liberation sounds great, but what does it mean in practice?
The Parrot’s Training (retold)
The first book in the Hacking the Education System series. This book looks at the education system as a cage, and raises fundamental questions on how to begin decolonizing our imagination.
Schooling the World
A film, featuring both Manish Jain and Helena Norberg-Hodge, that looks at the effects of modern education on the world’s last sustainable indigenous cultures.
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