A Moment of Reckoning…
What did I lose by reading so many books?
What did I lose by learning their logical in their ‘maths’?
What did I lose by being taught their ‘his-tory’ and critical thinking liberal arts?
What did I lose by being trained by their rational anthropocentric ‘science’?
What did I lose by sitting in concrete classrooms and offices for years and years?
What did I lose by letting them grade and mark me?
I lost my expansive and emergent authentic self.
I lost my way home.
What did I lose by being trained to see the world through their Microsoft powerpoint and excel sheets?
What did I lose by being conditioned to label myself and others illiterate/unintelligent/low IQ/developing?
What did I lose by being trained to play their finite competitive games?
What did I lose by ditching my local language for the sake of proper English?
What did I lose by letting them convert me into a “civilised individual” and a “citizen”.
I lost my expansive and emergent authentic self.
I lost my way home.
What did I lose by accepting their definitions of progress, beauty and success?
What did I lose by measuring my self-worth, self-respect and purpose through the lens of money and package?
What did I lose by trying to grab their institutions of power to bring social justice?
What did I lose by being indoctrinated to pray to their notion of “God” and following their fragmented spirituality?
What did I lose by running and running and running to become a winner in their ratrace?
I lost my expansive and emergent authentic self.
I lost my way home.
If you beat them at their own game, you have lost everything.
Maybe it's time for a different game?
- Manish Jain, Co-founder of Shikshantar Sansthan, Swaraj University, and the Ecoversities Alliance
#ecoversities #multiversities #swarajuniversity #educationforall #shikshantar #learning #factoryschooling #dumbingusdown
Written By
Manish Jain
Manish Jain is deeply committed to creating new models of unlearning for the 21st century in order to regenerate our diverse knowledge systems, free our cultural imaginations and expand our consciousness. He has served for the past 19 years as Co-Founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and has worked intensively with children, youth and grassroots communities. He is co-founder of the Swaraj University which is India’s first self-designed learning university dedicated to regeneration of local culture, local economy and local ecology. He is also a co-founder of the Learning Societies Network and has pioneered the Learning Societies Unconference in India.
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