alphabet
there is another austrian film-maker who belongs to the same kind of people mentioned in the previous post. his name is Erwin Wagenhofer and the title of his recent film is “alphabet“. it forms the final part of a trilogy after “let’s make money” (2008) and “we feed the world” (2005).
it’s a fundamental critique of the current form of education systems globally imposed on developed and developing societies. pupils are trained for functioning in a social order in which what counts in the end is money; in which they are expected to outperform their competitors; and in which they are socialised to regard their schoolfellows as competitors. they aren’t educated in the broad antique meaning of the word “education”. they loose their creative capabilities. they are trained for becoming “idiots” (see my post on “idiotism”). already in the first minutes of the film i was absorbed when watching the report on china in which the modern individualistic schooling system collides with the traditional culture of collectivity.
website of the film
when i watched the scenes showing executive education i was heavily reminded of the youngsters me and my colleagues at the faculty of informatics seem to select during the measures we have been taking since 3 years to reduce the number of students in order to increase the quality of teaching. those freshmen-to-be are forced to promote themselves, to be self-regarding, and they will, in addition, learn to compete against each other due to the study restrictions we impose on them through knock-out exams in the first semester. those are not the students our university would need for producing “technology for humans” as our vision says on the facade of the building where i had my bureau. we rather make ourselves accomplices in the destruction of an education we would need for the betterment of social conditions.