Logline:
Any education system is there to teach the knowledge and skills one needs to live within, and contribute to, that particular way of life. The sub-text (the need for conditioning) tells us a lot about the values and realities of that culture.
Synopsis:
Throughout the series, David McWilliams will be examining the intense conditioning spearheaded by our information and education systems, designed to make us play our part as a cog in a much larger wheel. In the process, he will be asking two basic questions - what is it creating and is this what we want?
The narrative will take the form of an investigation, seeking out the roles our political, economic and social systems require us to play, and how our information and education systems are constantly conditioning us to play those roles. The audience will be hit with a barrage of facts, images and perspectives over each half hour, building a picture of contemporary society around which they can build their own arguments.
The Conditioning Role of Education: The official role of education, as any Minister or school principal will tell you, is designed to allow students perform to the best of their ability and contribute as members of society.
But talk to the people on the ground, and they will tell you that the school system is designed to condition them to working outside of the home and family structure, to take orders and to structure their lives around the 9 - 5 / Monday to Friday grind our economy requires of its producers. These factors are necessary for them to function out in the real political and economic world.
Of course, there are a myriad of problems with this. The classroom model immediately creates a sense of animosity between the pupils, the students and the material, while the government tackles these problems with ineffective legislation and Task Forces on classroom conduct. Are there more effective alternative education systems we could be utilising?
Conditioned By Society: But our education is not just in the home. It is all around us. It is in our magazines, on our TV’s, in the work place and on our streets. Everything we learn about how we should live, what’s right and wrong, what roles we play in society and what meaning we gain from life is borne from the images, ideas and events thrown at us again and again in a society that is constantly speeding up.
These factors peter down, they inform our ideals and create a culture. So what are these messages we are receiving from our grand information systems, and what ideals are they instilling in young and old alike?
Conditioned To What? The big question of course is, what kind of political, economic and social systems are we being conditioned to be a part of. In Episode 3, David will build a picture of these grand national and international systems in an attempt to understand the roles we are being required to play. Who or what do these systems purport to serve, who is pulling the strings and what agenda do they have?
Is This What We Want? The only questions left to ask are, is society functioning the way we want, are we happy with the roles we play and is there an alternative?
There is an array of material out there on the idea of the Hidden Agenda, the make up of Western society and the role of the individual within that society that are primed to be addressed in such a populist manner.
Throughout, David will be addressing the big issues of today, including mass consumer culture, contemporary education legislation, the anti-war campaign and the war on terror, globalisation and all the political and economic games our society is a part of.
The narrative will also take on a very surreal structure, with our presenter moving effortlessly between staged scenes, street vox-pops, in-depth interviews and straight to camera pieces, the narrative acting as a spine as the images and sound-bites build up. The idea is to not only tell the audience what is going on all around them, but to show them as well.
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