This is often not said these days – teaching status quo particularly in economy, management and entrepreneurship is easy compared to teaching that which is challenging the status quo.
Status quo is reiterated by the day-to-day engagements of the learner - the way they commercially transact for day-to-day needs, the way they seek out services, even the visuals of the market communication that is all around. Daily news of policy that facilitates status quo economy, the advertisements of what is termed as ‘success’ in the existing market space, their products and services promotions, etc., also reinforce the same.
Along with the promotion is also the promotion of their underlying values. Unethical practices that are promoted as ‘that is how things are done’, 'this is the only way you can survive', and ‘this has always been the convention’. Destructive production and extractive service organization, that assuage their ways with CSR bandages and random philanthropic activities. Maintaining their conscience in the short run while knowingly contributing to the long-term destructive ways.
Service providers for the status quo industry in the space of Education includes trainers, training institutions – from skills to knowledge to networking, there is a wide variety of them, then there are mentors, incubators, funders, etc., all of whom are willing to bet on the status quo to sustain their own businesses. These people supplement the values of the status quo institutions.
Even those among such institutions who disagree with the value system of the status quo markets, often are at the mercy of their institutional frameworks or academic structural limitations. Individual academics often bemoan their less understanding (and more ambitious) colleagues who prefer to pursue the market economy.
Seeking to promote an alternative value system is seen as impractical even by those who are convinced that the status quo is wrong.
The ones who are concerned about it and often articulate or either the religious institutions / leaders or the civil society, consisting of some educators, activists and alternative thinkers.
While those in religious and cultural institutional can blame the value system of the status quo markets for everything wrong with society, they often cannot see beyond their own version of placatory gestures – meditation, yoga, chanting, etc., are all running full shows populated by the same people who are running a destructive economy. Majority of religious / cultural institutions (and their affiliate educational institutions) are happy to remain traders of consciousness placebo rather than become game changers in any field. Their followers and patrons being the mainstream economy, they are dependent on the existing economic order for maintaining their own institutions. While there are exceptions to this rule, the most visible and popular ones have made this a norm.
The ancillary industry to this is the large number of service providers. From those who peddle the latest tools from the western world to those who peddle culturally sounding solutions, while never challenging the status quo. Western influenced yoga teachers and meditation gurus now appear in Indian skin, speaking in a mix of English and local language, recycling the tools designed for western economies to Indian audience.
Civil society players on the other hand tend to be pessimistic in their ways. Often bitter about the status quo promoters to the point of being antagonistic, seeking to destroy what is there instead of evolving into something higher. From those who are forever chasing a never coming revolution to those who are just spreading hatred towards whatever they think is ‘mainstream’, the diversity of what transpires in this space is very high as well. They often gain traction within the more dissatisfied among the mainstream as a support base.
Seeking alternative to the destructive values or exploitative pathways to the economic, social and cultural rootedness in education today is a thankless job. To do so without sounding bitter or hopeless takes an enormous amount of conviction and courage. To do so without resorting to the mainstream ways of defaming the others or dis-engaging with the status quo is against the very spirit of developing an alternative to status quo.
The trouble with status quo teachers is that they often rub off their apprehension of anything that challenges the status quo onto their students as well. One status quo apologist faculty of a 'social entrepreneurship' department that I used to teach Green Economy in, was apprehensive about any enterprise 'green' becoming successful and kept campaigning against the course within the department and also spreading the same with the students.
Another senior faculty of a commerce course recently I met openly stated that while it was good to learn ethics and values for the students, the profession of accounting and commerce cannot profess any such values in work as their career currently demands that they adopt to unethical practices to survive.
Another faculty member of a social work department once sought me out for advise on how to evaluate content for his curriculum. When I stated to him that the purpose of the academicians is to teach the students what is ideal rather than what is survival in the current market space, he froze over. That is the last time I had a one on one meeting with him.
Status quo of economic organization is predominantly exploitative, destructive and perpetrating injustice. Nothing sustainable can emerge from it nor it could build any resilience within the communities. Teaching to survive in status quo is strengthening status quo.
Academics who are providing their students with the knowledge to survive and strengthen the status quo of economic organization, are helping to destroy the planet. It is on them. The recent protest of the students being reduced to their anger in a single instance of exam paper leak is a poor understanding of the real issues behind their anger. The overall dissatisfaction with the society and the system is because of the way we have ended up being as a society.
If we don’t change that, we are helping them become very unhappy future citizens of this country and the planet.
The choice is ours.
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