The contents of general education textbooks and curricula are always bitterly debated: they reflect the ideology that the authority in charge wishes to transmit; usually a mixture of openness about what is assumed and more limited conceptions about power issues. Without even passing anything academically, one will have learned how the rules apply and what the ideologies in place propose to us.
With the Internet, the ideological stakes have shifted to algorithms because they can be programmed with biases, databases fed with partial or false data, and artificial intelligences concluding prejudices. As the Internet has become the primary source of educational references and A.I. is on its way into schools, the topic of controlling A.I. is as crucial as controlling the content of textbooks.
What safeguards might assure us of this control? At the political level, we know that a system is democratic when information flows, justice is impartial and dissent is tolerated; what are the markers that affect education? Each country's national education can be guided by the criteria and processes of Wikipedia, the most widely used and universal educational reference.
Subjects that affect a society's dogmatic beliefs or values always generate opposition. Consensual national history is an objective impossibility: if there was a conflict, there will be winners and losers. Australia's national holiday has been renamed "Invasion Day" by the Australian Aborigines. It's hard to deny the problem in a textbook if you want the truth. Same thing in Canada. All countries have this kind of problem, Basques, Bretons, Chouans, Acadians and how many other peoples have their stories, often distorted or denied. Talking about colonialism, whether it be French, Arab, English, Russian, Chinese or Hindu, is tantamount to stirring up tensions on all sides. Who wants to talk about it in a textbook?
There are few alternatives to the "Truth and Reconciliation" approach and to writing the textbook collaboratively until an acceptable and evolving compromise is found. Dialogue is a long process, but as long as we are on the way, we are making progress. Gender equality, environment, inclusion, globalism, nationalism, secularism, there is no shortage of ideological topics.
There are standards for textbooks and a scale of values as to their objectivity. Tolerance is a value, warrior spirit is a value, national pride has no limits...how do we ensure that the firmness of the ideological foundations we believe in, freedom, sharing, openness, etc, can stand up to those based on fear or the status quo?
Communication remains the fundamental tool for appeasement and what fosters it becomes the best pedagogical orientation.
Denys Lamontagne - [email protected]
Illustration: The Joys of Capitalism According to Lexica art.
