4.2 The Role of Education and Training

(interviewee)

What role can education and training play in reaching toward the vision that our interviewees defined for us? As our research has pointed out, there is little about the current state of education and training for women to give us hope. One interviewee mourned, "It's all remedial ..." Another said, "Eight week training programs are not going to lead to my vision."

But just as our interviewees shared a common vision of a better world, so they shared an understanding of the kind of education and training appropriate to reaching that world. Variously described as "transformative education", "a culture of the mind", "providing the tools for change", our interviewee's described an approach to education that starts with questioning why things are as they are; and moves on to encourage the learners to look at themselves and their community -- to identify the barriers they face in reaching their potential or realizing their aspirations; and together with others, to reach agreement on how to act to reduce or eliminate those barriers. They described a 'whole' approach to education, extending from cradle to grave, and designed to enhance imagination, intuition, social and physical life, and an appreciation of beauty. In such an educational system, skills training is just one small -- and important -- element.

As with their visions, the interviewee's shared their ideas of education. These ideas are neither new nor unique to the women we interviewed. Within the field of adult education, for example, Paulo Freire and those who have worked with him have developed an approach to education which meets the criteria set above, and has been used successfully in countries all around the world, including Canada (50). In the field of children's education, there have been a variety of alternative approaches to education, such as those used by the Waldorf schools, which emphasize the educational values described above, and which have also been in use for at least 30 years.

Nevertheless, as one correspondent said.

4.3 Bridging the Gap: Moving from Here to There

Despite their frustration with the inadequacies of the current situation, and their agreement that the world they envision is not going to be realized within their own lifetimes, none of our interviewee's were prepared to say that the vision is unattainable. In today's world, the three primary goals associated with economic equality: equal pay for work of equal value, employment equity, and the restructuring of work and family life, are ambitious but still worth working for. Although these three alone are not sufficient to create the vision held by our interviewee's, they are certainly essential elements of it. Progress in any of these areas not only improves the current situation, but also brings us closer to a world which is present among us now far more as a vision than as a reality. Similarly, within education and training, there appear to be steps which are ambitious but possible -- at least in the long-term -- within the current context, but which also can contribute to the transformation of education and training into a new kind of force in society.