Press Archive

The Education Continuum
15 February 2011
by Melanie Wilson
Source

Why might a serious education academic begin meddling in animated documentary graphics?

The difficulty for an author is that there is never enough opportunity to talk to everyone who might like to hear the story and open up a dialogue. However successful my book Overschooled but Undereducated might be, it inevitably focuses on a linear approach to setting out a case. A book is essentially didactic – a one way stream of consciousness from author to reader.

Some months ago I read a book by an environmental anthropologist called ‘The Story of Stuff’, about the problems being created by the ever-increasing quantities of rubbish thrown away by the consumers of New York City. It is a compelling read, but with some 300 pages it requires several hours of careful reading. Recently it has been turned into a 22-minute animated graphic documentary and placed on the internet – at the latest count it had been watched 14 million times! As an author I pine for an audience of just 1% of numbers like that!

The 21st Century Learning Initiative has now started to do the same with our book. We have looked at the techniques used in a number of other animated documentaries. We have looked at how well these have targeted clearly defined audiences, and the steps needed to help people get a deeper understanding of the different issues. We were particularly interested in how such videos drew people together, and how they then started to deepen their interest, and in a sense create a campaign. We have thought about the way parents might uses such documentaries, then we thought about teachers, and leaders in the community, and politicians.

The first video will be available in early March at www.born-to-learn.org, with the actor Damian Lewis providing the narration. Watch it, think about it, share it with your friends, and then realise why it is so important to read the whole book.

Over the course of the next year we intend to produce 8 or 10 more videos each one of which will be designed to deepen people’s understanding of the whole of this intricate issue of our society becoming ‘overschooled but undereducated’, and what now has to be done to rectify this.

Guest post by John Abbott, President of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, a transnational association of educational researchers and practitioners based in the UK.