"Schooling the World" to Make May 5 L.A. Debut

May 2, 2011 - PRLog -- The controversial award-winning documentary film, "Schooling the World: the White Man’s Last Burden," will screen free to the public as the centerpiece of opening night festivities at The 2011 Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles on May 5.     
   
The film, by Emmy and Writers Guild award winning film and television writer/director Carol Black ("The Wonder Years") poses an almost heretical challenge to the long-unquestioned assumption that the western model of education and schooling improves lives wherever it goes. The movie has generated powerful, often emotional, response from its October debut at the Vancouver International Film Festival to its recent showing in Washington, D.C. at the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival.
   
“Every teacher and prospective teacher should watch and discuss 'Schooling the World,'” said Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools.  And Dr. Madhu Suri Prakash, Professor of Education Philosophy at Penn State University called it “a film of profound insights and the quest for hope in the thick of much violence by mainstream cultures against the marginalized and the silenced peoples of the world,” characterizing the film as “challenging, courageous and thought provoking.”

"Schooling the World" joins the past year's spate of education-themed documentaries like "Waiting for Superman" and "Race to Nowhere.”  Says producer Neal Marlens ("The Wonder Years"), “‘Waiting For Superman’ and ‘Race to Nowhere’ demonstrated the immense problems in our schools; “Schooling the World” shows what happens when we export those problems overseas.”
   
Black pointed to the recent allegations surrounding “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute as “an opportunity to look at some of these issues more closely.  People are rightly upset about Mortenson’s fabrications, but the larger fiction which goes unquestioned is his romanticized portrayal of education as a panacea for all the world’s ills, a silver bullet that in one clean shot can end poverty, terrorism, and the oppression of girls and women around the world.” Black said.  “The reality is that the modern school is no silver bullet, but an extremely problematic institution which has proven highly resistant to fundamental reform.  No system that discards millions of normal, healthy kids as failures – many of them extremely smart, by the way – will ever provide a lasting or universal solution to anything.” 
   
The movie has been widely lauded for its breathtaking visual beauty and was shot largely on location in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, India.
   
Carol Black will be present for a Q&A after the screening, which is set for 7:00 P.M. on May 5 at the 800 seat Regent Showcase Theatre at 614 North La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles. Free tickets are available by visiting http://awarenessfestival.healoneworld.com/.

For more information about the film, filmmakers, or screenings, visit http://schoolingtheworld.org.

View Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnzVNO_J6sk