I experienced some development education the other day. It with the presenter saying "I like doing things" and that this was to be a "hands-on" session. We looked at bits of photos of India, putting them together, jig-saw like and then talking about what they showed. Ours was of a city scape, a dual carriageway road with moving traffic: from gleaming 4x4s, to (equally polished) three-wheel taxis, and the odd récherche Austin/Morris saloon. I suggested that the photograph illustrated prosperity: wrong answer, it seemed. We moved on to a variety of other activities: I to looking at an informative, but dated, banana industry resource pack that showed the evils of global capitalism (which I knew about anyway), and the woman next to me to making "Ghanian" beads out of strips of wallpaper. I wasn't sure what this was supposed to show; something about the Ghanian economy, I think, where there must be surplus wallpaper if the activity was to make sense. There was no grounding of any of this in curriculum, pedagogy or learning. It was just – in Jeremy Clarkson's words about Sudoko – something to pass the time – before we die.
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