Brave New World and Education

One connection that I made between the video and Brave New World is the fact that kids are being medicated in order to help them stay focused and pay attention in class.  Around the five minute mark, the video states that more and more cases of ADHD have come about, and these children are given dangerous drugs in order “to get them focused and calm them down.  Although the kids in Brave New World are not necessarily taking drugs to help them focus, they are still taught that the use of soma can relieve all stress.  Linda makes this clear when she says to Bernard “why don’t you take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours.  You’d forget all about them.  And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly” (92).  Although soma is not used for educational purposes, it still can be compared to the drugs that are used to calm down learners and get them focused.

Another connection I can draw between the video and the book is as the video puts it, the production line mentality.  He talks about how schools are still organized based on “factory lines” and also points out that “we still educate children by batches.”  I thought this was an interesting point, and it does go right along with Brave New World.  In the novel, all the children are educated by the batches, and not given any chance to express individuality.  As Mr. Foster continues his tour of the conditioning center he tells the people on the tour “I’d like to show you some very interesting conditioning for Alpha Plus Intellectuals.  We have a big batch of them on Rack 5” (17).  Mr. Foster’s statement goes to show that the members of the different groups are conditioned in large batches.  They are all taught the same thing and in large bunches.  This fits well with the videos idea of the factory line education.

The video does make a solid point about education today.  Education is being narrowed down, and less individualistic ideas are allowed to be expressed.  Kids are simply taught one way to do things and that is that.  I think this video definitely make us wonder, is today’s education foreshadowing a future education system similar to the one present Brave New World? I think this video poses a debatable argument that challenges us to review our public education system.