An Illichian Rant

Editor’s Note: At one stage this post had a point, but somewhere along the line it seems to have derailed into a rant against the establishment.

Criticism
The challenges and obstacles facing the evolution and revolution of education can be traced back to a few key ideas – those of stratification, hierarchies, institutionalisation, power, and control. Essentially, characteristics that have nothing to do with education and learning, but everything to do with how it is controlled, dictated and managed.

Schools have come to symbolise clearly structured environments where teacher presides over a classroom, molds it, guides it, conducts it and confirms or denies competency. The teacher is seen as an authority figure to be followed, not an equal. What is learned is under their control, as well as that of the school or the government; not the will of those who would do the learning.

Schools are sharply and artificially divided into homogeneous demographics, grouped by age, ability, intelligence, gender, religion or worse still, sometimes even race. Classes are generally held indoors, separate from real instances of the subjects that they study; the learning objectives defined by the school curriculum, not the learner.

Indeed it could be said that there are multiple stakeholders in curriculum design, many of whom have very targeted interests that arguably focus outside the learner. Industry is increasingly consulted by schools and universities interested in establishing ties and long term relationships. Indeed as Peters (2007) describes, governments have begun to take notice of the emerging “knowledge economy”:

“In the attempt to re-position and structurally adjust their national economies to take advantage of the main global trends, British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand governments have begun to recognise the importance of education, and especially higher education, as an ‘industry’ of the future. There is an emerging understanding of the way in which higher education is now central to economic (post) modernisation and the key to competing successfully within the global economy.”

In the wake of this, schools – particularly higher education – have adopted a much more industry-focused approach, in which learners are actively prepared for a productive life in the workforce. This extends to adopting similar terminology and processes such as “business rules,” tasks that are “owned,” SWOT analyses and the “rise of new regulatory regimes that impose an ‘audit society’ on the previously autonomous society” (Peters, 2007).

Learning is divided into subjects, thus creating a disjointed, disconnected sense of unrelatedness across curricula; then organised into a linear order, requiring one lesson be mastered before the next one can be introduced.

Effectively schools are artificial structures, covering compulsory subjects in disjointed fashions for arbitrary groups of passive, segregated learners. This is hardly an environment that fosters personal ownership of learning, or a recognised personal relevance to existing educational processes. As Illich argues (1971), “The creature whom schools need as a client has neither the autonomy nor the motivation to grow on his own.”

Optimism, Letting Go, Embracing

Illich (1971) argues further that:

“…new educational institutions ought not to begin with the administrative goals of a principal or president, or with the teaching goals of a professional educator, or with the learning goals of any hypothetical class of people. It must not start with the question, “What should someone learn?” but with the question, “What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?”

John Holt (1967) echoed this sentiment when speaking of childhood education, saying:

“What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out.”

There are two distinct steps that must be taken for real, lasting change to be occur – the first of letting go, and the next of embracing. We must let go of our standing preconceptions about what education is, and what it is not; what teachers are and what they are not; what school is, and what it is not; and ultimately what learning is, and what it is not.

We must let go of our perceptions of what knowledge is and what it isn’t; who controls the knowledge, affirms or denies its validity and relevance; whether knowledge is something to be hoarded or freely shared; what form it takes, how it is transmitted, retained or realised; and ultimately the purpose of knowledge.

We must forget everything we think we know; and approach learning as though we’ve never done it before; never been taught, and never taught others.

When we’ve done that, when we’ve cast off these barriers to our perception, we can begin to look forward anew. We can embrace the passion, the curiosity, the wonder, the endless questioning and the comparing of what we see, think and feel; our hands and minds free to grasp and to draw inwards; to seize hold of the reigns of our own learning journeys and embrace it for all its potential.

We can then begin to realise that learning is something to be lived; something to be seen, and heard, and felt, and touched; something to be listened to, realised and witnessed. Something to be understood, and sometimes not understood. Something to be experienced. To realise that education is an empowering force to support this process in all its natural chaos and interrelatedness – not something to be managed; not something to be dictated; not something to be controlled..

We can grow to learn in a different model, but first our perspectives on the roles of learner, teacher and school must change.

References:

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Yes!
  • Re: An Illichian Rant {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/gRsyE44JsH_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"Re: An Illichian Rant "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/bfVbNa79S7"}}}
  • Hey Mike,

    So after we take a couple of days to unlearn all this stuff, then what? ;0)

    There is a bit of seriousness in that question...for me, that whole re-envisioning process (still in progress) has become a natural part of my 7.5 year blogging journey. And I'm still not anywhere near to the point of letting go that you suggest, but I'm headed in that direction. Thing is, I can't imagine another 7.5 years of looking at a system that doesn't want to do much if any of this change work.

    Regardless, thanks for articulating so passionately a validation of my own thinking and work.

    Best,

    Will
  • You bring out a lot of good ideas. I'm beginning to think that education can't be changed by the people in the schools. They have too much invested in the current structure. Charter schools are an example of the inability to change. Charter schools cam into being to allow for change and innovation. Yet, most them have evolved into traditional schools and traditional curriculum.

    It may take an outside visionary with a compelling story to make the change. We need the "I've been to the mountain.." speech for educational change.

    My humble thoughts,

    Jim
  • The prevailing idea among several bloggers I read seems to be that we must scrap the whole system and start over, this time asking different questions. It's a compelling idea and you really hone the argument here.

    That being said, the history of school reform just doesn't lend itself to believing that will happen. And, like Will, I'm impatient for it to happen. On the other hand, there is a lot of the tinkering kind of change going on particularly in the rise of online education that eventually may reach a tipping point where we look back and think how different things are now.

    But I'm convinced it won't happen until we change the nature of standardized assessment. The teachers I talk to feel powerless to try anything besides what they know because of the test. My state has defined essential knowledge that will be tested and that's what gets covered. Even the most innovative, creative teacher I know is worried because her student-centered work has put her behind her pacing guide. She certainly won't want to give up any more control and risk her scores going down.
  • Word!

    Radical? Yes. But at least you have the cojones to call a spade a spade.

    Power. Control. Authority. Coercion. This is what much of the education system is still about. And it's these terms which are strangely missing from many of the discussions about "progressive" education.
  • Hi Mike,
    Can I just warn you from personal experience that reading or contemplating Illich while bouncing a small child can have long-term implications for both the bouncer and the bouncee? :-) The sense of urgency regarding change sure goes way up in a hurry, but I can report that those pesky kids grow faster than any comprehensive change movement can accommodate. And that thought can keep you up nights even if the little one doesn't...:-)
    Enjoying your posts (rather late in the CCK08 game).
    Carmen Tschofen
  • Hi Everyone,

    Wow, this post got a bit more attention than I was expecting. Thanks very much for all the thought-provoking comments. I don't think I'll manage to give them all the attention they deserve tonight, but here are my initial thoughts.

    A colleague and friend of mine brought up this post on the way to work today, sounding somewhat concerned about what I was suggesting and seemingly thinking I mean to do away with the institution of education entirely. So for the record I thought might clarify my position by adapting a quote from Thoreau's "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience":

    "...to speak practically and as a [Learner], unlike those who call themselves no-[School] men, I ask for, not at once no [School], but at once a better [School]. Let every man make known what kind of [School] would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it."


    My interpretation of Thoreau is that beneath the antagonistic stance he exhibits in the first three quarters of the essay, he also has an equally passionate admiration and love for the United States; it is the failings of government that earn his contempt. So it goes with my perspective towards the difference between the fundamental idea of education and the failings of existing educational processes - and in particular the external mandates that impact and constrain these process.

    As Karen says, much of the realities of a teacher's circumstances are outside of their realm of control - so there are many levels of administrative expectations and governmental bureaucracy to be faced. In the case of the government of Thoreau's essays, the source of the malady that affected the government - and arguably continues to do so - was not attributed to a single source, but many. It would seem the same complexities apply to the challenges of formal education.

    My partner was a teacher and educational designer for many years, and echoed Karen's sentiments, saying something to the effect of:
    "There is so much material crammed into the required curriculum these days that there is virtually no time left for flexibility on the part of the teacher. Teacher's can't risk the class falling behind because of the repercussions from the State regarding existing classroom benchmarks."


    This must place teachers - especially progressive ones - in a very frustrating situation. Yet in my view this is even more reason to push back and challenge current policy. This notion leads me to the next quote from Thoreau:

    "...it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever."


    For those of us who believe the course of education needs to change, it seems to me that the most important things that we can do to affect this change are to trust our beliefs, remain vigilant in our cause, realise that each of our contributions are singularly important in their own right, and maintain the hope that so long as we enact the changes we want to see in education we will eventually realise the goal.

    Cheers,

    Mike
  • I'd like to see someone write about the history of education in Western societies. In the US, schools were created to mold the citizenry, so that tight control was required. The schools still serve that purpose, and now are held accountable by standardized tests.
    So (assuming you agree with my reason for the reason for schools in Western societies), would un-doing all we know actually threaten the foundation of society - the citizens?
  • Hi Gina!

    I'm quite interested in the history of education myself. It's not an area I'm an expert in, so perhaps this is a homework assignment I can give myself.

    As to the question of molding the citizenry, I guess that depends on whether you think people need molding in the first place; and for that matter whether, in the absence of control measures, people will be inherently cooperative with one another, exploit one another, or be somewhere in the middle.

    As for standardized testing, my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is that people have disputed the objectivity of these sorts of tests, saying they can be inherently biased depending on who designs the tests (be it due to factors of culture, ethnicity, gender or something else). Given the diversity of society, how can the standardization of testing NOT benefit one demographic more than another?

    I'm not trying to suggest it's done this way on purpose, merely that it's an unavoidable consequence of trying to apply a common template to a population of individuals who are inherently diverse.

    Goes back to knowledge and the perception of knowledge being a matter of perspective I think.
  • I couldn't resist a little rant of my own, thanks for spotting my tweet and pointing me to this post Mike :-)

    http://brains.parslow.net/node/1474
  • And a very good rant it is!
  • jhawtin
    The industrial model offers a means to assess value and efficiency of school. What values and approaches to learning will better service learning itself but also provide society with a sense of value. What does a good job look like in a more adaptive connective school system?
    Janet
  • Hi Janet,

    Very tricky questions :) I tried not to get into a discussion on semantics and my interpretation of language here, but as it turned out I couldn't avoid it LOL

    First though, I think the short answer to your question "What does a good job look like in a more adaptive connective school system?" is "One that the individual is satisfied with."

    This of course leads to the question of "what satisfies the individual?". I think there are several points here - at least to me - and those are the notions of and/or need for:

    - Personal relevance of and sense of ownership for the subject matter (e.g. a curiosity or vested interest in)

    - Capacity to evaluate and self-assess results and performance (e.g. Am I able to do what I want to do, or do I understand what I'm trying to understand)

    - Willingness to make changes and pursuit improvements (e.g. What can I do to learn more about this and/or improve)


    Providing these things are in place (there maybe others but these are the ones that come to mind), I think a cycle of action will be in place to keep the individual motivated to continue to delve deeper into the subject matter and/or keep trying. In fact I'd argue you'd have far better results in the long run if learners see a tangible relevance to them - there would be an inherent interest in assuring they achieve the best results, since it was something they decided they want to learn.

    Regarding the definition of the industrial model as one of offering "a means to assess value and efficiency of the school, " I guess the first question or perhaps issue in that sort is who determines or dictates value, because ultimately value is a matter of perspective. Are we looking at personal value, institutional value, social value, cultural value, global value, etcetera. I also note this definition adopts an inherently institutional-centric view, which doesn't necessarily translate to a quality learning experience for the individual.

    If I were to go into a school in Japan, for example, and teach according to what is acceptable behavior in a Western Culture I would be encouraging the development of skills that might be valuable and significant to me and yet might be completely out of sync with those of the local culture. So in that instance who's judgment of value is "correct"?

    What I think is something that's important to know may be completely irrelevant or unimportant to you and vice versa. So by relying on a external sources of judgement to determine value or relevance you almost immediately start undermining the sense of personal relevance and therefore ownership, and placing the interests of the organisation or central figure over those of the individual.

    As a result the willingness to self-assess is lower, and so too a lower vested interested in pursuing changes and improvement. So the cycle of action and motivation is much lower, and I'd argue the effectiveness of the exercise is much less for all parties involved.

    Besides if knowledge is indeed distributed across a network (as Connectivism says), and the quality of the knowledge directly relates to the depth and diversity of the nodes within the network, then it is in the best interests of the members of the network to have as many perspectives on value represented as possible.

    Secondly regarding efficiency, to me that's a very slippery slope because depending on how the efficiency-gains were approached it might result in limiting or preventing learning opportunities, development of deeper thinking skills, etcetera. I think the value of efficiency is less a concern of the learner, and more a concern of the institution - or particularly of industry. So once again we're undermining the sense of relevance and ownership for the learner to pursuit the interests of the school or industry.
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