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Multiple boundaries to schooling
One could arguably maintain that, despite its dedication to learning, the boundaries that make up schooling define it far more than any learning that goes on there. Just look at schooling in terms of the units that structure it: the class, the year, the stream, the level, the teacher, the classroom, the school, the district, the local authority, the period, the school day, the school year, the subject or discipline, the curriculum, the examining authority, the marking system, ... Such divisions appear self-evident with time and habit, and hindsight provides all manner of arguments to justify their existence. However, they are necessarily arbitrary and could quite readily have been otherwise. This fact does not imply that it would be easy to change them. Much of the 'convenience' of these structures lies in their contribution to the readability, manageability and reassurance of schooling rather than to learning itself. Learning needs none of these things. In fact, many of these convenient divisions could prove to be detrimental to learning especially when it is seen as an independent activity that cuts across or lies beyond institutional boundaries. These divisions arguably also diminish the motivation to learn in that, for example, such learning is founded on external expert opinion and not on the learner's own desire or need to know. This perspective raises a question: what structures, if any, does learning require? Or put otherwise, what form would an institution for learning have such that its structures would be permeable to cross-boundary learning?
The advent of information and communication technologies could have offered alternative possibilities to structure learning but understandably the most widely used tools available for learning in schools reflect the existing structure of schooling. Such divisions as the class, teacher/pupil and subjects, are hard-wired into these tools. One could argue that the constraints imposed by the technology are more insidious than the limitations due to institutions, but this may simply reflect the current stage in our uptake of information and communication technologies. Outside of schooling, individuals and groups are adopting a number of new tools to assist and structure their learning as a pursuit embedded in other activities but schools often proscribe the use of these tools and services within their walls.
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boundaries, schooling, learning, ict
Last updated 384 days ago by Alan McCluskey
