Our work is largely concerned with issues of preparation of young people for
rapidly changing future lives, e.g. changing nature of work. Here, and I
think in the US (elsewhere too?) the purpose of education has become more
firmly tied to conceptions of economic development. As a result we have a
burgeoning policy disocurse that emphasises work-related learning. There are
at least two strands in this discourse - a compensatory one and a
complimentary one. We are interested in both but at the moment we are
focusing on the complimentary. This is intended to broaden the learning of
young people but is couched in a language of generic skilling in, for
example, problem solving and team working skills (the notion of these as
generic skills is rarely questioned though all the evidence I kow suggests
that such skills in workplaces are highly contextualised). We are trying to
develop an alternative way of thinking about work-related learning that
involves expanding learners' understandings of what is to count as
knowledge, and learning and knowing. Our view is that this will make a
better preparation for future learning rather than current programmes that
emphasise the acquisition of generic 'packages' of skills (and attributes
and attitudes) that are supposed to be unproblematically transferred from
'school' to the workplace, and subsequently applied there. Preliminary
evidence from work with University students in a programme that emphasises
learning through case study work indicates the difficulty of such expansive
learning for students.
In search of alternative candidate programmes (before we design our own!) we
have been working with communities of learners engaged in a work simulation
activity that is supposed to foster learning through participation in joint
activity. These are typically 16-17 year old students. One finding from this
research is the extent to which what was once an after school activity has
become progressively captured by the school so that it has become either an
integral part of a voc ed programme (and thus subject to the rules of that
voc ed programme) or has become subject to wider cultural imperatives within
the education system, e.g. examination results. In our opinion this severely
limits the undoubted potential that exists within such programmes for the
type of expansionary learning we envisage.
So what was once an enriching activity (or at least one that was intended to
be) is becoming part of the 'de-natured, narrow
skill oriented indoctrination of kids during the school day that follows
perfectly the level 1-level 2 theory of Jensen and his progeny' that Mike
described. Our conclusion is that enrichment activities require vigilant
guardians to protect them from educational policy entrepreneurs and school
bureaucrats. Our solution - get them out of school. The problem then is we
run into the health and safety legislation!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Cole" <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 10:05 PM
Subject: names for afterschool activities
>
> Lois and Geoff-- We have stuck to the term "educational enrichment" for
> our activities. What we are confronting is a form of de-natured, narrow
> skill oriented indoctrination of kids during the school day that follows
> perfectly the level 1-level 2 theory of Jensen and his progeny.
> Supplementary seems like a reasonable term to me too.
>
> In this regard, the couple of dozen systems around the country are all
> running into increasing pressure to stop being enriching (or
supplementary)
> and start reinforcing the in-school regime. It would be very helpful in
> our work to hear if others are experiencing this same counter pressure,
> which has many sources, but just-in-time/all-the-time testing appears
> to be a leading system.
>
> mike
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Aug 01 2002 - 01:00:12 PDT