I have followed this thread with some despair.
In 1983 the US produced 'A Nation at Risk' as an indictment of American
schools, (but without thereby coming to Postgate's conclusion!). That
document produced a storm of reform, and not just in the USA. 'A Nation at
Risk' became a key leverage point for a fundamental reform of schooling in
many countries. Here in NZ there was a direct causal thread to an act in
1989 that produced the first fundamental education policy change in NZ since
1867.
One of the core challenges of that reform movement was to the 'professional'
model of teaching - that associated with the tag 'teacher knows best' that
has been used in this thread.
At the time I was deeply and centrally involved in education policy
formation in NZ - a role which led me to a later involvement in school
reform in Chicago. My concern then - and one that put me at odds with the
tenor of the times - was that I believed the challenge to professional
elitism was the right question, but that the answer of commodification and
the creation of markets in education was not the answer.
Thus I began a journey that brought me to CHAT. I could not - and still
cannot - understand how education can be sensibly modelled as a market, or
how what happens in education can be perceived as a commodity. Thus I react
shudderingly to the use of the word 'client' as applied to students.
The way I saw it the only possible 'client' of schools was the state. And
the commodities states were 'purchasing' from schools were allegedly an
employable and socially adjusted populace. More cynically I sometimes felt
that what the state was actually purchasing was educational institutions as
on tap scapegoats for the social consequences of their own social and
economic policy failures.
Able to endorse neither the professional model (which alienated me from my
teacher union employer) nor the market model (which made it impossible for
me to work in the institutions of the state) I had to go elsewhere - hence
my current work.
I found the conceptual solution to my dilemma in the work of Ritva and Yrjo
Engestrom into the nature of expertise in medical settings. This gave me a
scientific foundation for my intuitive belief that educational processes
needed to be seen as ones in which the technical 'expert' and the students
('expert' about their own lives), come together to co-construct a community
of practice whose shared object is the intellectual development of both.
The problem with the 'sides' in the debate, is that the 'professional' model
is contradictory to such a goal in that it imbalances power towards the
'expert', and the market/client model is contradictory because it imbalances
power towards the student. In fact it is worse than that in a publicly
funded system, because the state is not only the ghost at the feast but is,
in fact, the dominant influence because of its role as funder. Thus the
invisible and visible objects of the state interfere with both the teacher
and the learner's ability to even think about forming a community of
practice.
Schools and universities exist not because they are the best way to educate
people, but because they are a way of serving multiple structural goals in
complex industrialised societies, and societies that have them (i.e. the
whole world) now inherit them as culturally and historically embedded social
institutions.
It is virtually no use fighting that reality. All that remains is to work
within the existing contradictions. In our work we try to help teachers,
students and parents to co-construct communities of practice DESPITE the
cultural and historical contradictions embedded in the institutional
arrangements within which they come together. Many, many teachers heroically
try to do it for themselves. But the way to professional advancement lies in
buying into the prevailing 'client' based model.
Thus I reject the idea of the student as 'client', just as I also reject the
idea of the student as supplicant at the professional altar.
-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Owen [mailto:mowen@rem.bangor.ac.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, 11 September 2001 4:22 a.m.
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re(3): Words as commodity/client
Sorry Charles, Andy....I should not use throwaway lines on the 'net.
a) Many of my colleagues in Estates, registry, finanace , personnel do
work as a team to develop and transform the university
b) Some of the above have a differnet Object (to me) in the university as
activity system. We see the function of university staff differently.
Notwithstanding any other comments, there are standards of provision which
need to be upheld, which I and other employed people within the university
would seek to maintain ( I keep my e-Learning systems backed up, I have
minimum downtime etc) and I do this not because my students are my
clients, but because it is what I expect to be able to provide as a
learning environment.
Martin Owen
Labordy Dysgu- Learning Lab
Prifysgol Cymru Bangor- University of Wales, Bangor
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