It's About Learning (and It's About Time)

What's in it for Schools?

Louise Stoll, Dean Fink, Lorna Earl

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134586844
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The purpose of this book is to re-orient the current agenda in education towards learning. The recent emphasis has been on achieving standards through managing schools, teachers and the teaching process. But the real purpose of schools was, is, and always will be about learning.

In an increasingly complex, diverse and unpredictable world, it is necessary for schools and those working with them to refocus on learning at all levels - pupils, teachers, leaders, the organisation as a whole and all of the school's partners.

It's About Learning is a clear and well written discussion woven with practical examples and strategies. It also includes an annotated bibliography suggesting useful follow-up reading, and the issues are posed as questions for reflection and discussion.

1 Why learning?

Where were you when the wall came down? In a sense the Berlin ‘wall’ fell on each of us. Few people realised as we watched those dramatic pictures on TV of people climbing onto that hated symbol of tyranny and hopelessness, and using chisels, hammers, and any other instrument they could find to destroy it, that all of our lives would change profoundly. Almost overnight the world changed. For the previous 45 years, the interaction of two large power blocs determined the rules of global living. With the disintegration of the eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War, old barriers have broken down to be replaced by integrative globalised structures such as the internet, CNN and McDonalds. This new era is only just over 10 years old – it is in its infancy – yet it is changing by the minute in confusing and unpredictable ways.

As we were putting the finishing touches on this book, the world changed again, starting with the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001. It is not clear what will follow. There is no doubt, however, that the people of this planet are inextricably connected to one another in the midst of changes that are fast-paced and uncertain.

When we began to think about this book, we started from the premise that to equip future generations to respond and survive in a frenetically and unpredictably changing world, learning was the imperative. Learning has always provided the advantage for human survival through difficult, even seemingly impossible, times. Human beings are able to learn, unlearn, share their learning and pass learning on to those who follow. Learning is at the core of our being, as individuals and collectively. At the same time, our societies have not even approached the limits of what can be learned. As we move into a new century, there are compelling social forces that necessitate better learning and learning in new ways. At the same time, we are on the threshold of major transformations in our learning about learning. The challenge for educators is to apply this new learning to help pupils deal with the opportunities and stresses of shifting and unpredictable social forces on their lives.

In this book, therefore, we attempt:

• to rethink what learning is about, particularly in schools

• to describe what we currently know about learning

• to anticipate what learning might mean for the next generation

• to examine learning in schools (for pupils, for teachers, for leaders, and for schools as learning communities)

• to highlight the links and connections between these levels of learning and what helps promote and sustain them

• to identify learnings for those outside schools to help create the necessary infrastructure to support learning in schools.

The rollercoaster ride of change

Although it is never possible to predict the future, there have been times in human history when people lived with at least the illusion of considerable certainty in their lives. In a rapidly changing world, however, this is no longer possible or even desirable. Educators can’t hide their heads in the hope that ‘this too shall pass’. They have a choice to make – wait until directed to change by others, or take charge of change and attempt to influence the future of schools and schooling. We concur with Hedley Beare (2001) when he states that it is possible to take ‘deliberate actions to maximise the chance of achieving your preferred futures’ – for young people, for the teaching profession and for schools.

Possible futures – things which could happen, although many of them are unlikely

Probable futures – things which probably will happen, unless something is done to turn events around

Preferable futures – things that you prefer to have happen and/or what you would like to plan to happen

Beare (2001)

The first step in this process is one of learning: learning about the compelling social forces of our time that influence the course of daily events; learning about the processes of learning; and then building capacity for continuous learning for ourselves and for our pupils. Our ‘rollercoaster’ of change began in 1989 when the fall of ‘the wall’ removed international restraints on the forces of globalisation. The ride has only continued to get more thrilling and exciting, but it is also more challenging and frightening.

Globalisation is one of the most talked-and written-about themes in western intellectual circles. It is a very rare political speech or workshop presentation that does not make some reference to globalisation and its promises or threats for the future. Yet, as we have found out as we debated the content and structure of this book, individuals and groups bring very different definitions and perspectives to the concept of globalisation. In very general terms, globalisation is the process by which the peoples and nations of the world are increasingly drawn together into a single entity (Porter, 1999). Facilitated by revolutionary communications technology, globalisation has allowed humans literally to triumph over the limitations of time and space. How one sees the linkages and the implications of this process, however, depends on the lens one uses to view it. For example, globalisation from an economic perspective can be perceived as the spread of free-market capitalism to virtually every country in the world (Friedman, 2000). Looked at from a cultural point of view, globalisation might be perceived as the homogenisation of human culture. As anyone who travels widely will attest, there is considerable evidence that western and particularly American culture are overwhelming and absorbing indigenous cultures. Politically, one might well argue that globalisation is a process of international decision-making that makes national and local governments less important or even impotent. From a third-world perspective one might well view globalisation as ‘A new form of colonisation but, instead of being armed with weapons or with Bibles, the new conquistadors are bristling with the financial and electronic implements of economic domination’ (Mortimore, 2001).

Globalisation is not one process but a complex set of interconnected and interrelated processes that often manifest themselves in contradictory and oppositional ways (Giddens, 1999). To help schools understand the influence of the global forces that have unleashed the powerful forces for educational change buffeting virtually every school and every educator in the western world, we describe five ‘forces for change’ – economic and work, technological, social, environmental and political.

Economic and work forces

The most obvious manifestation of globalisation is the integration of the world’s economies. The idea of a national economy that governments can control and regulate may be a thing of the past. Our economic futures are intricately linked with those of people and nations throughout the world. While globalised economies have always existed, the sheer speed, breadth and facelessness of the ways in which ‘the electronic herd’ (Friedman, 2000) moves its money, businesses and jobs around the world is unparalleled in human history. This ‘herd’ is composed of corporations, banks, insurance companies, mutual fund managers and individuals throughout the world who bet on the state of national economies, corporate futures, crop yields and anything else that can be turned to financial advantage. The ‘electronic herd’ has the potential to require governments internationally to operate under a prescriptive set of principles: reduce the size of government, eliminate national and state debts, cut expenditures on public spending and above all reduce taxes, particularly corporate taxes. Deviations from these rules can result in withdrawal of investment and destabilised economies as has happened, for example, in Malaysia and Mexico. Even labour is subject to the discipline of the electronic herd. Investment goes to the state or nation that can provide stability, profit and fixed and preferably low labour costs (Greider, 1997). Certainly the unionism which has been labour’s historical response to exploitation has waned throughout what has been described as ‘our global village’ (McCluhan, 1964).

These forces have contributed to new patterns of work that are quite different from the past. The idea of a job for life is disappearing. In the late 1990s many young people, when asked how many employers they expected to have throughout their careers, typically responded ‘three to five’ (Conger, 1997). Entire layers of middle managers have disappeared. More women are working and are increasingly being encouraged by the government in England to do so. Will Hutton (1996) has referred to the ‘thirty, thirty, forty society’. He contends that in the United Kingdom, 30 per cent of the adult population is unemployed or employed in government-funded work projects. A second 30 per cent is made up of the ‘marginalised and insecure’ – people involved in temporary or part-time jobs with few benefits and little future. The final 40 per cent are the ‘privileged’; those employed or self-employed adults who have held their jobs for more than two years. Even this group splits into the rich and poor. Thirty-five per cent of the privileged group earns less than 80 per cent of the median wage. For those in work, there is increasing pressure to deliver more quickly and to work harder. Levels of work-related stress are high. In the late 1990s it was estimated that nearly 10 per cent of the UK’s GNP was lost each year due to job-generated stress (Arnold et al., 1998), and English researchers have found that beyond 40 hours a week, time spent working is increasingly unproductive and can lead to ill health (Sparks and Cooper, 1997). Newspapers increasingly carry articles about people’s desire to ‘have a life’, highlighting a ‘coming collision’ between economic imperatives driving strategies in business and a changing nature of people in the workplace (Bouchikhi and Kimberly, 2000). It is also quite clear that not only will patterns of work continue to change, but the very nature of what we call work will continue to change as a result of technological innovations.

Technological forces

The globalised economy has ridden to power and influence on waves of technological innovation and development that in turn profoundly affect our daily lives. The ‘electronic herd’, for example, would not exist without a networked society (Castells, 1996).

Technology has improved and enriched our lives in many real and as yet unimaginable ways. There is, however, a cost. The technology that sends people to the moon, cures diseases and facilitates our communication networks also guides smart bombs to their destinations, triggers land mines and supports international terrorism. In the twentieth century technology offered us flight, information technology and medical miracles. It was also a century of sophisticated technological wars, holocausts and anthrax. Technology is value-neutral; it is how we use it that determines its benefits or horrors.

Information technology affects schools directly. There has been an exponential increase in the availability of information, thanks to advanced technologies and particularly the internet. Virtually everyone has access to information once reserved to a small number of experts. One might well argue that, thanks to our advanced information technologies, most people have more information than they are capable of dealing with. Information alone is only useful when it becomes knowledge, unless you are a contestant in a trivia contest. Information becomes knowledge when it is shaped, organised and embedded in some context that has a purpose, that leads one to understand something about the world (Postman, 1999). Different subject disciplines provide intellectual frameworks to help make sense of information and ‘turn’ it into knowledge. The internet can be a wonderful source of information, but it can also be a repository for the dark side of humankind. A fundamental role for schools is to help pupils use information from the internet critically, to arrive at knowledge that leads to greater understanding. At a higher level, schools play an important role in leading pupils to greater wisdom. To this end, pupils must come to understand which systems of knowledge creation are appropriate for particular problems. In effect, pupils must see the interconnections and interrelationships between and among systems of knowledge creation so that they can make wise and ethical decisions. Just as literacy and media studies involve the critical analysis of literature and the media respectively, these same skills and learning must be brought to existing and emerging technology if we are to attend to the problems of this ‘global village’.

In the Industrial Age, human labor was engaged in the production of goods and the performance of basic services. In the Age of Access, intelligent machines . . . increasingly replace human labor in the agriculture, manufacturing, and service sectors . . . The cheapest workers in the world likely will not be as cheap as the technology coming online to replace them.

Rifkin (2000)

Social forces

According to Phillip Harter, from Stanford University School of Medicine, if the earth’s population at the end of the twentieth century could have been shrunk to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would have looked something like the following:

57 Asians; 21 Europeans; 14 from the western Hemisphere, both north and south; 8 Africans

52 would be female; 48 would be male

70 would be non-white; 30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian; 30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual; 11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59 per cent of the entire world’s wealth and all 6 would be from the US

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

...

Table of contents

• Fornt Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Series Editors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Why learning?
• 2 Learning about learning
• 3 Pupil learning at the centre
• 4 Teachers on a learning curve
• 5 Leadership for learning and learning for leadership for learning
• 6 The learning community: learning together and learning from one another
• 7 Enhancing capacity for learning
• References
• Index