Collusion or conspiracy

Employability is actually just the tip of an unintended iceberg. When we start worrying too much about whether our graduates can get jobs, we miss the point of education. Instead, by looking almost exclusively at the needs of industry (however you may define that) we naturally start asking what it is that this industry really wants as far as qualified workers. It's a reasonable, but dangerous question.

Quality has long been defined as the fulfilling of requirements; high quality the fulfilling of expectations as well. By stressing the need to know industry's needs, companies start getting involved -- deeply involved -- in schools. They start exercising influence on the schooling process and consequently -- and perhaps inadvertently (I wouldn't want to accuse anyone unjustly) -- they drive education out of the schools. There is simply no room left for it. Two questions immediately arise: do they know what they want? And, what are they willing to do to get it?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they know what they want. I've been in enough meetings and at enough conferences on the subject to know that their requirements are anything but clearly defined and articulated: students should be "skilled", be capable of "teamwork", they should have sound math knowledge (in engineering related disciplines), they should be able to communicate. That all sounds very nice, but what does it mean? It sounds a lot like the three R's (reading writing, 'rithmetic) to me. Isn't that what we have been doing all along? Apparently not, so what's the consequence?

As sports is the first and easiest ways into education institutions of all varieties, we've seen it already. They come bearing gifts: stadiums, sponsorships, specific equipment or facilities. And what they bring along with these are commercial interests, consumerism, advertising, and, of course, guilt: what often looks like a donation is really a down payment.

I'm not saying that legitimate business doesn't have its own interests, nor that these interests are bad. What I am saying, however, is that these interests are private interests, not public interests. We have long passed the time when we erroneously believed that what is good for GM is good for the country. We should have learned that private interests in public education is really a conflict of interests.

The tyranny of employability

Having made a distinction between education and schooling, at least in general terms, it seems reasonable to take a closer look at what that means across a broader front. Although I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, I'm not too inclined to take many of them too seriously, but I am sensitive, I believe, to subtle changes in attitude that, once they spread, appear to the casual observer that they were somehow planned or are part of a larger scheme.

In many of the projects in which I am involved, one word keeps reappearing which is giving me some pause for concern. The word? "Employability". At first glance, it seems relatively harmless. The idea behind it is simply to provide those seeking employment those, more or less, specific skills and capabilities that will enhance their chances of landing a job. Noble, right? I mean, who doesn't want to help people get into gainful employment? I do. (And, just to be clear on the issue: there is really no reason why everyone doesn't have a job -- and a meaningful one at that -- but at the moment, that's not how the deck is stacked, but more on that another time.) I'm sure you do, too. So what's the problem?

As with so many well meaning, well intended initiatives, this one has all the potential to become our latest Frankenstein. Why? The reason is just as simple: it's too limited a concept. If person A needs skills X, Y, and Z, and I train him (or her) to obtain those skills, what happens when technology or processes or the situation changes and those skills are no longer required? They would have to be retrained. But, in the meantime, chances are very good that they will be out of work again, because why should a business keep someone around who doesn't have the right skills? Exactly. In other words, by pursuing a strict policy of employability, we are actually condemning a large segment of our population to irregular cycles of employment and unemployment, of being in demand and of being in the way. Is that what we really want?

We moderns pride ourselves in living in such a dynamic and fast-changing world. The pace of life hasn't slowed down and it doesn't seem it's going to soon. But not everyone takes part in that world. Some are simply victims of it. Since we've got schooling down and have turned our backs on education, we are creating that very class of people who will never be a part of the world we claim to love so much. It's not their fault that they are improperly prepared, for it is our own policies that condemn us.

We need to seriously rethink our attitudes toward something as common and necessary as education. I don't think we can afford not to. And, the sooner we do it, the better for all of us.

Schooling

A most fundamental idea underlies much of what I've been saying over the past few posts, namely that of all nature's creatures, it is humans who are in most need of education. The state of affairs today, our state of economy, the pressing issues that we face are all a result of a lack of education.

Don't get me wrong, we do a fairly good job of schooling ... well, provided you live in a wealthy enough school district or can afford to go to a well-endowed, hence expensive college or university. You can be pretty sure your schooling will be complete. You'll know your multiplication tables, you'll be able to recite important facts of history, you'll know the basics of the natural sciences, and you will have learned that objectivity, that facts, are much more important than values, that values belong in the personal, not the public sphere. You'll be able to spout off definitions of "important" concepts, that is concepts that have been deemed important by acknowledged authorities. You will have learned to accept what others tell you if their credentials are impeccable enough. In other words, you will have learned to talk, but not to listen. You will have learned to make statements, but not necessarily ask questions.

And that, my friends, is the tip-off ... that's how you know you're dealing with a schooled, but not necessarily educated, person. We've nearly lost the ability to question. In fact, questioning has become a mere signal for trouble-making. It is the uncomfortable, difficult student who questions. The good student recites his lessons without error. The good student accepts that authority of the teacher. The good student is ambitious and anxious to please the teacher. And we've got plenty of well-schooled individuals running around, I can assure you. I have to deal with them every single day.

For the most part, they are very nice people. They tend to think they know more than they do, but by and large they are well intended and sincere. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, they never learned that the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and that sincerity, in and of itself, is an excuse for action.

Education

For those of you who aren't (or aren't yet) out dancing around the May Pole, let me tell you why education is not the same as schooling. It's all very simple actually.

Schooling prepares you for certainty. Schooled people are skilled people. You know what is, therefore you know what to do, for every problem, you know the answer. We always have all the answers. Just listen around. There is no shortage of allegedly smart people who have the answers. And these answers are very often implemented, and nine times out of ten, they fail. Why? Because the issues involved are uncertain, and certainty is no match for uncertainty. Uncertainty wins every time.

Education is all about preparing you for uncertainty. You don't learn answers, you learn how to question. You don't learn facts, you learn to think and analyze, to formulate problems is such a way that possible solutions can be found. You don't know for sure, you know how to try. You know things may not work out as expected, and you're willing to change direction as soon as that becomes clear that it's needed.

Education is about openness, but most importantly it is about wisdom. It is enabling individuals to not only know but learn. To learn from others, to learn from books, to learn from experimentation, to learn from experience. Education is about knowledge, not information. It is about competences, not just skills.

But, education demands courage. Courage to be different. Courage to tolerate difference. Courage to think differently. Courage to accept challenges to one's own thinking. And that's what we have so little of these days. Always take the safe path, make sure you don't rock the boat, conform, don't draw attention to yourself. In short, be afraid ... of the "bad" grade you might get, of your teacher, your boss, anyone in authority, of the police, of the government, or that you might lose your job.

And that's why we don't educate anyone anymore ... we're simply too afraid.

Coming down out of the threes

Came across an interesting notion: the "iron triangle" ... a play off of the Iron Curtain of old, that is, a barrier that you really can't do too much about. The iron triangle, when it comes to elearning, of course, has to do with accessibility, quality, and cost [1]. Making adjustments on any single leg of the triangle will have an impact on the other two, and as Daniel et al. (2006) put it, this has been "a straitjacket on the expansion of education throughout history" [1]. I suppose the best we can do is strive for balance, but is that just another dead end?

That's one triangle, but it turns out there are more. While wading through Richardson (2005) on teachers' and students' perceptions of teaching and learning, it occurred to me -- again -- that there are three fundamental elements to every formal learning scenario: the teacher, the learner, and whatever it is that is being learned (the "stuff", if you will). For the longest time, the teacher was the center of attention. In some cultures, like Germany, the "stuff" was. More recently there has been a (n alleged) shift toward the learner. Isn't this triangle, just as iron as the one above?

That, in turn, got me thinking about what is supposed to come out of all this. In other words, the latest educational buzzword came to mind: learning outcomes. I couldn't help but thinking of cyclicity of things, since my old friend Bloom (1956) who really wanted to address not only the cognitive aspects of the learner, but also their affective and psychomotor aspects as well (another threesome). You can't talk about learning outcomes these days without Bloom getting into the action, and though only one of the dimensions of the person is usually addressed, or at least emphasized, aren't they all equally important?

But, I can't think of Bloom without being reminded of Pestalozzi [4] who emphasized the tripartite nature of the learner as well, though his language was more direct and natural than Bloom's. Dear Pestalozzi, in his simplicity, only spoke of "heart, head, and hands". This works very well in practice, too, as my eight years of experience at the Hermann Lietz-Schule demonstrated, for we, too, took him as our starting point. So, with all respect to Bloom, his ideas were not that original, but they were reformulated for modern times. This is certainly no reason to reject them, but is it a signal to accept them as blindly as we seem to?

And there is one final triangle that ties into all of this as well, and it deals with the heart of the entire matter, namely learning itself. The discussion of learning outcomes, at least as seen through the eyes of vocational education, involves three different types of learning as well: formal learning (what we supposed to be learning), non-formal learning (what we learning instead of what we're supposed to be learning), and informal learning (what we do practically every minute of our lives). This is another triangle that needs be thrown into the mix, is it not?

I know we moderns like to focus on the details, but this is often at the expense of the big picture. When considering education today -- online or off, present or distant, or in any other mode -- it would do us good not to forget that there is more involved than we may first perceive. This means, too, that when we're looking for solutions to educational problems, making an adjustment on one leg of a triangle may not get us the results we seek, but all of these triangle are in fact interrelated. We may always be unadjusting much more than we think we are fine-tuning.

References
[1] Daniel, J., West, P. and Mackintosh, W. (2006) "Exploring the role of ICTs in addressing educational needs: identifying the myths and the miracles", NADEOSA 10th Anniversary Conference, Pretoria, South Africa, 23 August 2006; also available online at http://www.col.org/resources/speeches/2006presentations/Pages/2006-08-23.aspx (accessed 2010-05-05).

[2] Richardson, J.T.E. (2005) "Students' Approaches to Learning and Teachers' Approaches to Teaching in Higher Education", Educational Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 6, December, pp. 673-680.

[3] Bloom, B.S. (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, Chicago, Susan Fauer Company, Inc.

[4] Pestalozzi, J.H. (1979) "Über die Idee der Elementarbildung (Lenzburger Rede) und 5 Schriften um 1810", in E. Dejung (ed.) Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Ausgabe, Band 22, Zürich, Orell Füssli.

[5] Cedefop (2008) The Shift to Learning Outcomes: Conceptual, Political and Practical Developments in Europe, Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Vocations and Professions

My initial reaction is that vocations have to do with being called; professions do the calling. Catchy, I suppose, but not very helpful.

I've been given a small but difficult task in a project in which I'm taking part: make clear the difference between vocational training and academic-based education in 25 lines or less. Seems to be a lot like an old contest from a cereal box. It isn't. European educational policy hangs in the balance. OK, not in the balance, but over my shoulder.

There are two fundamental oppositional pairs that I'm wrestling with: (1) training vs. education and (2) vocational vs. ???. The problem's pretty obvious: I'm missing the second element of the second pair. At the moment, I've classified it as a language problem.

Grow (1991) makes a sensible and simple distinction between training and education: the former, he contends, is "learning to do something well"; the latter, "becoming prepared for an uncertain life". It's a start. Granted, there are certain professions, like lawyers, doctors, teachers, and others, which are heavily engaged in training, and this training is to prepare the learner for functioning on the job. So, there is certainly an occupational component, at any rate. My hesitancy arises in placing profession opposite vocational, because I think this sends the wrong signal, especially in terms of the task I need to perform.

Leafing through Postman (1995), however, has provided me with a potential exit out of my dilemma. Though differentiating between schooling and education, he raises an interesting distinction that appears helpful to me: training, learning to do something well, enable us to make a living. Education, on the other hand, in preparing one for uncertainty, helps us to make a life for ourselves. The difference is simple, yet profound.

To participate in a professional field, of course, one starts with a basis in education, and then adds the training on top. Vocational training, for the most part, starts with the fundamentals (3 Rs, basic general knowledge, etc.) and then focuses primarily on the training part. Of course, highly skilled tradespeople are capable of functioning well in an uncertain world, but the focus of their skill development is not the uncertainty, but certainty: doing their trade well. Higher education, though, is supposed to prepare us for greater levels of uncertainty?

Perhaps. This is the thought I'll have to pursue. I'm still missing a word in for my pairs. Vocational/Professional is too sharp. Vocational/Academic seems too bookish. Vocational/Occupational is not sharp enough. The search continues.

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Grow, G. (1991) "Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed." Adult Education Quarterly, 41, 125-149

Postman, N. (1995) The End of Education, NY, Vintage Books

Anti-teaching ... really?

In my day job, I have to deal a lot with trying to get adult-education teachers and vocational trainers into the 21st century. In other words, I have been tasked with helping get our collective head around the latest information and communication technology (ICT). It's not an easy job, and it's not a pretty picture. This is not because this class of educator is particularly put off by new technology, it's more of case of them not seeing why it may be useful. After all, we've been talking at students and seminar participants for years now, and nobody's really complained, and they seem to be getting it, and their employers are generally satisfied ... so why all this new stuff?

I find the question particularly legitimate. Have we really shown that there is any advantage to ICT in any classroom. On the one hand, we have the fact that an increasing number of our learners are simply at home in the new technologies. In one of the EU projects in which I am involved (TeNeGEN: Connect the TEachers to reach and teach the NEt GENeration www.tenegen.eu), this was the starting point for developing materials and courses to help get our target group more up-to-speed with their students. Sure, we're making some progress, but there is a deeper issue involved, namely change.

It's not so much that our target group educators are anti-technology, for I'm convinced that most of them are not, rather, we need to think about new ways of structuring, organizing and facilitating instruction. As was mentioned in the last posting, involvement and interaction and doing and experience are especially important factors in the learning process. We've known this for a long time now, but only recently has enough momentum built that we can actually start acting upon this knowledge.

One of those whose blazing the trail into the areas of new learning is Mike Wesch at Kansas State University. If you haven't already, I can only recommend and encourage you to stop over and take a look at his "Brief Philosophy of Anti-Teaching" which was originally published on the Savage Minds blog. This is a great introduction to thinking differently about what we're doing in the classroom. And, for those of you who are more visual, there's a YouTube video from him that is worth a watch, too.

The heart of the matter

Everywhere I've been lately there's been a lot of talk about learning: elearning, formal learning, informal learning, vocational learning, professional learning. You name it, someone's found a way to tack "learning" on the end of it, as if this would clarify anything. It doesn't.

Most of my discussion partners really weren't talking about learning, they were talking about other things, like education, training, or schooling. I'm not convinced that any of these 3 last-named notions really have a lot to with learning per se. What is more, in most of those discussions, replacing the word "learning" with "teaching" would have made them at least more comprehensible and, more importantly, accurate. For some reason I get the very strong impression that most people think that others won't learn unless there's someone there to help them. I think that's putting the cart before the horse . We humans are capable of so very much, but there is one thing I found that we can't do in the least: we cannot not learn. We are constantly and continually intaking, assimilating, sorting, sifting, filtering, feeling, processing, remembering, and forgetting ... in other words, learning. Learning is what we do most, and what we do best, even if most of us like to doubt the quality of that learning when we see the results in others. Maybe that's why we so often get that urge to institute some kind of control system, like schools, colleges and universities, religious institutions, and other training providers.

Certainly we can learn on our own, and I would be the last to maintain that others can't or couldn't make a substantial contribution to our learning. What I'm skeptical of, though, is what I like to call the "teacher value-added". What most teachers do - at least in my experience - falls under lecturing, maybe audio-visual (at least since the advent of PowerPoint and the web), and in some cases some demonstration with the occasional discussion group thrown in for good measure. I know I'm being too hard on a lot of my colleagues, but just suggesting changes never brings them about. While it may not be a perfect model, the learning pyramid at least give us a frame of reference for thinking about teaching and learning. It would seem to make sense to place more emphasis where the expectations of the outcomes are the highest, at the bottom of the pyramid. More bang for the buck, as we used to say in defense.

To me, the best teacher of all is the one who gets out of the way and lets others learn. This is not to say that teachers should not be involved in learning. They should be. This is not to say that teachers are superfluous. They aren't. But teachers need a better understanding of their role in the process, as the catalyst of learning process, not primarily the assessor of learning outcomes.