Whilst I am not here to speak for or against any form of socio-political theory, have found myself comparing wider macro-society to that of the school’s micro-society, thanks in part to recent reading around Assessment For Learning strategies. The reason why Marxism leads to an overthrow of the authority in Capitalist systems is in a large part due to the removal of meaning from the things which workers produce. Thanks to the efficiency of industrialisation, the efforts of individuals become quantifiable and in turn alienation happens between producer and product. Of course, such Gattungswesen/essence that Marx claims gets lost in the process, is fundamental in the development of our students’ character - something nobody would deny, but could we be sending our students the message inadvertently that they exist at school simply to produce for a system in which they are expendable?
We know, thanks to the extensive research of decades, that constructivism rules and yet I can’t help but wonder to what extent constructivist approaches in classrooms are simply a means of achieving greater efficiency for the end goal instead of moving power away from that end goal. My thinking is simply this: We can use approaches such as having our students’ work include an authentic audience whilst still treating them as cogs in a machine that spit out the grades required by our role in the education system (and our role in society itself). If this in fact is happening to an extent then what is the solution? Whilst this ultimately touches on the challenge to systems as a whole; how we ascribe value to individuals in society and how 21st Century education contrasts to that of the industrial era, my thoughts are somewhat more localised for this thought bite. Whilst bigger questions should never be obscured, we can nonetheless strive for authenticity even within the confines outlined by our system. To this end, I as a teacher endeavour to constantly focus my students’ attention on learning as a process unto itself and not as a means to an end, to promote the intrinsic value in individualised efforts, and to help students see the benefits to them as a human for the work they produce for the school system. By benefits I do not so much refer to those quantitative benefits like that NCEA qualification, but the qualitative benefits, such as the development of resilience and appreciation of perspective.