Valuing and Desiring Purposes of Education to Transcend Miseducative Measurement Practices (original) (raw)

On the Un-becoming of Measurement in Education

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2017

Education in democratic South Africa has been saddled with the extraordinary task of sanitising a once dehumanising and splintered education system into a singular narrative of social justice and creative, problem-solving individuals. This extraordinary effort has witnessed a pendulum swing from the openness of outcomes-based education, to a less flexible National Curriculum Statement, and recently, to what has been criticised as a too restrictive Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). In its narrow focus on ‘assessment for learning’, CAPS appears to be trapped in a particular understanding of teaching and learning that can be understood only in terms of measurement, thereby discounting education as happening outside that which can be measured. In this article, I contend, firstly, that while education is not averse to measurement, it cannot be allowed to dominate the educative process. Instead, it is possible to reconcile measurement, as expressed through a ‘language of needs’ with a language of ‘coming into presence’, which recognises that learners enter the education arena with their own ideas of what is known and yet to be known. Secondly, I argue, that if a post-apartheid education system hopes to re-humanise its citizens and society, then this will only be possible through cultivating a curriculum, which is understood as a process of socially just encounters—one which is always in becoming, and therefore not necessarily measurable.

The Means and End of Education: From Method to Meaning

A significant portion of our lives revolve around the confines of classrooms and campuses, where education appears as a distinct activity separate from the mundane aspects of everyday life. We tend to draw a line between what constitutes an educational act and what does not. In a sense, education has made a dichotomy of what needs to be kept intact. While education has evolved into an essential and inseparable aspect of our lives, its underlying purpose and motivation remain subjects of ongoing exploration. Today, we usually see education as a means to secure employment and build a career, treating these outcomes as ends in themselves. In this perspective, education has assumed the role of a fixed temporary endpoint, and any discrepancy from this fixity is perceived as abnormal. There is a prevailing inclination to view individuals diverging from this conventional notion of education as having an 'education deficit.' But is there such a thing as an overarching purpose of education that does not adhere to the perceived norm?

Schools without measurements: towards a pedagogy of recognition

Revista Lusofona De Educacao, 2017

Since the OECD launched the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000, education measurements have mainly been concerned with recording and issuing results in terms of school success or failure based on items aimed at measuring academic achievement. A major consequence of this obsession with quantifiable results, which stems from a sort of statistical monoculture, has been a shift of our attention away from the seminal fact that, indeed, educational disparities are directly linked to social inequalities. Besides, the application of accountability criteria within systems of education tends to hide the increasing deregulation of the former. Contrary to its seeming appearance, the school institution lacks clearly drawn goals and measurements. This is why, even certainly helped by rating scales but also far beyond them, we need to rethink education in terms of social justice and turn our attention from equal opportunities towards equal positions. From this analytic fra...

Becoming present in context : the politics of the gap in educational transformation

European Educational Research Journal, 2011

Starting from a distinction between a critical and an ascetic tradition in philosophy and taking into account their different stances towards the present, the article proposes a practice of philosophy of education within the ascetic tradition. In this tradition, the work of philosophy is in the first place a work on the self-that is, putting oneself to 'the test of contemporary reality'-implying an enlightenment not of others but of oneself; however, of oneself not as subject of knowledge, but as subject of action. Putting oneself to the test is, therefore, an exercise in the context of self-education. The article indicates how this exercise can be described as an exercise of/in thought, how it has to be conceived not as a private matter but as a public gesture and as a condition for a truth-telling that is in the first place illuminating and inviting. In order to do so, the article first recalls how Hannah Arendt describes her own work and how this indicates what kind of philosophical practice is entailed in the ascetic tradition. In line with this description, a topical example (i.e. the films of the Belgian Dardenne brothers) is offered of how educational philosophical research in this tradition is carried out today. And, finally, it is clarified how this relates to a proposal for doing 'empirical' philosophical research and for creating laboratories. A widespread practice of philosophy of education conceives of it as a kind of supplementary inquiry or meta-reflection that regards educational research and practice itself as an object of knowledge. Such a practice belongs to a critical tradition that conceives of the work of philosophy as the work of judgement, ordering, justification, selection, concept clarification, interpretation and explication, and is 'critical' in the sense that it is in one way or another oriented towards validity claims (either ethical/normative or epistemological). This means that it puts reality (educational research and theory, educational policy and practice) to the test of its own thinking: the test of argumentative logic, of interpretive procedures, of theoretical or practical principles, of theories... Therefore its utterances always assume a critical-judgemental role for educational scholars. Its truth-telling has something either of a demonstration (wanting to teach something), a judgement (valid/not-valid) or a de-mystification (revealing what is underlying or presupposed, or denouncing illusions). It is my aim here not to question this critical tradition, but to offer a modest reflection on the value of another, more marginal tradition in philosophy, which we can call the ascetic tradition. In this tradition, the work of philosophy is in the first place a work on the self-that is, putting oneself to 'the test of contemporary reality', implying an enlightenment not of others but of oneself-however, of oneself not as subject of knowledge but as subject of action. Putting oneself to test is, therefore, an exercise in the context of self-education. As I will try to indicate, this exercise, which various authors (Arendt, 1968; Wittgenstein, 1980; Foucault, 1986) described as an exercise of/in thought, has to be conceived not as a private matter but as a public gesture or a way to make things public and as a condition for a truth-telling that is in the first place illuminating, inviting, cutting, inspiring. In order to do so, I will first recall how Hannah Arendt describes her own philosophical work and how it is part of this ascetic tradition. In line with this description, I will then present a concrete example of how educational philosophical research in this tradition is carried out today. And brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

THE SCHOOL: A PLACE OF MEANING AND COMMITMENT

Teoría de la Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria, 2023

Current social phenomena related to children and young people have led to a growing scepticism of the capacity of schools to construct common meanings and to prepare students to participate in a democratic society. The aim of this article is to show how cultural transmission within schools is the basis of the humanisation process by which students are able to construct their own personal identity on solid foundations and to find meaning within their own lives through commitment to the social, cultural, political and economic realities of which they are part. We will present three pressures to which schools are currently subjected, driving them to renounce their true mission and provide an education emptied of cultural references with all the pernicious effects this entails. Secondly, we will explain how schools can, through cultural transmission, create meaning and enable students to find meaning within their own lives and engage with others within a common space of understanding. Finally, the paper will show how schools foment three dimensions (narration, intelligibility, and responsibility) necessary to live in a democratic society. To conclude, we will stress the fundamental importance of teleological reflection as a guide for educational action, resisting an agenda that undermines the true purpose of education: to instil the kind of freedom that enables individuals to transcend mere appetite and engage in a genuine encounter with others.