WHAT MAKES SCHOOL SO RESISTANT TO CHANGE?

THE WITTGENSTEINIAN APPROACH.

Learning and school are two

separate and unrelated concepts.

We meet intellectual difficulties if we

try to base schoolwork on learning.

This also makes it easier to understand

why our recent technological development

has found it so difficult to reach the schools.

© Pasi Vilpas

Philosopher in Learning and School

(Teacher in Biology and Geography)

Sipoo

Finland

moc.liamg@sapliv.isap (read from right to the left)

Foreword We have been made to believe that what is happening at school is learning. But what is

happening at school is school. For a mature teacher profession to develop it is central for

the teacher to understand how learning and school differ from each other.

Learning is a state of mind. School, in turn, is a societal and political entity.

School is intended to provide circumstances which are appropriate to determine marks,

scores, grades and degrees rather than to learn. School very much relies on its ability to

regulate the flow of the students to their higher education, adulthood professions, social

relationships and economical status.

By fulfilling these tasks school is responsible of creating and supporting social inequality.

On the other hand, the modern societies are completely dependent and in many ways

thoroughly built on the “segregational services” provided by the school.

Educational discussion is characterized by a divide. There are those who want to develop

school and those who want to develop learning. These two interest groups contradict each

other to the largest extent.

The contradiction arises as a result of a philosophical category error. It is not possible to

discuss learning and school in the same context in any sensible manner at all. School is a

collection of structural phenomena which disturb the interaction of the teacher and the

learners.

Before proceeding to the article itself, maybe you would first want to have a look at its

main points:

http://slidesha.re/1Aihz1V

CONTENT

1. Summary

2. Introduction

3. Quantitative measuring and the Economics of Grades

4. The effects of school evaluation on learning motivation

5. Reverse competition

6. School as a source of alienation and social segregation

7. The effects of school evaluation on the constructivistic learning

orientation

8. School learning

9. Student mediated evaluation

10. Restrictions on the teacher mediated evaluation

11. Teacher´s self-evaluation

12. Teacher´s double signaling and its side effects

13. Does information and communication technology give us solutions?

14. School does not change by reprogramming the teachers

15. Open learning contradicts the subject dependent world view

16. Matriculation survey

17. Social discrimination with a false identity

18. The segregation curve

19. School as a role model

20. Anything or nothing -phenomenon

21. Conclusions

22. The conclusions explained

23. Acknowledgements

1. Summary

Learning does not appear to be the most prominent goal of the schoolwork at all. From the

point of view of an external observer the school is intended to provide circumstances that

are appropriate to determine marks, scores, grades and degrees etc.

Eventually, the marks, scores, grades and degrees etc. are used to guide the flow of the

students to their higher education, adulthood professions, social relationships and

economical status. Learning at school is completely subordinated to this.

Discussing school becomes intellectually relevant only after we take into account this fact.

The world of school is only to a small extent overlapping with the world of learning.

In my text below I deeply question the usual assumption that a school system designed for

creating and supporting social inequality is educationally solid. In close relation to this I

want to make clear, what are the deep reaching consequences of our habit to see the rate

of adopted knowledge as the end product of school learning. This is profoundly distorting

the overall psychology behind schoolwork.

The most crucial fundamentals would be found on the axis of dislike - enthusiasm towards

learning. When evaluation pays attention predominantly on the adopted facts, it is difficult

to keep the learning process alive. Learning is a state of mind. And this is not a cliché.

The criteria by which the students normally are assessed are very much senseless and

they are heavily detrimental to the development of the future school and the society as a

whole. The students lose their strive for independent thinking but become masters of

foretelling how the teachers think. The best performers of this ”creative thinking” will be

priced with good grades.

The problem ceases from getting solved by simply updating the criteria of the assessment.

A complete shift to a radically different way of thinking about learning and the identity of

the school is needed.

Collaborative processes are in the center of information technology. But in the prevailing

classrooms these kinds of approaches are difficult to realize. In the school, which is

assessment-centric, co-operation with other students easily lowers the rank of the altruistic

ones.

The popular misconception, that it is wise to measure quality of learning quantitatively (and

frequently), is difficult to change, even though this mode of action is the biggest hindrance

of the deep-oriented high quality learning to evolve. It seriously damages both the

student´s and the teacher´s intrinsic motivation and replaces it with superficial learning and

teaching strategies.

Any teacher of experience knows perfectly well how effectively the expected difficulties in

determining the grades etc. can be used both to support the steady state classroom

methodologies as well as to shoot down alternative approaches.

Neither does importation of ICT reach its influence to the way, how the school understands

its own identity. The inter-dependence rather points to the opposite direction. A deep-

oriented learning culture easily refers to an open minded orientation towards ICT.

The school students do not get any building blocks at all to develop their digital identity

during their school years. The school seems to be completely ignorant of the fact that for

many of them convincing Internet presence, for example a high level Topsy-score, is going

to be the degree that will matter for the most. We carry along our networks and the

networks we carry are representations of ourselves. What used to be cognition has

transformed to co-ignition.

Learning, thanks to our recent technological development, is in an ever greater extent

becoming independent of time, independent of place and independent of teaching. This

swiftly proceeding cultural transition has struck the school by a complete surprise.

Even the matriculation exams could very well be organized conveniently on a "drive in

basis" on the Internet. If considered important, the employers and institutes of post-

graduate education could then easily use the exams for quality control of the applicants in

real time. There is no need to organize the exams on a centrally controlled large scale

level at the schools any more.

Recently, information technology has become an intimate part of ourselves, comparable,

almost, to our own underpants. Computer classrooms and laptops in a carriage are in

many ways missing the point.

2. Introduction

It has become of importance to improve learning skills, creativity, cooperative abilities,

network competence and learning motivation of the school students. However, goals of

qualitative nature are difficult to reach in the quantitatively oriented school reality. Laying

stress on the assessment, which traditionally is done quantitatively, seems only to make

the goals escape further and further. The assessment-centric approaches, though, are

difficult to change because a school without (quantitative) marks, grades, scores and

degrees etc. would not anymore be the school as we know it.

Contradiction of the prevailing school model is also evident with the views typical for

philosophers, sociologists and network scientists theorizing on the values of the future

society. Getting these contradictions solved may ask for lots of changes in our

conventional way to perceive school as an institution. Solving them, though, may possibly

be one of the main conditions for the school education to stay valid in the future at all.

Although, in the text below, I am mostly writing from the point of view of a Finnish upper

secondary school teacher (about equivalent to a High School teacher in the USA or a

gymnasium teacher in Germany), I suppose the problems I am going to deal with are

about the same in all educational levels and all around the globe.

My conclusions differ from other school thinkers so deeply that I owe them an extensive

explanation. This is why my text has gathered some length and width too, hopefully

without losing its weight. I personally would prefer just a compact list of abbreviations.

3. Quantitative measuring and The Economics of The Grades

Measuring results is the most important and far reaching part of the schoolwork. From the

point of view of a teacher, this determines the concept of knowledge and the form of

didactics favoured. From the student´s point of view, evaluation determines the aspects in

the school subjects that he or she considers important. If the student has an interest in

getting high scores, he or she has to concentrate on not making mistakes during the

schoolwork, especially in the exams.

This kind of a teaching and learning strategy regularly reaches a level which, with a good

reason, can be called The Economics of The Grades (arvosanatalous in Finnish). In the

branch of economics in question, the marks, grades, scores, degrees etc. are currency by

which the successfulness of the schoolwork is measured. The flow of the currency is

regulated by the teacher. The efforts, that do not have an effect on the grades etc. (= on

the teacher), are not respected by the students and are not worth putting on. The one

dimensional quantity of learning (= marks, scores, grades, degrees etc.) supersedes the

multi- or even pan-dimensional quality of learning. The popular misconception that it is

wise to measure quality of learning quantitatively, is difficult to change, even though this

mode of action is the biggest hindrance of the deep-oriented high-quality learning to

evolve.

When looking at the school system from an outsider´s point of view, learning does not

appear the most prominent goal of the schoolwork at all. Instead of this, the school is

intended to provide circumstances that are appropriate to determine marks, scores ,

grades, degrees etc.. In its attempts to successfully do this, school is ready to sacrifice the

students` eagerness to learn, willingness to produce new ideas, cooperative skills, strive

for the depth of thought, aim at self-realization, ability to break common paths of thought

etc. Still, these are the qualities regularly considered and emphasized as the most

important characteristics required in tomorrow´s society (I will later take a closer look at the

basics of my argumentation).

4. The effects of school evaluation on learning motivation

Externally performed evaluation easily becomes interpreted as lack of confidence. This

applies on a daily basis to the students´ relationship to their teachers. It is important to be

aware that this sort of an interpretation can not be controlled by the teacher at all.

Finding out the students´ ability order is educationally harmful waste of time. This,

however, becomes very evident to the teachers immediately if a rank concerning the

teachers is to be organized. Still, the students are supposed to react with an incessant

enthusiasm during a constant treatment of this kind.

5. Reverse competition

Because school evaluation happens by relational means, it is never possible for every

student to get the maximum scores. The general level of the students defines what the

actual length of the scale is going to be. As a simple and clever consequence of this, it

becomes socially intelligent not to learn too much. This is the mechanism by which

competition at school gets mostly turned into reverse competition.

Competition of course, at its basics, is a positive force driving us to develop. But we as

educators should be conscious of this specific form of it that is socially harmful in the

classroom.

If the general learning results prove to be too low, the teacher can improve them by

composing easier exams. Another possibility is to discuss topics that will be asked in the

test, during the very last lessons just before the test. If the learning results prove to be too

good, acts of the opposite kind can be realized.

As a result of this basically tautological nature of evaluation, the grades etc. given by

separate educational institutions or even teachers are not, should not be and could not

even theoretically be, comparable. Only this can serve as an insurance against inequality,

which otherwise would develop as a result of the different ways how the teachers teach (or

how the students learn).

An interesting implication of this is that the grades etc. lose their identity as proper

indications of competence.

6. School as a source of alienation and social segregation

The tautological nature of assessing the learning results becomes most obvious if we

imagine a theoretical situation, where all the students would reach the maximum scores.

For the teacher this would mean great success (as long as there is even one weaker

student the teacher can improve his or her work).

In reality, though, the presented score distribution would, for the most, be interpreted only

as a sign of the teacher´s professional incompetence. This would happen because an

elemental characteristic of a good exam (hence a good teacher as well) is its ability to

assort students. This explains why a completely successful teacher would, in fact, not be

successful at all. And this is why to an important proportion of the students the school does

not provide protection against alienation and social exclusion. From their point of view, in

contrast, the school proves to be an active source of discrimination.

7. The effects of school evaluation on the constructivistic learning orientation

The maximum scores could easily be reached simply by owning all affordable time to

practicing ideal answers for the future exams. The unwanted side effects of a learning

strategy like this are immediately apparent. This, though, is exactly what an assessment (=

assorting) concentrated school system requires of its students. Hence, the only thing what

the students truly study in a constructivistic manner proves to be the teachers. The

teachers´ constructivism is similarly restricted towards, for example, the matriculation

exams.

This phenomenon makes obvious the common statement that constructivism cannot be

successfully realized in the everyday life of the school. It is not surprising that inside the

school this state of things is interpreted as a sign of faults in constructivism. For an

outsider the explanation lies in the philosophical and educational non-durability of the most

traditional and prominent evaluation tools of the school.

The following list of the unwanted side effects of the external and teacher mediated

evaluation at school is probably not comprehensive:

1. Gives an impression of nuisance on intention.

2. Leads to The Economics of The Grades and by doing this, strengthens the use of

superficial learning strategies.

3. The student` s role as an externally manipulated object is highlighted. The work

satisfaction is lost because of this.

4. Reciprocal co-operation does not prove clever anymore (co-operation lowers the rank of

the altruistic students), it is not indispensable, and in fact, in the only serious real life

situations (= in the exams) it is not even allowed.

5. The dream of the teacher as an encourager to openness changes into reality where

weaknesses must be kept hidden. The role of a coach cannot be combined with the role of

a grade, score, mark etc. controller.

6. Creativity is not learned by avoiding mistakes, except of course, creativity in avoiding

mistakes.

Finally, instead of learning, the students begin to concentrate on how to best get off the

teacher. Point four often transforms co-operationally intended learning into a completely

chaotic mess.

8. School learning

Our role as learners is mostly determined by the common misunderstanding that to learn is

the same as to remember the facts. The attitude develops in the school and, for a good

reason, it is usually (at least here in Finland) called school learning. Intellectually more

honest would be to call it exam learning.

Real (high quality) learning becomes (low quality) school learning almost inevitably if the

learning results are known to later become targets of exam based scrutiny. To call this

school learning, though, is very revealing because it clearly demonstrates how widely the

exams and the school are interpreted as synonyms for each other.

Concentrating on fulfilling the expectations of the teacher prevents the students from using

their own brain. The students learn at a very early stage that the teacher is not really

interested in the student´s own thinking but in the student´s ability, and not only in the

exams, to decipher the teacher´s thoughts. The students who are good at doing this will be

priced with good grades, scores, marks, etc.

In addition to real learning which, nevertheless, is taking place in the school, it is important

for the students to learn how to give an impression as if they were learning. This in turn

could not have such an organic role in school, if this was not the case also with teaching.

These observations of the way, how the school works are often apparent already in kinder

garden. They perforate our whole school system effectively, reaching also the universities.

When the students proceed to their post-graduate studies they have forgotten what

independent thinking actually is. To everybody´s surprise they have become masters of

foretelling how other people expect them to think.

The teachers often would like to favor methods, which would force the students to a deep

and concrete level of inter-dependence when they work in groups. One can, for example,

make a deal, that all the group members get the same final scores of the test or that the

results will be determined as a sum, or an average, of the scores of all the individual

members of the group. Although the solution is well stated by educational and social

values, it regularly is considered unfair by the students as well as by their parents too. The

urge to find out and make clear the rank order of the students is seen of such a central

importance.

The teachers usually see their role as grade, score, mark etc. controllers solely as a

catalyst of high quality learning. Often this role is considered even an immediate condition

for it. Possibilities for the opposite are difficult to see. The students, too, have become so

used to the system that they find it difficult to identify any lack of appropriateness in it.

The upper secondary school students can not remember anymore how most of them lost

their cognitive curiosity only after having begun their school career. This may as well be

caused by other reasons but the most essential difference between kinder garden and

school is the abundance of the teacher mediated evaluation in the latter.

9. Student mediated evaluation

Evaluation motivates its performers because of the feeling of power it arouses. This feeling

of power could, theoretically, be utilized for didactical purposes as well. Still, the teachers

are mostly concentrating only on minimizing it. The feeling of power could easily be fed by

making the students evaluate themselves.

In the student mediated evaluation the grades, scores, marks etc. serve mostly as just

didactical baits, instead of being used for manipulative purposes between the teachers and

the students. The students could, for example, be encouraged to plan, write, mark and

consider the school tests independently without the teacher. This would enhance the

students´ abilities to evaluate what sort of knowledge is important and to develop feasible

tools for measuring how well the goal has been reached.

At the same time, the students would also end up considering the question: “What is

learning?” in other words, the qualitative dimensions of education. The usual approach has

mostly laid stress on the question: ”What have we been taught?” if even that. Processing

these kinds of questions makes the students take into account the principles of handling,

organizing, analyzing and presenting information.

Although the student would not at all be in a need of, for example, mathematics, it still is

clear that everybody benefits from becoming able to create and analyze notes of

mathematical kind. This advantage is deeply independent of the person` s later

professional orientation.

But seriously, in the end, to hand over the responsibility for evaluation completely to the

students themselves is unthinkable. So vitally dependent is the society on the

“segregational services” provided by the school that they can in no way be left prone to

contingency.

10. Restrictions on the Teacher mediated evaluation

The student-centric approach does not prevent the teacher from giving tests and exams as

well. In this case, though, it is important to avoid externalizing the student` s motivation. An

arms race between the student and the teacher will immediately begin if the teacher`s

exams begin to have an effect on the grades, scores, marks etc. of the student (= on his or

her educational, professional and social future). This will, in turn, hollow all the

recommendations about the importance of a deep-oriented learning strategy.

This effect does not depend on the type of exams the teacher favors. If the target is on a

deep-oriented learning strategy, all the teacher´s tests may serve only for didactical and

diagnostic purposes, but not for tools of assorting the students. In fact, for the

unconventional ways of thinking about learning to become established, there is a need for

completely new perspectives on considering the learning results.

Usually, when considering the effectiveness of new learning and teaching methods, the

final big question is: “But what are the learning results?” When presented in the school, the

question could as well be translated ”But what grades, scores, marks etc. have the

students got?” In other words, already asking the question, and therefore, also answering

it, contains as given a hidden pre-assumption that only the criteria characteristic for The

Economics of The Grades are justified.

This paradigm-level failure becomes obvious also in the internationally organized

comparative surveys on school learning. When the yardsticks are from yesterday, good

success in the surveys is questionable basis of self-confidence.

11. Teacher´s self evaluation

The quality of learning can as well be measured in a more neutral and educationally

reasonable way. The fact that mostly the volume of the transferred knowledge is perceived

as the sign of valuable learning is the main reason for the methodological rigidness of the

school.

More feasible, but still easily detectable indicator of quality would rather be the rate of the

students´ intrinsic motivation. Waking this up and keeping it on a high level should be the

main objective of schoolwork. Instead of heavy cognitive and manipulative approach, the

students and the teachers should widely be encouraged towards more flexible and relaxed

forms of interaction.

It is quite revealing that when the students are asked to list the most important qualities of

a good teacher, the trait fairness, is commonly found very close to the top of the list. It is

worth noticing that this quality does not have very much to do with learning. It derives its

way from the vocabulary of games, or the court of justice.

Of course, fairness proves central if the teacher often is assessing the rank order of the

students. But, for example, as a quality of a good ski instructor this word would never be

seen on the list.

The exam based means are only a small and, in fact, detrimental fraction of the other wise

wide motivational playground. But because of the tradition of assessing school learning

with a quantitative scale, the areas beyond that are very difficult to take into proper use by

the teachers.

12. Teacher´s double signaling and its side effects

The problems of the school that I have analyzed earlier in my text and the spectrum of

reflections they create are difficult for the teacher to detect. In addition to their fuzziness,

the problems do present themselves in a manner that makes them appear structural and

inevitable parts of the school system. Although the problems give an impression of being

independent from each other and of separate character, they all share the same basic

origin. They are caused by the teacher, who has to combine two, basically, incompatible

roles of profession: the student´s coach and the controller of the grades, scores, marks

etc..

This double role is against any rational as well as emotional reasoning. The student is

supposed to confide to a coach, who in the student´s mind belongs to the opposing team.

In other words, the very same place, which ought to be a place where to learn is at the

very same time a place where the learners have to keep their weaknesses hidden.

This non-reasonability shoots down all the educational ideals not to mention the modern

ones. This is the main cause of friction that all too often can burn out both the student as

well as the teacher too.

The situation results to a self-supportive bilateral lack of trust. I recommend the reader to

remind him- or herself of the feelings of suspect which the previously suggested methods

of student-based evaluation certainly woke up.

The problems of the school are nobody´s fault. They are only emerging as a result of the

prevailing way, how the school is organized. Still it is typical that the teachers are mostly

ready to take the blame. Often though, the guilt is gladly pushed on the fellow teachers or

on the students. The career of a young innovative teacher all too often begins with a “What

was it we experienced good old teachers did warn you about?” humiliation. To completely

recover of this may prove to be impossible forever. The teachers´ room is filled with an

atmosphere of blame so dense that no space is left for the teachers to take risks and to

evolve their educational thinking and didactical practices.

The teachers often blame the students´ bad home conditions and today´s high prevalence

of light entertainment for the problems of the school. These are circumstances that not at

all can be influenced by the school. When the problems of the school are externalized like

this the connections often are cut to the students who specifically would be in the biggest

need of them.

13. Does Information and Communication Technology give us solutions?

We might now be ready to see why, against usual expectations, developing the school

does not have anything with its technological artillery to do. Importation of ICT does not

reach its influence to the way, how school understands its own identity. The inter-

dependence rather points to the opposite direction: a deep-oriented learning culture easily

refers to an open-minded orientation towards ICT. At the focus, of course, is not the

technical equipment itself, but all of the ways, how it can be cleverly used.

In close connection to the previous lines there is also another important aspect of the

schoolwork to which ICT on its own neither does reach its influence.

Information becomes knowledge only after it is processed in ways that makes it to form a

part of the learner´s own inner self. Learning by book, by the Internet or by any other

media or any method always stays a task, where the learner personally has to construct

an internal model about the things to be learned. This is how we earn new concepts,

mental tools with which we think. It has proven to be difficult to think with pure brain.

A consequence of this is that the profession of the teacher does not essentially transform

according to the media where the information originally is stored. If our idea is to disregard

this stage of work somehow by using ICT, we easily bring up empty and hollow students

who only by their looks resemble human beings. When searching for high quality learning,

it regularly takes even more than only nine months for the baby to be born.

It is simply not important, and especially there is no urge whatsoever, to use ICT as long

as school is organized around rank-orderism. This target can as well be reached by

cheaper and less complicated ways.

Because of its co-operational essence, ICT often makes managing the traditional ways of

schoolwork even harder. This is why the formula, which would unite ICT with the students

during the lessons, still largely stays unsolved. The computers at schools easily end up

being used just for the students´ recreational purposes during the breaks.

The way information technology is used cannot be controlled by external rules or wishes.

They easily lead to games of hide and seek and poison the relationship between the

students and the teachers. An optimal solution would be a strategy, where the educational

use of it could be catalyzed as a result of endogenous needs of the students.

If the students at school have time to play recreational computer games, it mostly is a sign

of the fact, that the teachers have not utilized the educational possibilities of ICT to their

complete extent.

We could begin to explore the universe of ICT, for example, by looking at the students`

habit of copy-pasting texts, essays and other content from the Internet. The state of matter

could be interpreted as a valuable message: the original task has been repetitive.

The teachers have become familiar with repetitively appearing short-term ICT-projects.

The projects stay ephemeral because the school system designed for creating social

inequality contradicts very deeply with the co-operative and equitable essence of

information technology. As we import ICT to the schools we only give birth to a separate

layer of extra work with no proper connections to the regular school life.

Characteristics which naturally lead to a more intensive use of ICT, are problem based

learning (= instead of learning facts the students learn how to do research), collaborative

learning especially when it raises up from the students´ own needs, aim at deep-oriented

learning, low borderlines between separate school subjects, true team work relationship

between the students and the teachers etc. The minimum condition of these

characteristics to develop is to protect the students´ intrinsic motivation not only in the

exercises and evaluation, but in all other dimensions of the schoolwork as well.

But lots of challenges make it hard to change the routines at school.

14. School does not change by reprogramming the Teachers

Our ideas about teaching, learning and the school are largely influenced by our own past

experiences as students. This is the reason for anxiety with which most of the parents

(they, too, are professionals of attending school) are prone to guard the state of the

school. Their main purpose is to make sure the routines stay the same as they were on

their own school days.

The most prominent victim of this, here in Finland, is the arrangement of the national

matriculation exam (change the name of the country and the exam according to your

needs). In the eye of an average layperson, the scores reached in the exam are equivalent

to the learning results of the school.

The teacher or the headmaster interested in his or her employment can not overlook this

fact. The more the individual schools or the teachers are competing with each other, the

more difficult the overlooking becomes. The Economics of The Grades is an inevitable

consequence of the system based very much on competition and the matriculation exam.

It is important to realize that one is not able to escape the phenomenon by renewing the

exam. These sorts of actions can not change at all the exam-centric ways of thinking, but

only the strategies according to which the students and the teachers prepare themselves

for the exam.

15. Open learning contradicts the subject dependent world view

To study by deciphering and co-operation, to bring down borders of the separate school

subjects and not to be bound to the content of the course books, lead to learning

circumstances characterized by an overall unpredictability. Unpredictability regularly

reaches up also the cognitive contents of the subjects studied, extending itself also to the

timetables, choosing of the place where to study, learning materials, technical means,

methodology and so on.

On the contrary to this, the national matriculation exam (or whatever its equivalent is in

different countries) even if renewed, would still surely be based on pre-ordered learning

contents. The performance of the students would as well still be measured individually. As

a result of this, the new didactically and socially sensible learning methods, also in the

future, would be lessening the students´ possibilities for high ranks in the matriculation

exam.

Although, in the celebration speeches, reaching beyond the borderlines of individual

school subjects is often demanded, the wish is difficult to fulfill. Separate and clearly

identifiable subjects with unambiguous borderlines are simply a pre-requisite of evaluation

based on the very existence of these separate school subjects.

The borderlines have to be honored although in the everyday life and also in the life of the

scientific research community, it would be more successful to reach over a large variety

and branches of the school subjects. There is only one valuable subject in science and

research and it is called curiosity.

In a comparable manner outside the school, the ability to use foreign languages is a target

dependent tool. The value of this tool is clear and of practical nature, and makes its

characteristics evident in situations of communication and information gathering. Both of

these activities are more and more fulfilled by ICT.

Detailed technical knowledge of foreign languages is seldom needed, although it of course

makes life easier. Still, studying foreign languages at school has to strongly concentrate on

the formal knowledge because of the great public value of the matriculation exam.

16. Matriculation survey

Open learning can never be organized around quantitatively oriented final exams. This

makes no sense, because in such a case, the openness and unpredictability would simply

be destroyed. The results of open learning can only be measured by qualitatively oriented

surveys.

According to this, also the upper secondary school could merely summit, not in a final

exam of closed nature, but in a matriculation survey of open nature instead. This approach

would bring along much more sensitive, detailed and valuable information about how and

what the students learn and how they feel during their school years. If our goal seriously is

to steer school life towards more co-operative and problem based learning, final exam

which prices the best self-keepers is not uniform with this.

It has been suggested that the final exam should be developed into a direction that would

enhance the intellectual activities of the students. When suggesting this one forgets that

exactly this has always been the goal until today. The whole ideological background of the

final exam has always laid on the rigorous faith in its effectiveness to stimulate the

students´ own thinking.

What kind of a secret quality would any renewed exam have that would make it

philosophically different from its predecessors? During the years of experience we have

learned that to study thinking for an exam in thinking does not make much educational

sense.

17. Social discrimination with a false identity

Not any teacher, even of the most conscious kind, is capable of releasing oneself from the

routines determined by The Economics of The Grades. This explains why teachers may

have it difficult to perceive and to understand the social and ideological upheaval of ICT in

its complete extent. In spite of changes in the technical equipment, the routines at the

schools faithfully follow the limitations determined by rank-orderism.

Scientific research communities, on the contrary, are completely dependent on the

databases and social networks on the Internet. The work is filled with spontaneous

learning and individual persons can almost never privately own neither the merits nor the

results of it.

The Internet provides an exceptionally effective channel to realize this sort of a group work

and community spirit. The medium easily produces a positive rage for doing things co-

operatively. This rage is a matter of co-ignition rather than privately experienced cognition

and it does not trouble itself with external prices or punishments. The structural, officially

justified and prominent aim at social segregation typical of the school is in a strong

contradiction with this kind of a worldview.

The previously presented facts put the school into a strange light. Means of evaluation

which ask for social isolation and are encouraging to behavior that is self-keeping are not

born of necessity. Neither do the post-graduate studies ask for this. Most of them, at least

in Finland, will in any case begin with an entrance examination of their own.

The school prefers rank-orderism only because it has always been preferred. It has

traditionally been an organic part of the school institution´ s proper identity.

An essential question emerges: would there be any identity left if this was removed?

18. The segregation curve

The curve of Gauss demonstrates effectively how school provides protection against

alienation and social segregation. Considering how much the students are assessed, it is

difficult to avoid the conclusion that assorting students really is in a central role in the

school.

Our recent tradition of measuring the results is asking for punctualistic thinking about

learning. It is absolutely important to get a hard, exact value of abilities for each separate

student. Otherwise, the whole system would fall in a danger of becoming deflated.

There is no space for considering and discussing learning in softer, more realistic, time

consuming, value relativistic and student friendly ways. We are assessing learning in

school, not philosophizing about the assessment.

The school system, at its basics, has to adopt a role mostly consisting of anything else but

educational goals. The situation is difficult to change because the common people and the

decision makers, and often the teachers as well, lack the mental tools for understanding

the educational, didactical and social values of the day.

19. School as a role model

The following quotation is from the book The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (2005):

"If a business enterprise happens to achieve a steady and strong market position, it falls

into a danger of losing its ability to effectively create novel ideas and innovations. This

happens because creativity often is conditioned by ability to perceive oneself through the

eyes of an outsider. This is why a complete newcomer may often be better in identifying

shortcomings and developing new and refreshing approaches than a deeply engaged and

therefore narrow sighted specialist.

Any organization whose employees need to direct their creativity to honouring and

supporting the organizations internal expectations and hierarchies are doomed. Activity

turns inwards instead of being directed to the surrounding world which is developing in an

ever faster speed."

This is manifestly what is happening in the school at any of the levels of its organization.

When the student finds out, either consciously or subconsciously, that this is the ultimate

"name of the game" it would be of a complete surprise if this had a positive impact on

learning motivation.

Actually, to notice and understand this, asks for a high level of meta-cognitive skills. This is

why the intellectually poorest are not the only ones who easily lose their educational

appetite.

It is difficult to imagine how a new, learning-oriented school could ever be developed. For

this seriously to become the case, the school should be able to freshly re-imagine the

deepest essence of itself. Still, the prevailing school model was developed to meet the

expectations of the industrial era. It took a shape that became extremely resistant to

change. Now the era in question is permanently behind and also behind should be the era

of the industrial school.

In countries, where the universities largely base their student selection on grades, marks,

scores etc., they are not able to recruit students well prepared for creative thinking and

unconventional problem solving. Instead of that, the post-graduate educators get students

who very intensively are selected for the society of the past.

20. Anything or nothing -phenomenon

Lots of signs of good learning culture can be found in educational literature. I list some of

them here as a compact table (under). In the column at the right the signs are closer to,

and in the column at the left further from, the goals discussed earlier. The listed signs are

characterized only on an overall level.

Of the most significant importance in the table is the fact that if the school is aiming for

whatever specific characteristic, this characteristic carries along with it all the other signs

found in the same column. If individually transferred to the opposite column, each

characteristic begins to sound unbelievably crazy (try this).

These two columns seem to reject each other effectively. They seem to form two

completely independent groups of tight internal coherence.

UNDER DEVELOPED LEARNING CULTURE

WELL DEVELOPED LEARNING CULTURE

1) The student is an object of

manipulation, mostly lacking

intrinsic motivation.

1) The student is an independent subject with

strong intrinsic motivation.

2) The teacher is “The Lord of the

Grades”. 2) The teacher is an encouraging coach.

3) The students form a group of

individuals with superficial social

connections.

3) The students form a real community with

strong internal connections, cooperation

brings the keys to enjoyment and

success.

4) The teacher focuses on excellent

results in the exams normally at

the expense of the intrinsic

motivation of the students.

4) The teacher focuses on feeding and

protecting the intrinsic motivation of the

students directing their orientation to

profound learning

5) The main target of the student is to

make a high profit on Economics of

The Grades.

5) The main target of the student is successful

learning.

6) Evaluation is teacher-centric. 6) Evaluation is student-centric.

7) Teaching is difficult to bring to

completion because the students

are teacher-oriented.

7) Studying is difficult to bring to completion

because the students are learning-

oriented.

8) Creativity of the students gets directed

to the studies mostly only when

asked for.

8) Creativity of the students gets often directed

to the studies without external pressure.

9) Relationship of the students and the 9) Relationship of the students and the teacher

teacher is manipulative. contains real and fair companionship.

10) ICT is used in manners that are

emphasized and controlled by the

teacher.

10) The students utilize ICT spontaneously for

gathering information, developing their

skills and maintaining the community

spirit.

The moral of this table is that it is difficult to change learning culture in small steps.

The features found in the column on the right are surely stated in the curricula in most of

the schools. When considered only superficially, the list seems to give a good alternative

to the one on the left.

As a result, however, of the strong internal coherence, the right side alternatives do

practically never get realized in the schools. Represented, instead, are the points found in

the left column, and also with such strength that they hardly can stay undetected.

The students crystallize the observation into an effectively short sentence: “Are these

things going to be asked in the exam?”.

21. Conclusions

According to philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the source of the empty and meaningless

thinking we so easily tend to perform is residing in the concepts that are not clear. It simply

would be clearest not to mix school with learning at all.

22. The Conclusions explained

Learning and school are two completely separate and unrelated concepts (in the same

way as, for example, flowers and electricity). This is why it is not possible to discuss the

topics in the same context in any kind of sensible manner at all. Oddly enough, most of the

educational and didactical research and discussion, even when concerning the famous

hidden curriculum, has through the ages had its foundations on exactly this type of

“messthinking”. This is the trait very typical of the curriculum texts as well.

Simply, the way how we discuss education is characterized by a philosophical category

error. There are those who develop school and to those who develop learning. These two

interest groups are not system compatible at all.

Reshaping a work culture typical to school is not possible unless admitted that it is not

possible.

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.” (What we cannot speak

about we must consign to silence.)

This is the central dilemma of the school. And as dilemmas always tend to be, it is

unsolvable.

23. Acknowledgements

I own my warmest thanks to my colleague Juha Luodeslampi. Juha inspired my thinking by

his unconventional and student-centric teaching methods as he enriched our life in the

Sotunki Upper Secondary School during the years 1994 - 1999. The primordial soap for

this text was dissolved co-operatively with him. Anybody, who has been reading my text as

far as this, can easily decipher why his teacher career did not last this longer.

I am deeply thankful to my wife Birgitta and my daughter Pihla. My work is a result of their

endless patience and nerves during the last 15 years as I have been fermenting this text.

And, of course, my deepest thanks about some specific nutrients to Bill Brinkmann, my

brother in law, who happens to be a professional brewmaster. Heidi Rytkönen has bravely

straightened my linguistic somersaults. Thank you Heidi.

At home in Sipoo, during the autumn 2013.

Copyright: Pasi Vilpas