Of Neologisms
I sense, by no scientific study but an interested perusal of current polemics, that the innocence of a phrase, those imported ones in particular, often betrays the most puzzling scheme of distortion, and that technical neologisms, before and while being operationalized, must always be made to answer the legitimate inquisition from older, and plainer, aspirations. The reform of the educational system is, among other things, also a reform of our way of speaking of it; yet a change in the way of speaking of something, does not always imply a real improvement thereof.
In the good old days teachers were supposed to love their students - love, not indulge - and to take the instructing of them seriously. Attention was supposed to be paid to differences among students; care must be taken of their background (some very poor, some coming from broken families, some particularly shy, etc.). Certainly I do not see any need to update these good pedagogical prescriptions. Yet today, the fashionable way of speaking of a good teacher speaks not of his goodness in this plain manner, but must so of the student-centeredness of this pedagogy. The scientificity of this centeredness, I cannot quite see; the pressure it puts on the teachers so instructed to conduct themselves, no one can deny. The fine balance achieved in the ancient notion of a "good loving teacher" is hence lost in this happy neologism of a "student-centered instructor."
Of the Cult of Evaluation
No educational system can subsist without setting itself certain
achievable objectives; and some of which must take the form of targets. There are targets for students, as well as for teachers and other participants in the system. Targets can be rough proxies, or comprehensive assessments; can be indicators to assist those whose duty it is to take cognizance of the situation, or inputs into some statistical design honoured with the office of exclusive appraisor of success and failure. The cult of evaluation is born when society beings to lean towards the latter conception of targets. It is of this conception, I believe, that HK
is currently plagued.
But the spread of the cult is neither an instant transformation, nor an isolated phenomenon. If students were made only to sit for English exams which test their four skills in the simple old way, the design of assessment schemes would not be that burdensome. There might even be just one round of such assessment per term. But if students were fed now with continuous assessment, with streams of project assignments, all
multi-intelligence oriented and hence multi-dimensionally assessible, it would not be surprising to see a growth of happy Taylorism in the pedagogic assembly line.
The original aspiration to assess students more comprehensively is respectable; the actual implementation of it, however, begets inevitably a desire, then a need, to develop increasingly complicated and fine-tuned forms of project, of assessment schemes, of assessments of assessments, etc. The better part of the teacher's time goes then to this enterprise of scientific management: setting objectives, creating frameworks, designing measures, implementing time-tables, etc., out of which students are supposed to learn more efficiently and more delightedly. How so, I am somewhat reserved to say. The ostentatious achievement is certainly an image of new-age pedagogy. For this image corresponds nicely with that of new-age management in business firms.
I do not doubt the sincerity of education researchers in trying to find a better way to organize this significant sector of social life: the transimitting of values and of knowledge, and the fostering of future citizens. But much of the effort in researching and developing this better way seems ironically only to promote the industrialization of secondary education. Is it an unintended consequence, or really the logic of something else?
The sound and fury of the better way seems rooted more in a language than in a vision, save the hidden vision of Taylorism. An education system in which teachers must spend a great part of their time on bureaucratic confessions is presumably pathetic. Though the pathogen is never just a few forms or reports.
Y.T.
January 18, 2006.