Another Brick in the Wall

Welcome to a new Reality

I was in a supermarket the other day when I heard Pink Floyd ringing out boldly with:

"We don't need no education"

I had just seen thousands of Italian high school students demonstrating for the right to go back to school physically and it made me think about discourse and how rapidly change can actually happen. 

Of course it is sad to think that we need a pandemic to understand how important education is, and how the social, interactional aspect is what the students miss more than anything. In any case, however, this incident made me reflect on the importance of discourse and how constructs such as education are socially created by the world we live in. Being forced to stay at home, spending hours on end in front of a screen is certainly a wake up call for those who want to "get back to normal". 

Protest in the past: "Teacher, leave them kids alone"

Whereas not very long ago the sentiments in the Pink Floyd album were quite widespread and ideas of education as being thought control, cruelty and "dark sarcasm in the classroom" were an attack on the power of the teacher in the classroom, and the education system as being just a conveyor belt that created workers who were to be fed into the "system".

Of course, it is undeniable that the traditional models of Western education systems were designed to create model citizens, who complied with the social norms of the time, it is also true that not having an education has never been an advantage. The myth of the uneducated, self-made man may hold true for a few but for many the road to future work, future social acceptance and a modicum of prosperity is certainly through education. Whilst the privileged regarded school complacently as "a bore", the less fortunate were crying out for access to school which is seen as a key to success.

How things have changed

It takes very little, however, for new discourses to appear on the scene and thanks to COVID-19 the discourse of positive education in the classroom is now coming to the fore. Students and teachers are united against the situation and what is fairly clear is the social nature of education. We don't go to school only to "acquire knowledge" which, after all we could do in a variety of ways. We go to school to interact, to learn, but to make friends and to partake of life itself. The social nature of the classroom underlined by Piaget and the constructivists is being tested in a crucible of fire and is proving to be essential. We are social beings. Take physical interaction away from us and we wilt. 

Rather than being just "another brick in the wall" you as a student are a thriving member of a social community where you have the opportunity to exercise your own agency in creating your own world.

Let's hope that we can all get back into the classroom soon, and that it will be a nurturing space where students can learn to be creative and critical as they acquire knowledge and build it in a continuing discourse. It's time to create a new educational reality.