On the eve of the release of his long-awaited second volume, Education: The History and Future, former education academic and now self-proclaimed education futurist Dr. Charles Jago provides a preview of the book to AIT's readers.
In part one we present an examination of some history and its relevance for future (and past) developments in education; particularly as those developments affect our oldest institutions. In part two we turn to current matters such as national assessment and what Dr. Jago refers to as 'the culture wars'. And finally, in part three we look more widely at what this has meant for various social institutions such as scholarship and politics (in both Australia and elsewhere).
As with all previews/reviews, we strongly recommend that you read the book and its supporting research and other materials (and we encourage you to do so after reading this review).
Part One: Education History 101
Since at least 1859, when Charles Darwin published his On The Origin of Species using Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Western societies have been characterized as much by their fears as their hopes. Their fears arise from complex reactions to complex situations. These reactions may be seen as revivals, reforms, and revolutions – but perhaps more accurately as time-specific re-conceptualizations of reality. They generate new worldviews and the consequences that flow from them – consequences that range all too easily from enthusiasm to despair, hope to fear.
In response to such feelings and ideas, what we might call education history (and perhaps more accurately educational history) can be seen as a welter of visions and revisions: of the purpose and structure of schools; of how we learn; even of who we are or should be. Ideas about these things reflect and refract not only one another but also their social, cultural, and political settings. And in doing so they provide us with some insights into the power dynamics that necessarily inform them (including those between men and women; rich and poor; natives and immigrants; colonized subjects/citizens/people vs settlers/colonists). That is why what we teach matters – because it is related to who we might become and what we will do. [Footnote 1] [End of Footnote]
As these dynamics shift over time, so too does our understanding of them – and how they inform our thoughts about schooling change. In doing so, their relationship to schooling changes too: from a means for transmitting values across generations; to a means for developing children's minds; to a means of socializing youth into adult society; and finally, perhaps, to a way of keeping adults off the streets (and therefore out of trouble that is often related directly or indirectly to education). The point here is not that that all these views are valid at all times nor even that they were equally held societies. Rather it is that the way they have developed over time is not dissimilar to the development of society itself.
What kind of history this implies for us depends, inevitably on how we see our current predicaments; what we think might change; what values animate us; and how much trouble we are willing to go through. But it will certainly provide an understanding of the path that previous generation walked (and some fell) in their attempts at creating new futures. More importantly, perhaps, it may also lead us into 'the end of history where education history becomes more like pre-history – a set of visions that becomes ever less relevant as societies move beyond their often painful origins into new forms or structures.[End of Part One]
Part Two: Education's Future
What education history can't tell us is what might be better. Education theory and practice have always been part of the problem. If we are to see a way through our current predicaments, we need to understand both how they came about and where they might lead us. In doing so it needs to provide some sense of their implications for an alternative future – not by telling us what that future will look like but by asking us what kind of future we want it to be. The past gives context, but only the presence or absence offers hope. We must build that hope ourselves from whatever materials, thoughts, and actions come together in the process.
The challenges facing educational theorists and practitioners today derive largely from a number of similar factors:
• the growth of knowledge that is both expanding exponentially and becoming more distributed; • the diminishing authority of established institutions to deal with the complexity, diversity, and fluidity of change in a globalized world; • the changing nature of work itself (from physical labor to cognitive labor) making it increasingly difficult for societies to ascertain who does what, where and when; • the fact that this growing mass of knowledge crosses all institutional boundaries, particularly those between universities/colleges, government agencies, research centers, etc.; [Footnote 2] [End of Footnote] • competition from other media forms that are themselves proliferating at an equally exponential rate.
