Head of Sixth Form, West Midlands, quoted in
Straight A’s? A-level teachers’ views on today’s A-levels, Anastasia de Waal (2009)
Activity theory (see my previous post) is a useful tool for analysing and understanding human work activity. So let's use one of the simplest aspects of activity theory - the triangular activity system diagram - to help analyse what lies behind the above quotation (which surely reflects the often unspoken priorities behind many educational institutions these days).
In my previous blog post I suggested what I will now call 'Activity System 1' (see below) as a model of what is happening in a school or college. Remember that at the left of the triangle we have the subject, the individual or group engaged in the activity, at the right we have the object, 'the raw material or problem space at which the activity is directed, and which is molded and transformed into outcomes' and at the top we have the tools that are used to achieve the object.
Activity System 1
But the quotation from the Head of Sixth Form implies that the learner and the learning are not the object of the activity in a school or college. It states quite clearly that the object of the exercise is to ensure that 'our results do not go down', in other words that the institution does not look bad in league tables, inspection reports etc. So if we want to represent what is really happening (rather than what we pretend is happening) in schools and colleges then the diagram should surely look something like Activity System 2a, below.Activity System 2a
What is actually quite chilling about the quotation at the top of this post is that the Head of Sixth Form is stating quite clearly that it is more important for the school or college to look good in the league tables than to challenge the students. What have we come to if this is what sixth form education is actually about? And if the organisation puts its own perceived needs ahead of those of the students in this way, then this tells us what we need to write at the top of Activity System 2a in order to complete it (i.e. the 'cultural tools' being used). The sad fact is that the tools of the educational trade are no longer classrooms, lesson plans textbooks etc. No, the tools are the learners themselves. Schools and colleges quite literally use the learners and their learning as tools to achieve their real aim, which is to look good in terms of results, league tables and inspection reports. It's a sort of beauty contest in which the learners and their learning are merely the false eyelashes with which one tries to dazzle the judges. The complete activity system is shown below.
Activity System 2b
In the next post I will explain why this helps to explain why after 10 years of unparalleled financial investment in learning we have so much dysfunction in the system (e.g. record numbers of NEETS* and last week's paradoxical findings that the more help underperforming pupils get from classroom assistants the worse they achieve).
*NEETS are young people 'not in employment, education or training'.
