Posts from — October 2006

It’s not surprising to me that school choice is a hotly contested issue – nor is it surprising to me that choice is something that educators have a hard time understanding and implementing. Educators might say that they value choice but when it comes down to actually implementing choice there will be great challenges.

The education system is built on a model that values compliance and control – with the underlying organizational structure being a hierarchy (sometimes euphamistically called the chain of blame). In an environment where compliance and control are valued choice is like a virus that stimulates all the host organisms defense mechanisms.

For there to be real choice in the education system there would need to be, at minimum, a loosening of the compliance and control structures that are overtly in place. These structures would be things like policies and practices, bell schedules and curriculum. Once these structures are changed (even just a little) a threat to the inherent compliance and control structures would develop – and this is something that most educators will avoid like the plague. These deeper control structures are things like educational philosophy, values, and beliefs, etc.

Educators will avoid changes to these inherent structures for many reasons – not the least of which is simply peer pressure. In order to survive in the system they work in educators will be hard pressed to continue to comply with this system. A change to these deeper structurs would require a system change and that is not something the average teacher signed up for.

Here’s an example of what I mean: an environment where choice is valued is an environment where order emerges not where order is mandated and controlled. An environment of this kind might appear messy and noisy – and even though there might be a lot of learning taking place that is not what is valued. What is valued is compliance and control (NOT learning - and often, for real learning to take place it might be noisy and messy!).

The reason choice is important to me is Choice is one of the items on my list of what makes a quality learning experience: “one where learners experience choices in what and how they learn.”