Page 102 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

same finish line). This is a pedagogical equality with a double meaning:
the assumption that, as a student, everybody is capable of learning,
and the supposition that the basics matter for everybody in working
on their form of life. The teacher’s pedagogical actions start from
this positive assumption of equality and the teacher intervenes (and
differentiates) when there are indications of the contrary. This means
putting those young people back into an initial situation, a situation
of beginning, so that they are a student again.

In this sense, there is a tension between pedagogical action and
numerous forms of naturalism which start from a given, unchange-
able, or inevitable limitation of the student. School pedagogy does not
deny or ignore differences among young people, but also does not use
them as points of departure. Seeing these natural characteristics as a
starting point would mean that we are not concerning ourselves with
formation, but with development: developing that which is naturally
present. By contrast, the starting point of the school is to address young
people at their learning capacities or (better) their capacity for shaping
their lives instead of their natural talents, limitations, or what they are
unable to do. This pedagogical understanding of freedom and equal-
ity is probably most obvious in the practice of grouping students in ‘a
grade’ and in the experience of being a member of ‘a class’. These are
formed groups which do not share any pedagogically relevant charac-
teristics, other than that of being students. Of course, there are specific
criteria for grouping students (based on capacity, interest, proficiency
levels, or age), or conversely for no longer maintaining these groups
(and organising personal pathways). The touchstone here is seeing in
how far this grouping, classification, or personalisation of students has
pedagogical relevance: does it place students in a positive, future-ori-
ented situation of ‘being able to learn’, or in a negative, past-oriented
situation of ‘being less able’ or ‘being unable’? Many of these group-
ings are of the latter type and result in identifications that go against
the pedagogical assumptions of freedom and equality. It is important,
however, to recall that a class group based on age – despite its biologi-
cal underpinnings – can make it possible for students to experience
commonality solely through being students, and that often age is the
first thing to be omitted if other approaches are needed to continue to
address someone as student.

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