Page 125 - Looking_after_school

4. Lessons learned

freedom to form themselves be reconciled with actors in society who
want to form students according to their own image? A one-sided focus
on qualification risks that young people are being personalised (and
even selected) based on their specific talent or potential, and accord-
ingly are no longer able to shape their own life or are no longer given
the time and space to do so.
There is also another version in which the external-societal and the
internal-educational perspective are combined: ‘to get everything
out of everybody as fast as possible’. This means that all the inter-
personal differences in the initial situation are considered, as well as
the so-called need to develop and employ all the potential as much
as possible. The architecture of the learning environment is actually
an attempt to combine both perspectives. Stated simply: learning in
school should be focused on results and outcomes and, in line with
this, should be personalised optimally so that learning paths are effi-
cient and effective. The risk is, of course, that students are pinned
down in advance according to their so-called different potentials, or to
the results that they should achieve that they have no space and time
to take their (form of) lives into their own hands.
A second point of criticism is that the actual organisation of person-
alised education and learning can create tension in its own respect.
First of all, there is a real possibility that all responsibility falls into
the hands of the student alone, and this raises the question whether
and how young people can carry this radical responsibility. Young
people that must rely fully on themselves, while constantly receiving
the message that their personal needs are being taken into account,
no longer have the chance to frame things which do not go as well as
part of a bigger picture, beside or outside themselves. They can get
personal credit for successes, but also carry full responsibility for fail-
ure. This failure also keeps ‘counting’ in a digital environment, where
it is never forgotten because it is always recorded. Another risk is that
the student is completely tied up in images and in image building. In
either case, the learner will have to play a kind of role and will have to
profile themself. This is the only way in which they can be recognised.
The power circle closes when those profiles have complete control
over what somebody is and what they can and want to do, and when
someone can only look at themselves through the eyes of the other. As

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