Page 126 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

we have shown, this also entails the risk that the student needs feed-
back up to the point that they become extremely unsure, rather than
becoming more confident. There is a risk that the student will mostly
look at themself performing through the evaluating eyes of others
and will eventually want to form their self according to the image that
others have. Finally, there is a danger that the personalised student
is constantly confronted with themself (in the form of a more and
more ‘automatically’ created and fine-tuned profile), and this means
that with every customisation the student is reminded of their past
(the past, as said, always being something that matters for profiling).
In so far as formation is oriented towards an open future, this forced
remembering can be a heavy burden.
Can we be against a perspective in which the student is placed in the
centre? Student-centrism is almost self-evident today, but we have tried
to make this less evident or to introduce at least some hesitation. Per-
sonalisation, like normalisation and disciplining before, is indeed a
form of power. It is not our intention to debate all forms of differen-
tiation in education; on the contrary, we want to see what forms of
differentiation are possible in school without giving up what makes
scholastic learning a special form of learning, namely learning under
the conditions of freedom, equality, and formation. The starting point
here is of course that we believe in school in the same way as we believe
in democracy. The argument that we make is then also that scholastic
forms of learning cannot simply be replaced by other forms of learn-
ing, even when these other forms are more efficient, effective, or prof-
itable. Certain versions of personalisation really challenge scholastic
forms of learning. The more extreme forms of personalisation even go
further: they de-school the school: freedom, equality, and formation
are sacrificed on the altar of learning-profit and societal employability.
When education develops in this direction, it is perhaps more obvious
that there is reason to object today’s student-centrism.

When inclusive education risks to exclude school

The most challenging development today is perhaps inclusive edu-
cation. The strict separation between regular education and special
needs education is being increasingly debated, understandably so

126