Page 13 - Looking_after_school

Introduction

Placing the student at the centre of the educational system is a high
priority of educational policies worldwide. Many countries, as well
as international organisations, share a particular concern about the
position of the student in education. This varies from a concern with
the student’s freedom in the educational system, to their role in school,
or to their position in the pedagogical process. There are a number
of different terminologies and descriptions circulating in this context
which come to mind: differentiation, tailor-made education, custom-
ised education, appropriate education, personalised education, per-
sonal learning, individualised approaches, personalised assessment,
and personal learning pathways, for example. These various terms
differ in meaning, yet all express a shift of attention towards the stu-
dent, and imply that contemporary education is not, or at least not
sufficiently, concerned with the student.
This shift towards a more central positioning of the student is not
new. Recall for instance the efforts of reform pedagogy at the end of
the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In line with the adage
“vom Kinde aus” and the idea of “child-centred education” this reform
movement debated the educational system of the time and plead for
new methods and new schools. Reform educators like Parkhurst (Dal-
ton), Petersen (Jena-plan), Freinet, Montessori and Decroly shared
the idea that the ‘old school’ inadequately addressed the child, their
experiences, lifeworld, and potential. The starting point should not be
the institute, the curriculum, or the teacher, but the student. Similar
movements appeared in the period after the Second World War. Skin-
ner’s behaviourist theory (1953) laid the foundation for new learning
theories, which influenced the development of instructional design.
This form of instruction - with its well-known or infamous learning
machines - envisioned a partial automatisation of pedagogy, but also
an individualisation of the process of instruction. In this context even
the term ‘personalisation’ arises, such as in Keller’s (1968) Personalised

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