Page 52 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

ments for centring the individual student as the main concern. The
recurring assertions are that the learning process (and thus the per-
sonal activity of the student) is of central importance, that students dif-
fer in their learning processes, and that these differences should pre-
cipitate the organisation of education. This could be done by changing
the method of instruction and adjusting goals to the personhood of
the student. Moreover, this perspective is obviously aimed at increas-
ing learning performance, meaning that both the ‘weaker’ and the
‘stronger’ students come into focus for support.

Conclusion: from individualisation to
personalisation

There is not only one perspective which focuses on the individual
student as their main concern, and there are a number of different
motives and descriptions of who this student is (see table 1 for an over-
view). Notwithstanding these differences, there are several recurring
elements.
First of all, the term ‘student’ in ‘placing the student at the centre’ does
not refer to a general or abstract figure of a student which should be
taken into account, nor to categories of students that we should take into
consideration. In contrast, the starting point of these different perspec-
tives is that all students differ from each other, and education and learn-
ing should start from these inter-individual differences. The vocabulary
that is used to refer to these differences varies: different talents, but
also emotions, feelings, experiences, or developmental needs. In gen-
eral terms this means that the person of the student becomes the main
concern. ‘Personhood’ refers here to the specific characteristics that
distinguish one student from another. This new assumption could also
be summarised as follows: ‘we are all individuals, but different persons’.
A second recurring point is that the organisation of education (and
learning itself) is questioned. Of course, this is not new, but there is
a clear shift. In the 1960s, institutions and their authority were criti-
cised in the name of ‘individual freedom’. The critical reactions back
then can be summarised by the following: ‘we are not here for the
school; the school is here for us’. This criticism ‘in name of the student’
did not refer to differences between individuals, but to an abstract

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