Page 71 - Looking_after_school

2. The architecture: from the educational institution
to the learning environment

the inspection. The power of the inspection is thus continuous, with-
out a constant de facto inspection of every school or every teacher.
This example of the inspectorate also clarifies that fixed norms are
being used and that schools and teachers are expected to discipline
themselves according to these norms, without there being a need for
permanent surveillance.
The juridical and the disciplinary diagram fall short in explaining
architectures that we see at work today, like that of the learning envi-
ronment. Therefore, we will try here to elicit a new configuration of
power. A basic instrument of today is that of the profile: the visible
expression of certain characteristics of somebody or of something. A
profile is an instrument which expresses proper or special aspects of
a person in such a way that it makes them recognisable, in the double
sense of being publicly knowable and of being acknowledged. A pro-
file thus presents a public identity by using different distinguishing
or determining features. Somebody is not shown ‘frontally’, but ‘in
profile’.
A profile only works in so far as there are points of recognition or vari-
ables, such as: gender, nationality, occupation, health, hobbies, family,
as well as emotional, financial, or relationship status. In principle,
everything is eligible for profiling, so long as it is possible to express
certain distinctive or determining features. It is of vital importance
for recognition that there be a stage or a platform on which visibility
can be created. That visibility is, in effect, for both yourself and for the
spectator/viewer. A personal profile allows to see yourself ‘in profile’
on a platform and to become, alongside others, your own spectator or
audience. Usually this takes place on a virtual platform with a virtual
audience; social media is exemplary here. On social media, you make
yourself or some aspects of yourself visible, create your profile, and
become, like others, a viewer of your profile. Your profile only has
meaning or any sense of reality when it has viewers who recognise
and acknowledge you. This recognition can be expressed in number of
views, acknowledgement through shares, likes, emoji’s, etc. Thus, it is
about visibility (to be known or recognised) which is confirmed (to be
acknowledged). In other words, it is public recognition (including your
own recognition) that grants your existence, makes you tangible, and
gives you real value. In this configuration, the main concern is a kind of

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