Page 77 - Looking_after_school

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

learning environment. Of course, this external validation can create a
lot of tension. The price that the learner pays for the freedom to engage
in learning and to add value is that they lose control over the final vali-
dation of that value. The learner can be confronted directly with the
conjunctures of an exchange economy of personal capital. In the archi-
tecture of the educational institution there can, of course, also be a sort
of inflation of the value of a degree or of an educational achievement.
The difference, however, is that the diploma offers institutional protec-
tion to groups of individuals, whilst a qualification expresses directly
and explicitly what a specific person actually knows and what they can
really do. In other words, it directly affects the person of the learner.

Lastly, there are also tensions between both architectures. These ten-
sions are the result of using building blocks of the educational institu-
tion in the learning environment, or the other way around; the following
example may elucidate this. In the architecture of the educational insti-
tution, it is to be expected that the student can be directed by corrective
measures, punishments, and rewards. In so far as marks (of an exam)
are indicative for a degree of normality (and thus also the social self-
image), they can be very (de)motivational for the student. In contrast,
it can be expected that the learner in the architecture of the learning
environment is more susceptible to all sorts of incentives. The pattern
of choices and the effort of the learner, thus someone that is oriented
on added value, can be steered relatively fast and easily by acting on
the already described quality criteria: make the learning process more
efficient, achieve more output with less input, enhance profits and out-
comes, speed up courses or create ‘short cuts’ for getting results, bonus
systems… In so far as somebody other than the learner, themselves, has
an interest in certain choices, we could, in this context, speak simply of
manipulation. Directing the learner becomes a matter of manipulation,
where the authority of the directing party is less important than the
intended effect, and the means justify the ends.

Tensions are to be expected when a teacher wants to motivate the
learner, for whom learning is about having or not having learning
outcomes, with marks or other normative rewards which act on the
normalised self-image of a student. The learner who wants to realise
learning outcomes is probably satisfied with a pass or a fail, an indi

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