Page 91 - Looking_after_school

3. Touchstones: pedagogical articulations

embodied forms of knowledge and skills. In this sense, literacy is not
an elitist ideal but refers to ‘the right’ of everyone to ‘the basics’. The
school, therefore, is not about the selective training of writers, pro-
grammers, or engineers, but about a basic formation which allows
everyone to become literate in the basics of language, programming,
and engineering.
What does one need for this literacy, and what is the school expecting
from society at this point? Here we could speak of the basic gram-
mars of societal life. This could be the grammar of language, but also
the grammar of digital life, of technology, of nature, perhaps even of
domestic work. The term world may be most telling in this context: it is
about what matters in the world of language, the world of technology,
the natural world, the world of domestic work, the world of economy…
It is through grammatisation that these worlds are disclosed; distinc-
tions are made, naming becomes possible, and these worlds can be
talked about, discussed, acted upon, and taken care of. In order to
arrive at a basic formation (or to be able to relate to what influences
you) these grammars are necessary, as are specific study practices and
exercises through which knowledge and skills are inscribed (in terms
of becoming literate) and give shape to one’s form of life.

This focus on basic formation in terms of literacy and through gram-
mars probably sheds a different light on the ongoing debate about
‘skills versus knowledge’: should school education become more
practical and oriented towards skills, or should it be about knowl-
edge development rather than producing skilled-yet-ignorant stu-
dents? Both matter, obviously, and it is very hard to distinguish study
(in view of knowledge) from practice or rehearsal (in view of skills).
The more important question which lies behind this often-heated
debate is whether school learning is about basic skills and knowledge
(to shape one’s life), or concrete and situated skills and knowledge (to
perform an action). School is about the first. Of course, concrete and
situated skills matter, but we do not need school to teach these. These
are best learned by doing. Basic skills and knowledge always require
a certain ‘abstraction’ (in terms of grammars) to allow for combined
distance and involvement that is needed in order to be prepared. Think
for instance of consciously and purposefully using the algorithm of
Google. Denying this kind of ‘abstraction’ to young people could

91