Page 92 - Looking_after_school

Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in education

imply that they do not have the opportunity to relate to that which
acts upon them. Grammatisation is required, as well as specific study
practices and exercise. Another example is the knowledge and skills
on car mechanics acquired in so-called vocational courses or schools.
Often it is argued that learning on the job or learning by doing works
best in this context, but there is a difference between learning as a
student in a (car)workshop at school and by working as an apprentice
in a real garage. The difference is that the tricky customers and the
financial pressure are kept at bay in the workshop at school: students
receive the freedom to practice and to try. Moreover, they are offered
the grammar of (car)mechanics so that they become able to make and
name distinctions and master their actions. For young people this can
literally make a world of difference: at school, there is breathing space
for the student to learn how to relate to what exactly they are doing or
making, to learn to perfect themselves through practice, to find a way
to relate, and to find a proper form.

The responsibility that the school conveys on society is not the duty
of setting the ideal image of an educated citizen or person, which the
coming generation must answer to, or the duty to determine the future
of young people in a different way; nor can this responsibility be about
making youngsters realise dreams which adults no longer think are
within their own grasp. The question towards the aims of this basic
formation, as given by the school, is the question towards which forms
of literacy we place value in, and the question towards the basic subject
matter refers to the grammars which are organising and shaping our
societal life. This is why the societal responsibility, which is invoked
by the school serves to demarcate, in relation to the coming genera-
tion, this ‘we’ and this ‘our’. Precisely because of the existence of the
school, society has to become and remain conscious of itself in a very
specific way. It has to think about the basics, not in view of protecting
them, but in order to set them free for the coming generation. Through
these grammars, school exercises and resulting literacies, society is not
reproducing itself, nor is it producing the new society adults can not
realise for themselves; grammars and related literacies are very different
materials than defining norms, values, identities, attitudes, or compe-
tences which play a key role in other, reproductive forms of learning.
Grammars are part of the school equipment or school objects which

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