which people are using technology for communication and knowledge development. In the finalsection we will examine the different technologies which may influence future educationaldevelopment and will suggest that the Personal Learning environment may herald a profoundchange in education systems and in the relationships between educations systems andinstitutions and learning.We are aware of the danger of technological (and historical) determinism in such an analysis andwould prefer to rest on the idea that technologies are an enabling factor opening up differentpossibilities for the social shaping of societies.
Models of schooling
In a previous paper (Attwell, 2008) I wrote that the present ‘industrial’ model of schooling evolvedto meet the needs and form of a particular phase of industrial development. At least in the UK,prior to the industrial revolution of the 1840s, schooling was the preserve of the privileged few,based on class and wealth. Parents hired tutors for home education for their sons and (less often)daughters. The church provided what schooling there was. Indeed until as late as the nineteenthcentury, all university fellows and many schoolmasters were expected or required to be in holyorders. Schoolmistresses typically taught "the three Rs" (reading, writing and 'rithmatic) in dameschools, charity schools, or informal village schools (Boushel, Fawcett and Selwyn, 2000).However, the majority of young people had little formal schooling. That is not to say they did notlearn. But, learning was through what we would now call work based or practice based learning.In a predominantly rural economy this took the form of helping in the family smallholdings from anearly age. Apprenticeship was the main way of learning in the mainly town based craft trades.Occupational choice was (as it still is often today, (Chevalier al, 2004) based on parentaloccupation.The industrial revolution imposed new requirements in terms of skills and knowledge – inparticular the need to extend general education to much wider layers of society. In 1893 theElementary Education (School Attendance) Act raised the school leaving age to 11 and in 1902the state took over education, through the organisation of Local Education Authorities and theprovision of funding for schools from taxation. It is notable that there was opposition to thesereforms based variously on the idea that this would make the labouring classes ‘think’ and couldlead to revolt and that handing children to a central authority could lead to indoctrination. Thesereforms were based on a perceived need for Britain to remain competitive in the world by being atthe forefront of manufacture and improvement.
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Some of the speeches and documents of the time bear an uncanny resemblance to debatesaround the European Union’s Lisbon Declaration3
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