I came across the below article recently and it seemed to me to sum up the situation we are increasingly finding ourselves in in New Zealand as we follow down the United States and the United Kingdom 'market forces' ideology pathway.
I thought it worth sharing.
Progressive New Zealand educationalist Kelvin Smythe has long been a voice warning New Zealand teachers that humanistic purpose of education has been captured by a Neo- Liberal ( 'Market Forces'/ privatization) agenda
Kelvin recently wrote a couple of articles sharing his insights. In one he writes of a point in the 80s when education came to what he called 'point dot'( a bifurcation point) when politicians took us down an anti education route.
In an early blog I shared ideas about a corporate takeover of education that has proved to be one of my most downloaded blogs. It is well worth a read.
It worries me that too many schools/teachers seem to have learnt to live with this neo-liberal//corporate takeover - and far too many seem to simply accept the situation and busy themselves looking after their own school's reputation - the competitive model in action.
This focusing on their own school's success has led them ignoring greater issues and worse still not being able to see through the myths underlying the imposed ideology and , even worse, have not taken leadership roles to promote a humanistic /creative education. Teachers and schools huddle in an intellectual Plato's cave admiring the shadows without having the courage to move out into the light.
The below article by Peter W. Cookson Jr might throw more light on the subject.
(Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: July 13, 2015
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 18025, Date Accessed: 7/17/2015 7:00:08 PM)
The rise of instrumentalism in education.
In the last three decades, the dominant narrative concerning
the purposes of education has become increasingly narrowed and instrumental
(Apple, 1995; Anyon, 2005). Those of us who believe in the intrinsic value of
education, experiential learning, and free inquiry are facing a historical
transition from a tradition that values
education as transformation and
enlightenment to a new conceptualization that conceives of learning as serving
the market with little regard for freedom of thought or originality (Cookson,
1992).
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| Michael Apple |
I call this movement educational instrumentalism because it
elevates the quantifiable “products” of education such as paper credentials and
time spent in school above the complex, adventurous, and rebellious processes
that characterize transformative education (Greene, 1988). Traditionally,
education has been seen as a vocation or a calling. Educational instrumentalism
takes a different view—education’s purpose is preparation for employment and
little else (Tucker, 2014).
In this commentary, it is argued that educational
instrumentalism can cause a turning away from the deeper democratic and
transformative purposes of education. Like those imprisoned in Plato’s Cave,
learners who do not have the opportunity to experience free inquiry are
vulnerable to the one-dimensional images and stereotypes produced by much of
the media and publishing world. The learner is hobbled, even crippled, as she
or he travels the developmental
path of self-discovery and critical
consciousness. This disempowering of mind produces tunnel social vision (Dewey,
1910/1991; Freire, 1970/1993; Berlin, 1996).
 |
| Time to see the light! |
Educational instrumentalism is the background metaphor and
rationale of much of contemporary educational policy discussions whether we
look at much of the standards movement, the education “any-time, any-place” movement,
or the top down reform movement embraced by many influential policy makers
(Engel, 2000; Berliner & Biddle, 1995).
Thus, the demystification of the assumptions behind
educational instrumentalism is not solely academic, it is essential if the
deeper purposes of education are to be preserved. Below, I examine the
assumptions and contradictions underlying educational instrumentalism,
demystify some of its assumptions about learning, and conclude with an
alternative argument—real education still matters.
The roots and contradictions of educational instrumentalism.
The indispensable assumptions upon which educational
instrumentalism rests are possessive individualism, and the conviction that the
maximization of marketable talents in service to personal accumulation is
education’s most important purpose.
Possessive individualism is the assertion that the
individual is the sole proprietor of his or her
talents and skills and owes
nothing to society for them (Macpherson, 1962). Moreover, following the speculative
assumptions concerning human nature found in the works of John Locke and
others, an individual’s talents and skills are seen as a commodity to be bought
and sold on the open market. Possessive individualism envisions a society of
autonomous, competitive individuals struggling against each other for material
dominance without regard to the larger social consequences.
 |
| Escaping the box |
This Hobbesian thesis about the nature of the social
contract has attracted criticism. However, it has been indirectly affirmed by
free market economists such as Milton Freidman (1962) who claim human freedom
is best served by unrestricted market competition. If it is true that each of
us is an independent agent bent on the protection and promotion of our
self-interest, as the proponents of possessive individualism suggest, it is a
short step to conceiving of education as primarily, if not exclusively, a
preparation for the employment.
The tendency of policymakers to frame educational reform in
terms of employment, global competition and national defense is an indication
of their conviction that the primary, if not sole, value of education is
success in the marketplace (Klein & Rice, 2012).
I would argue, given these assumptions, that the ethical and
intellectual horizons of educational instrumentalism tend to dull the curiosity
and sense of reality required for free inquiry (Berlin, 1996).
Yet, while
appearing to be self-confident in its convictions, educational instrumentalism
suffers from conceptual fragility and internal contradiction—the publicly
stated manifest purpose of increasing human capital runs counter to the latent,
seldom acknowledged, requirement that human capital be defined in limited and
exclusory terms.
The hidden flaw in educational instrumentalism is that it
undermines the very thing it seeks to promote—the application of talent to
problem solving. By reducing learning to purely
The mystification of learning.
Justifying these internal contradictions leads to a number
of myths about the nature of learning: Briefly, some of these learning myths
include: a) learning is the result of routine and imitation; b) learning is
linear; and c) learning is quantifiable.
 |
| Howard Gardner |
Generally, policymakers who ascribe to the principles
underlying educational instrumentalism embrace theories of learning that are
empirically weak and open to question. Instrumentalism leads to theories of
learning that are as an excel sheet is to a Rembrandt portrait. Simplistic
theories of learning result in a diminishing of learning by definition;
research tells us that learning is complex,multilayered, paradoxical, and
reflexive (Gardner, 1999; Sternberg, 2003).
Over reliance on testing is a form of tracking that bears
only a faint relationship to actual merit and Learning has no
identifiable beginning or end. We are learning every millisecond we are alive
on this earth and the sources of learning are too complex to be measured
arithmetically alone. It follows from this that learning is not linear. And, it
is not linear in several senses. Learning takes place over time and not
everyone learns in the same time sequence. Learning is relational, all of us
learn from others in ways that we remember and ways we don’t remember. Learning
is also collective; the singular autonomous learner posited by possessive
individualism is an artifact of the philosopher’s imagination (Cookson, 2013).
achievement. 
Lasting learning is experiential. Our brains react to
stimuli, and our minds translate stimuli into coherent patterns of thought.
Educational instrumentalism tends to focus solely on the cognitive aspects of
learning, and adopts what Paulo Freire (1970/1993) referred to as the banking
In short, the learning myths that give educational
instrumentalism an air of legitimacy are little more than unsupported
statements that might be harmless, if it were not for the fact that they are
shaping educational policy—and, in doing so affecting the lives and learning of
millions of American students.
There must be a better way.
Real education still matters.
Since the time of Socrates, free inquiry has been seen as
the path to enlightenment. To be able to think in an organized, empirical, and
reflexive manner is the hallmark of the mature mind. And the mature mind is
more that an individual possession, it is part of a larger collective of minds
that identifies problems, weighs options, and arrives at solutions.
Progressive education in the tradition of John Dewey is
characterized by a strong belief in experiential learning, experimentation,
collective intelligence, and freedom of thought. It is a
This perspective is desperately needed today. Not only
because it is based on ethical principles of freedom that are essential for the
preservation of democracy, but expressive, progressive education is the only
educational philosophy that can actually prepare today’s students for tomorrow
(Popper, 1945; Cremin, 1957; Gutmann, 1987). The rates of change in the world
today are so fast and so steep that only the most creative, flexible, and
innovative people will thrive.
By opening up learning to discovery and invention, society
as a whole benefits and education serves its historic role of transformation
and the foundation for freedom of thought. Without real education, a society
withers and exits from history forgotten, a mere ghost of what it could have
been (Counts, 1932).
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