Classical Liberal economic values and neo-conservatism political values, heavily entrenched in efficiency, measurable progress, predictable outcomes, are seen as the exemplary model and engine for attaining high standards of educational performance with the values of competition, hard work and obedience to procedure and measurement, the hallmarks of entrepreneurialism of the old industrial age. The ‘invisible hand’ though rarely mentioned is central to the notion that individual choice and decision making will produce the best results for all of society.

How niaeve this line of thinking this is. Not every individual choice is a positive one, not every individual choice is beneficial. In fact, seeing as how most individual choices are suited only for the individual making it, precious few individual choices will be beneficial to even a few other individuals let alone society as a whole. Even individual choices taken from the viewpoint of their positive effects on others are few and far between. This folly has been demonstrated again and again within the failures and crashes of the business cycle. Complete embeddedness in the old model leads to failure and a moment in time where all are caught wondering what went wrong.

And the subjects upon whom all these practices are applied are the students. Students have individual needs in terms of learning strategies, social conditions, mental conditions, personal likes and dislikes, apptitudes and desires as well as the fact they are children coming to grips with the expectations of the society of adults, and require accommodations (to assuage guilt of an actually unfair equality of opportunity) in order to achieve the ends meant for them by others. Most of these individual, personal and highly volatile characteristics are generally put aside in favour of a seemingly equal opportunity start and experience in collective public education. But in this process of only achieving the specified outcomes required of children, the humanity of the individual, the consideration of the individual student as a living breathing being, is lost to the attainment of the ends. The student becomes an object, the widget, and parents willingly acquire a familiar role as the client. This dehumanization of the student to an object, with grades, with defined expectations and outcomes, leaves behind an individual decidedly struggling for a healthy, reflective, compassionate way to move forward in a multifaceted adult life. Rarely do the best guesses of adults for the future come to pass, and so the outcomes required of children are most often a simple recapitulation of the past, what is known, and that is what is expected and examined …the past.

Children today in organized industrial education are the most highly formally examined of anywhere known. The rampant use of the ‘economy of grades’ as a carrot for excellence in performance (from the Board room down to the individual student) in standardized tests, while predicting good performance, says nothing of the actual learning health of the student. Loss of childhood and meaningful socialization, that is informal cooperative distributed learning outside of the classroom environment via extended family or other members of the community, in the larger context is lost to extended formal learning in a classroom, where competitiveness is exemplified, are extant issues. Doing well in school does not necessarily mean doing well in life, having high grades does not mean one is a useful and engaging member of society or on the job! While the curriculum and the demand for cooperation and collaboration between the students is taught, this is completely undermined by the competitive race for individual grades and entrance into post secondary institutions. Cooperation, sharing of differences and alternate views are lost to raw competitiveness. To actually make students free to learn is seen as too disorganized, too unpredictable, too unmeasurable, too unaccountable. It is easier to mold them to last years model than to let them free to envision and create a new world.