The Future of Education

This essay looks at one of the hidden aspects of U.S. schooling—standardization. While standardization has been considered as an aspect of schooling in any number of  past public texts, rarely has it been looked at in relation to the possibilities of difference; specifically spaces of difference. The central aim of this article is to relationally analyze standardization with spaces of sameness and spaces of difference. In particular, we argue that standardization reflects a historically dominant characteristic of U.S. school reform, while at the same time limiting change, reinforcing long-standing school practices and relationships, and maintaining the gap between schools and local communities. Given the way standardization acts as a counter force to change as it prioritizes sameness, we urge that schools experiement with spaces of difference. Creating spaces of difference encourages symbiotic—cooperative—relations that produce insights and innovative designs unlikely to occur when reform of any sort emerges from spaces of sameness that is founded in standardization. And as conditions change, new designs produced from spaces of difference can emerge and, when needed, be tested in practice. This continuous and pragmatic approach to change is the centerpiece of our design to transform schools. Before the essay moves into the history of standardization, our focus is on the meanings of transformation and spaces of difference. 

Keywords: transformation, technology difference;

References: 

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