Experiential Learning and Marketisation of Education - Essay Example

? EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING Nowadays, many learning s have introduced the concept of learning through experience, referred to as experiential learning. This process of learning can either be dramatic or open and it was advocated by scholars such as Aristotle and Kolb. To Aristotle, learning to do things through experience is better than learning to do things by being taught (Curren, 2000).An individual has to acquire knowledge and skillsthrough the experience.While, Kolb defines experiential learning as a process that involves real life experience in acquisition of knowledge and skills and its elements are experience, observation, reflection and experimentation (Ozmon and Craver, 1986). In Experiential learning, the question is, does it require the guidance of a practioner in order for learning to take place. Practioners are always necessary in any process of learning, and experiential learning is not an exception. To acquire newknowledge from experience, an individual has to have problem solving skills which willenable him/ herto make decisions. This aspect is essential toenable a studentto apply skillsgained through theexperience undergone while learning (Maxwell, 2011).Experience as an issue in experiential learning is not the main factor thata student can acquire knowledge from. A student might pass through natural processes that might instill knowledge in him. Howeverwithout a guide given, such knowledge will not be helpful to him/ her since with time, skills accumulated, student will not be put into use (Palmer and Cooper, 2003). To Aristotle, passing through an experience, acquiring skills and being unable to implement is not the objective of education. Since by learning, a student has to be able to apply skills gained in real life situations and challenges (Curren, 2000). The applicative part of skill acquisition is the problem and for a student to be able to implement a skill he/she needs guidanceand this normally comes from the practitioners.The idea of learning through experience has a long historical perspective and it isJohn Deweywho proposed it. Dewey (1998) states experience is an integral part of learning; however practitionersalso play an important rolethat is to ensurestudents are able to apply knowledge gained from an experiencein different perspectives of their lives. This notion of Dewey, clearly agrees with my views of experimentation as an aspect of experiential learning. It is necessary for practitioners to introduce thecurriculum whenstudents are taken to the outdoorlearningwith supervision from educators, as it would allow students to learnfrom a series of adventures where real life examples. Another aspect from Dewey(1998)involves the issue of reflection, where student must engage actively in the activity took place and toreflect on the experience later to grasp the new ideas instilled. Based on this, experiential leaning involves experience and reflection and therefore knowledge and skills are gained through various circumstances, an individual passes through which determines the nature of skills attained and only after effective reflection guided by a practitioner.Reflection involves paying attention to the ideas leant and thus consolidating them. Reflection as an issue of experiential learning is not beneficial without supervision. There are many aspects of reflective tendencies during the process of experiential learning. However, it has some drawback (Palmer and Cooper, 2003); student will not think deeper into the meaning of the experience passed as he/shemight take it as play attained. Also it might involvelack of concentration from the student. According to Kolb, learning is a multidimensional process (Palmer and Cooper, 2003) and it involvesfour stages that are toexperience, observe, reflect and experiment. Kolb advocates for supervision of a learner during the process of reflection. After a period of time, learning will have taken place as students had gained an educative experience with useful guides given from the practitioners. The reason is thatconstantly, the student will reflect on the experience he/she has just gained and consider the advice given from the practitioners (Maxwell et al, 2011).This process of experiential learning requires a practitioner at all stage to facilitate student’s learning. Therefore practitioners play an important role here and their input should not be neglect. Experiential learning was formally recognized as a field of education in 1970s and a great achievement for advocators of experiential learning was made in 1977 when the association of experiential education was established(Palmer and Cooper, 2003). It is in the 20th Century that educating through experience has been appreciated as avital foundation of the learning process and it was precipitated by theworkofJohn Deweyin 1998.The ideas of experiential learning are relevant to the concepts of adult learning.David Kolb (Palmer and Cooper, 2003) argue experiential learning is a four stage processand he identifies Dewey as the main pioneer of thislearning system.Kolb (Palmer and Cooper, 2003) discusses experience and reflection as issues in experiential learning. He gives an analysisof the steps of experiential learning which are experience; observation and reflection and experimentation.To Kolb, experience and reflection are necessary for learning to take place but with guidance of a practitioner while to Dewey, the guidance of a practioner is not necessary(Dewey, 1998). However, Rousseau(Palmer et al, 2003) state experiential learning is an important aspect of education and notes that education comes from nature, men and environmental surroundings thus everything plays an important role in the impartation of knowledge. Rousseau argues a child obtains passivity by being taught and resent from punishment and therefore the best way for a child to learn is through experience which allows him to see the consequences of his actions. To Rousseau, experience coupled with tutorship is the best form of education since passivity in learning will be removed and therefore leaning becomes a process of mutual understanding and consent (Ozmon and Craver, 1986). Experiential learning has been adopted in the curriculum in many schools across the country. The new curriculum emphasizes the importance of children learning through experience and thereby developing skills from out of class activities. It is used to denote various models and due to the differences of value and thoughts, educators develop curriculums and programs that fit their understanding of experiential learning. For knowledge and skills to be gained in the process of experiential leaning,guidance given from practitioners to student is necessary. Practitioners must be trained in all aspects of education in order to be skillfulin applying knowledge acquired through experiences in their practice. MARKERTISATION OF EDUCATION Marketization of education refers to the privatization of the education industry in offering educative services for a fee and thus economic advantage is the main driving force for the emergence of this style of education. For example, in 1998, The Education Reform Act, published a report to compare the GCSE and Standard Assessment Tests of Schools in order to give parents a choice between different competing schools. This meant the School that performed well attracted a high number of parents and therefore collected more money in terms of fees. In analyzing this aspect of education, my key concern is if this process meets the objective of providing the best educative services and an equal opportunity for students. To answer this question, we need to identify and analyze the concerns of this aspect of education system and among them is economic revolution. Economic revolution was precipitated by industrial revolution in Europe and it brought changes in the systems of governance and therefore economics as an issue in the evolution of education.Friedman in his analysis of Marketization of education agrees with my opinion. He argues that the evolution of this style of education is as a result of the liberalization of the structures of government including economic structures (Friedman, 2003). Liberalism is an aspect of governance which Karl Marx, many centuries ago predicted will cause education to be less regulated by governments. Marxism argues that industrial revolution will lead to new structures of government and labor organizations and therefore changing the aspects of education (Ozmon, 1986). The concepts of economics as a motivator to marketization of education are highly criticized by Lauder (2006). In Lauder’sanalysis, heargues that economic factorshave replace the learning aspects of education to more material oriented learning processes, whereby schools concentrate on how they can achieve customer satisfaction as opposed to impartation of knowledge and skills (Lauder, 2006). This has happened because of the decentralization of the structures of government and less regulation of the education system by the government due to liberalization of the economy where organizations are allowed to offer services without regulation from the government (Dewey, 1998). Lauder further argues that Marketization of education arose due to the emergence of the class system, where parents from rich backgrounds saw the need of taking their children to special schools, which they saw offered more quality education than state schools (Lauder et al, 1999). This aspect created a rift between the rich and the poor in the educative process therefore no equal opportunity in terms of acquisition of knowledge and services related to education is offered. Bates et al (2011) argues that parents with low income struggle to move from their residential areas and due to their financial limitations, they take their children to state and public schools therefore continuing the process of social segregation. In socialist states, education was controlled by the government and strictly regulated by the same government, developing curriculums to be followed and taught by schools. This is as opposed to the liberalized states such as America and Britain. The European Research institute of education conducted a research on Marketization of Education in Europe and it observed that States powers over the regulation of education system in Europe waned and the system, steadily towards decentralization (Kishan, 2008). These are aspects of liberalization and therefore economics is not the main factor that resulted into the evolution of marketization of education but governance and politics facilitated this aspect of education. Another aspect of Marketization of education is the changing needs of the society that the education system needed to address. This issue is vague in its description and this is because, over time, education has always existed and issues affecting the society have always been the same and therefore only the approach of solving the problem differs.Lauder agrees with this notion and notes that the education system concerns itself with impartation of skills necessary for an individual to survive in the world (Lauder, 2006). This was theobjectives of the education system in the former centuries, the needs of the society is always the same, but how to solve such needs differ. The main needs of the society are survival in a fierce competitive environment and therefore an education system that offers mechanisms and skills to survive in such an environment is welcome. Government schools also offer such skills and therefore those who argue this style of education emerged due to changes in the needs of the populace is false thusmarketization of education arose because of the class system. The schooling system has evolved to an extent that business organizations make a commercial presence in schools, and this is evidenced by the commercial advertisements on teaching materials and thus education services is seen as a business opportunity. To Friedman, marketization of education arose due to the need of allowing free flow of education. Friedman notes that the combination of marketization, liberalization and privatization in the education sector ensures that the development prosperity and cooperation is achieved in the world because information is shared freely. Without marketization, Friedman argues that government institutions can interfere with the process of free flow of information (Friedman, 2003). Lauder (2006), argues against this system of education and maintains that marketization of education is a replacement of instructive thoughts to economic thoughts. He argues that instead of preparing students for social and personal development, the education system concerns itself with aspects of client satisfaction, cost effectiveness and competitiveness. Bridgehouse (2011) asserts that Marketization of education has resulted into the neglect of children with special needs for schools and focuses on how to minimize costs. This is because schools aim at profit making and see the need of hiring specialized staff as costly lowering the percentage of their profits. In conclusion, Marketization of education is the emerging trend of education system in the world but it does not provide equity in the provision of educative services. The poor are disadvantaged and due to lack of economic might, their children do not have an access to high cost schools which have superior teaching resources as compared to state schools where majority of economically disadvantaged parents take their children.This inequality in the education system develops the class system brought about by industrial revolution. Schools do not concentrate in imparting skills to their students instead; they are concerned with profit making and client satisfaction at the expense of offering knowledge. Government should regulate the education system and ensure quality education is offered at all levels of the education system by state and private schools. Bibliography Bates, J,.Lewis, Sue and Pickard, Andy.(2011). Education Policy, Practice and Professional.Continuum: Continuum International Publishers. Curren, R. R. (2000). Aristotle, on the necessity of public education. Lanham, Md.: Rowman& Littlefield Publishers. Dewey, J. (1998). Experience and education (60th anniversary ed.). West Lafayette, IN: Kappa Delta Pi. Friedman, M. I. (2003). Educators' handbook on effective testing. Columbia, SC: Institute for Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Education. Bridgehouse, H. ( 2007). On Education.United States of America: Routledge Publishers. Kishan, N. R. (2008). Privatization of education. New Delhi: A.P.H Pub. Corp.. Lauder, H. (2006).Education, globalization, and social change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lauder, H and Hughes, D ., eds ( 1999). Trading in Futures, Why Markets in Education Don’t Work. Buckingham: Open University Press. Maxwell, C., &Klingenberg, L. (2011).Education. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Ozmon, H., & Craver, S. M. (1986).Philosophical foundations of education (3rd ed.). Columbus: Merrill Pub. Co.. Palmer, J., Bresler, L., & Cooper, D. E. (2003).Fifty major thinkers on education: from Confucius to Dewey. London: Routledge. Read More