Against Standardization: Moving Beyond Taylor
I have a deep, viscerally negative response to standardization. It’s hard for me to articulate. It’s sometimes hard to understand. And honestly, I wish this wasn’t the case. It certainly would make things easier.
A couple of weeks ago I stumbled into a discussion about the Common Core with an educator I have much respect for. She was appalled that anyone who cared about learning couldn’t support the Common Core. I felt bad. I wanted to support it. I wished I did. But that wouldn’t have been honest. And I couldn’t get to the bottom of my argument, there wasn’t enough time.
I wasn’t sure how to articulate it.
So I want to try to do that here- as simply and directly as I can.
Any form of standardization rests on hidden assumptions about what it means to be human. And the assumptions that standardization rests upon are reductionist, behaviorist, and economically motivated.
In their thought provoking book, Dancing at the Edge, Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leciester write:
“Fundamentally what matters is the view we hold of the person: who we are and what we are capable of becoming.
Over a hundred years ago Frederick W. Taylor’s scientific management inspired both Henry Ford and Vladimir Lenin with the idea that breaking every job action into small simple steps that can be measured and analyzed would Against Standardization: Moving Beyond Taylor | educarenow: