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Saturday, January 4, 2020

Economists Ate My School – Why Defining Teaching as a Transaction is Destroying Our Society | gadflyonthewallblog

Economists Ate My School – Why Defining Teaching as a Transaction is Destroying Our Society | gadflyonthewallblog

Economists Ate My School – Why Defining Teaching as a Transaction is Destroying Our Society

Teaching is one of the most misunderstood interactions in the world.
Some people see it as a mere transaction, a job: you do this, I’ll pay you that.
The input is your salary. The output is learning.
These are distinctly measurable phenomena. One is calculated in dollars and cents. The other in academic outcomes, usually standardized test scores. The higher the salary, the more valued the teacher. The higher the test scores, the better the job she has done.
But that’s not all.
If the whole is defined in terms of buying and selling, each individual interaction can be, too.
It makes society nothing but a boss and the teacher nothing but an employee. The student is a mere thing that is passively acted on – molded like clay into whatever shape the bosses deem appropriate.
In this framework, the teacher has no autonomy, no right to think for herself. Her only responsibility is to bring about the outcomes demanded by her employer. The wants and needs of her students are completely irrelevant. We determine what they CONTINUE READING: Economists Ate My School – Why Defining Teaching as a Transaction is Destroying Our Society | gadflyonthewallblog