Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling Part 2 of Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19
Introduction from part 1: Tofu is not cheese so we should not expect it to smell or taste like cheese nor should we need to pretend it is or make it taste and smell like cheese. The message I was trying to convey is that we should accept the fact that schools are closed and we don’t need to pretend we can make online education the same as face-to-face schools. Instead, we should make the best out of the new situation. In my last blog post, I expanded the idea: Online education cannot replace all functions schools play in our society but it can do a lot more than being a lesser version of face-to-face schooling.
Speak Education: Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling
The COVID-19 pandemic has indeed stimulated much talk about reimagining education. But from what I have seen and heard, the imagination has not escaped from the spell of the “grammar” of schooling: “the regular structures and rules that organize the work of instruction” (Tyack & Tobin, 1994, p. 454). Over a quarter of a century ago, education historians David Tyack and William Tobin made the very insightful observation that schools have a set of grammatical rules and structures just like natural languages and:
Neither the grammar of schooling nor the grammar of speech needs to be consciously understood to operate smoothly. Indeed, much of the grammar of schooling has become so well established that it is typically taken for granted as just the way schools are. It is the departure from customary practice in schooling or speaking that attracts attention (p. 454).
The grammar of schooling, such as “standardized organizational practices in dividing time and space, classifying students and allocating them to classrooms, and splintering knowledge into “subjects,” is so powerful that it has persisted despite many repeated challenges by very courageous, intelligent, and CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling Part 2 of Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19