Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

BAT Cheryl Binkley - The Metaphor of School as A Business & How It Has Narrowed Our View of Learning and Life

Badass Teachers Association: The Metaphor of School as A Business & How It Has Narrowed Our View of Learning and Life by Cheryl Binkley:

The Metaphor of School as A Business & How It Has Narrowed Our View of Learning and Life 

by Cheryl Binkley




The metaphor of schools as businesses has become the dominant way of describing Education these days. It is difficult to find a conversation about schools in which business terminology and ideas do not pop up. Terms like emerging markets, global competitiveness, and monopoly are ever present in considerations about what our schools should be like and what they should do.  

The result of using business as The Metaphor (not just a metaphor) extends even beyond schools to most of the conversations about our society and culture in today’s academic and policy making circles. Our policymakers and policy advisers even see business in a particular light. Business in its contemporary neoliberal iteration is Competition, made up of winners and losers. Business is no longer a method whereby we share goods, develop products, or provide purpose and support for our communities, but is focused almost solely on making money for the investor class.