A Learners’ View (ALV) Is Of Choices On The Shortest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen Of Social Life.

Main Page: Front Matter

Theme: Does education affect life chances of people?

A LEARNERS’ VIEW (ALV) addresses the strategic question, What part does teaching-learning play in the distribution of life-chances of people? ALV represents common  choices learners make while learning from teaching. Experimental behavioral and social scientists described these common choices. These study results indicate that choices during lessons by teachers influence the rate, amount, and depth of learning. To the extent that life-chances rely on learning, choices during instruction of lessons by teachers influence life-chances of learners.  ALV as a child of the social institution of education holds that teaching-learning improves participation of learners in society, and by implication improves life-chances of learners. Thus, improvement in life-chances of learners validates teaching and lessons taught.

Farber (1968) visualizes a world in which almost all people are superfluous, with machines making all important decisions (choices). He further describes how educators, among others, already rationalize assigning people labeled as mentally retarded (also labeled with various names as developmentally disabled) to an organizational surplus population. To the extent that teaching-learning contributes to that assignment, he would argue, it serves as a prototype of possible similar assignments for other people. These assignments to social classes offer different life-chances from each other.

Further empirical, experimental research will clarify relationships between choices during teaching-learning and life chances. Farber uses descriptions of mental retardation as an example of how people use personal conditions of others to qualify them for membership in the organizational surplus population. Educators say people earn the label of mental retardation and its social relevance by failing to learn lessons teachers choose to teach in regular classrooms.

ALV offers choices educators may make that reduce failure-to-learn their lessons. To the extent that such failures are reduced or eliminated, increased life-chances of learners beyond organizational surplus status seems possible.

References

1. A Learners’ View (ALV) of Learning
2. Farber, B. (1968). Mental Retardation: Its Social Context and Social Consequences. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, p. vii.
3. Great Social Commission of Educators
4. Life Chances
5. Problem Addressed by Classic Education: A Learners’ View of Choices during Teaching and Learning.
6. Strategic Responsibility of Educators

Related Reading

1. A Completed Teacher (ACT)
2. ALV Path of Learning during Teaching
3. Philosophy of a Learners’ View (ALV) of Learning

Related Resources

1. Gold, M. “If You Could See Me…” (Video)

Last Edited: June 29, 2016