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an examination of shortcomings in our relations with our artefacts
"If knowledge be represented as a set of tools, wisdom becomes the ability to use them"
L.T.C. RoltIn my efforts to engage the central theme of John Schumacher's article I want to broaden its application and explore meanings. This sad state of affairs in education which Schumacher observes and we all know about but cannot yet acknowledge, exists no less in the use of axe and chainsaw. He wants to see educators doing a better job with learning. I just want to stop visitors to 'Botch-Up' Farm buggering my tools before they've made any impression on the job in hand.
Schumacher concentrates our attention on movement as the key to social organisation. He does this by contrasting two approaches to problem-solving. The most widely deployed derives from the principle of divide and rule, it's about power. In terms of relations between teacher, pupil and technique or operator, wood and axe this approach stresses separation, physical distance and impersonal control. The pattern of movement is away and it is the only way the bureaucrat in us knows. This strategy has much in common with the philosophy of 'mutual struggle' which thrives off and sustains human anxiety and fear.
The other strategy looks very much like Kropotkin's 'mutual aid' and emphasises patterns of movement toward and with in the way we organise our affairs. In this case the focus is on the links between teacher pupil and technique or operator, wood and tool where we attend to: connections, physical proximity, commonalities, conversation and keeping company with, rewards that sustain the relational, the diminution of teacher and operator egos and the elevation of task. Moving towards and with has the long term effect of reducing anxieties too.
I share Schumacher's view that we get ourselves stuck an awful lot because of a fixation on the first strategy as the only way to get things done. If the original purpose in distinguishing between and separating phenomena was to make them easier to understand and handle, then the effect is frequently the opposite. In our collective desires to flee from natural confusion and uncertainty we have created for ourselves an organised chaos
Getting stuck with 'movement away'
I also share with Schumacher some academic pretensions - the axe, the chainsaw and education will just have to wait. What follows is appropriately heavy going. If the reader can't abide the punishment, he or she could skip through to the bit on The Axe. Personally I would recommend the suffering for this section's very heaviness makes the point, abstracting is just that, part of the 'take-away and turn-off' philosophy we allow to dominate education.
The good, the bad and the ugly of a society are embedded in how its members get things done whether the tools and techniques are for cutting wood or socialising the young into society. This knowledge ought to convince us when we come to address issues that we will not get far by blaming the tool or system. Obviously the problem needs to be considered in its social context, within the culture in which use of the artefact is problematic. So why do we seem to be unable to perform this simple operation?
The difficulties are inherent in our very point of departure. Culture shapes how we identify and think about the problem. At a rudimentary level the medium chosen to present the title of this article says it all. Print invites the reader to attend to the three phenomena - axe, chainsaw and education as though each were free standing. The gaps between, which might be expected to embrace the relational elements, are invisible, as are those between these tools and their users. In a materialistic society we ignore and discount the relational. The axe, like the chainsaw and education, is either the answer or the problem. But how we use these techniques is not about fixed either/ors. It is not a matter of black or white, not a persistent fact. A lot more than pressing buttons or putting ticks in boxes is involved in making good use of our tools.
The pattern of 'movement away' dominating our public actions, shapes the way we think about things too, and has as its illuminating stars men like Plato, Descartes, Newton and Darwin. In Descartes writing, for example, we find the germ of a triumphant Prometeus humanism to be achieved through (the answer) the use of mathematics, science and technology to conquer (the problem) nature. Being closer in time and space to that 'triumph' not a few of us prefer Blake's description of it as 'single vision and Newton's sleep'. The triumph of reason is based on three assumptions. Every genuine question has but one answer. The answer is to be found by rational processes and the solution is universal and immutable. There are indeed spheres of human activity where such assumptions might make sense, where they enable us to get on with the job in hand and these include in particular man's own inventions - building houses, bridges, towns, languages and the mechanisms of machines like the car or the chainsaw. But when such thinking is applied to their applications to life, cutting wood or learning, it is not difficult to see why our problems can become seemingly intractable. By sticking rigidly to this way of thinking sooner or later we find ourselves stuck.
We think of solutions in terms of governments acting on our behalf to, say, ban chemical gases or nuclear weapons in warfare or exclude cars from City centres, though we haven't heard much of people clamouring to ban compulsory schooling or employment, no lesser inventions of the human mind than car, bomb or chemical gas. In the context of personal conduct we expect citizens to exercise their own judgement over how, where and when to deploy a particular artefact. According to our folklore we look for 'reason to prevail' in such matters.
However the call for reason invokes a way of thinking that's limited, not the panacea we think it is. In his efforts to curtail those 'enemies' of reason', faith and imagination, industrial man has adopted in rationality a highly constrained version of reason. In practice, intuition, imagination, feeling, experience and the like have been banished from our public considerations. These find their place imprisoned in some division of labour-faith as church on Sundays, drama as a slot in the school time-table - where there is no risk of either playing a part in life or learning.
Though no technique or device holds sway over reason. Rationality has become technically driven, being writ large through literacy, numeracy, programmed machine and all manner of mechanical devices. It is the very heart of the industrial system. Even empiricism, a tradition which begins by elevating human experience and the use of the senses has been reduced through its associations with rational thinking to represent a line of enquiry giving pre-eminence to the free-standing fact as literary and numerical detail, i.e. one sense abstracted.
The assumptions underlying the way we think rest on a belief in the one-best-way to get things done. By the same logic these lead us to the closed minded view of this method as the only way. When I was doing research in the 1960s on people able to make the most of changing circumstances, I found the rejection of the idea of a one-best-way an excellent indicator of their adaptability. In those days the population was evenly divided in this belief. There is of course no one-best-way because as soon as I proclaim it, your ingenuity will find another However it is useful as a sop to our anxieties. It provides the illusion of knowing and helps to banish uncertainty and doubt from our public discussions but it can also leave us privately bewildered when it no longer works.
It is adherence to the belief in the one-best-way that confers on institutions of employment a monopoly over the creation of wealth, confines learning to schooling and makes money the only currency for value. It equates leisure with TV viewing, movement with cars, the experience of fantasy with holidays, play with electronic gadgets and people with consumers. It perverts, too, the ideal of human equality to the institutional expediency of conceiving all people as interchangeable piece-parts. That is why 'democracy' became so important to capitalism and the 'progress of western civilisation' . In the years to come democracy as putting ticks in boxes will be the legitimising cry for all manner of totalitarian actions.
Our call to reason has been over-played for it invokes mind sets which diminish our adaptability in a changing world. It is also inherently political, signalling a move to fudge the issues by those on the side of an unsustainable status-quo. As the ideology of distance, isolation, loneliness and power our pursuit of narrow reason has become central to the disintegration of community and all that is relational. It makes us abusers of axe, chainsaw and educational tool as well.
The Axe
The axe is no longer the significant tool it was to medieval European man, but even as late as the 16th century we find the French renaissance poet, Ronsard, pleading with the woodmen to stop their ravaging of the Foret de Gastine for much the same reasons ecologists today condemn the felling of rain forests in Latin America with chainsaw and bulldozer. The axe remains a useful if dangerous implement but it is no longer a threat to society or environment in the hands of over zealous users.
It's still a useful tool in the hands of anybody with a modicum of skill on our small holding. However, I've noticed that when the work to be done is advertised the skilled axeman is quiet about it. He's a bit diffident. He waits to be asked. By contrast the greenhorn, usually an educated city dweller, can't wait to be asked. He fancies himself with an axe like he does with a car. He knows the task of splitting logs is rudimentary. He sees it as a chance to demonstrate his manliness. I've noticed he doesn't acknowledge any distinction between recognising a simple activity and the ability to split logs. He confuses parading and posturing with a skill he doesn't possess. But I know from bitter experience splitting logs with an axe is more difficult than a spurt of verbal fluency or pressing buttons.
The bravado which leads everyman to offer his services is somewhat mitigated by his apprehensions when he faces the log axe in hand. His anxiety, reinforced by his schooling, recommends distancing himself from the unpredictable and unknown. Our 'helper' begins by positioning himself too far away from the log so that the falling axe brings him forward off balance and ends up with the head buried in the log. After several unsuccessful attempts thus, he embarks on a more fatal and final tack. He decides to stand nearer to the log but, still concerned about his own well-being, persists with throwing the axe well away from his body. Now the head falls beyond the log with the handle and log taking the full force of the action. This is no way to split a log either but it is a proven method for breaking an axe handle.
For some ten seasons I stood by feebly watching this slaughter another decade on and 35+ handles lost, I know exactly what will happen to my axe when everyman offers his services. These days I bore him with a short demo and lecture and offer a prediction. This is Pym's law . . . "Give 'em the job and they'll finish the tool". I insult my helper' further by telling him he won't cut much wood before he's done for my axe. If I'm in a really uncharitable mood I tell him that a new handle costs 8 quid and it takes me a good hour to remove the old handle and shape and set the new one. Whatever I say or do my 'helper invariably laughs, his bravado still intact. It's a piece of cake, anybody can use an axe. Being a total coward I walk off leaving him to it.
Before he's cut much wood he comes to announce something is wrong with the axe. There is always something wrong with the axe. Now my ego is aroused. I can't resist telling him how many times I've heard this story. I will also boast this year to having nursed a split handled axe bequeathed to me by one of last year's 'helpers', through 15 tons of oak, ash and elm logs. If an incompetent like me can do it what the hell is wrong with a smart chap like him?
We, my axe and I, are the victims of a society that reckons knowledge is everything. In an Information Society ignorance is inadmissible, wisdom and experience not worth a fart. All you need to get on are words and a fair whack of phoney confidence. But even a simple task like splitting logs with an axe is not like that. Through an intimacy with axe and wood, loving the feel of the smooth handle in your hands having an eye for the run of the grain in the log, knowing where to strike the axe on the wood, developing a comfortable rhythm in the chopping action, the confidence and ability necessary to co-ordinate axe, eye, body and log in harmonious movement emerge.
To reiterate. Thanks to their schooling and lack of experience my helpers' learn to distance themselves from problems both physically and psychologically by drowning them in the expertise of words and numbers. 'Being objective' reinforces a natural response to doubt and fear when what is needed time and again is the courage and humility to get in closer and develop a little empathy with task and tools. I'm not downhearted. When I finally become dictator I'll make it compulsory for every young cock in the land to be able to split a log with an axe
Chainsaw
In the cutting of wood and trees, the handsaw has given way to the chainsaw. This is a much more sophisticated tool than the axe. It's a machine which removes the energy for cutting from its user. Rather than extending the operator's arm, the chainsaw replaces it. I wouldn't be without this noisy, dangerous tool but I'm permanently wary about us, particularly when I'm tired. The relationship between tool, environment, task and operator is not what it can be with the axe. The chainsaw operator can never be the master like the axeman.
The chainsaw in action is inextricably linked with corporate capitalism. As everyman knows this machine provides profits for its makers, timber companies, oil and fuel combines and farmers. More significant in the matter of ownership, the chainsaw is also a nice little earner for the manufacturers of safety equipment - hard hats, ear mufflers, steel capped boots, gloves, goggles etc. The astute observer will observe that with all this gear on the operator is less a master more an instrument. Unlike the medieval knight overloaded with armour as protection from his enemies our tilter at forests and trees needs protection from himself The interested parties above recognise their responsibilities for the operator, whether as employee or urban consumer. It's good for business. In addition the chainsaw operator's efficiency depends on his grafting for long hours without incident in the service of his insatiable machine. Safety is about profit.
The inexperienced operator makes the same kind of errors in his relations with tool and task as he does with the axe, with the possibility of more catastrophic results. At the start his posture and movement with tool, tree and earth are all awry. He's rightfully fearful. He holds his machine stiffly at arms length when he should position his legs close to the tree, tucking his body over the machine. These are difficulties he will sort out in time but they determine a more permanent framework for safety and efficiency. Solutions to these questions are provided by people who live in an abstract world - corporatists, financiers, insurers design engineers, safety experts. These parties are not much interested in forests, trees or cutting wood nor particularly in the chainsaw as an effective tool. Their bread comes from the reports, computer print outs, faxes, TV screens and balance sheets that go with making money.
The safety equipment compounds the operator's isolation from colleague and environment, cutting him off even more from the world around him and seducing him into a false sense of security. While reducing the risk of immediate injury it increases the risk of fatigue, loss of hearing, back strain and muscular disorder. The combination of noisy machine and safety equipment desensitise him to operation and context. When at work he is no more outdoors than the driver of the modern air-conditioned tractor. The variety of tasks he performs contracts. He uses other tools less and less. His interest in flora and fauna atrophy. This, no doubt, is what his masters want as they successfully impose on him their own abstract, unrelating world. They want him to cut trees and wood by the ton and he reciprocates by doing it just for the money.
Education and Schumacher
Education for me as a kid was about teachers, pupils and classrooms. The most visible difference between then and now is the cluttering of the classroom. This paraphernalia is described as aids to education - more and fatter text books, display charts, calculators, tape recorders, films, videos, desk computers, work processors etc. I am struck too by what seems to be an unquestioning acceptance of all this gear by pupils and teachers alike. But then one remembers these are part and parcel of a one-best-way, proof that reason still prevails even if the effect is to reduce teacher pupil interaction and reinforce the notion of education as a solitary, personal struggle. Of course we still know precious little about the circumstances of learning but these aids have helped a lot with pupil control.
To his credit John Schumacher does not blame his tools for the sad state of education save to observe their effects as giving the illusion of learning and distancing, even further, the principal parties from each other. His own idealism is unequivocal, 'our responsibility for the future of higher education is to help create a new society'.
Just what teachers might do to help create a new society is not unfamiliar, but each point embellishes Schumacher's theme of movement with. He wants teachers to get closer to their pupils by moving into their space and accepting the students' code of conduct more readily as a basis of exchange. He advocates what Illich would call tools for conviviality in the search for common ground. He suggests using topics of enquiry that are rooted in the meaningful traditions and rituals of the wider community to strengthen connections between school and the rest of life. He recommends the use of 'undeserved' rewards to sustain and confirm relationships between teacher and pupil. He wants teachers to abandon their positions of power whenever they can. Hopefully teachers can still be inspired by ideals like autonomy, service and excellence but even when armed with Schumacher's idealism they do not find it easy to ignore the constraints under which they labour. For a start teachers are employees and mostly with one kind of employer. The more government intervenes in their affairs, as it is doing, the more the servility of their role is underlined. In addition they will feel compelled to defend their own ideas of service and excellence against the demands of administrators, parents and employers where these do not concur with their own. It is not easy for those who find their own areas of discretion contracting to move towards the abandonment of powers vis-a-vis students. Changing circumstances have made the teacher less of a skilled axeman and more of a chainsaw operator, an instrument of the system. The kinds of constraints teachers face is suggested by listing recent developments in the UK. Though these apply to secondary education, they are typical of the pressures teachers are up against everywhere. Firstly, the onward march of subject specialisation and teaching by subject shows no sign of abatement. 'Newer' subjects like business and office studies, accountancy and information technology emerge in response to the pressure for education to be occupationally relevant. In this trend we discern a shift from schooling to training and the explicit emergence of control as the teacher's primary task. Promotability (excellence?) is more and more equated by heads and administrators with being able to keep control. Even among teachers disdain is shown for the perpetrators of activities that risk getting out of control - those very opportunities for both teachers and students to learn from experience. In spite of denials from government, the performance of schools and headmasters and therefore salaries and budgets, are on the way to being linked with exam grades and levels of truancy.
The obsession with exams and grades, mere proxies for performance and reward Schumacher reminds us, is highlighted by repeated changes in the methods and practice of student assessments. Everybody seems to be involved in the assessment game these days. The scarcity of employment offers personnel men the easy option of setting exam passes as a barrier to entry in almost every job. The proposed new teacher assessment procedures to be linked to pay will be founded on 'successful' practices in employment where research has shown their use to be administratively unsound and politically naive. The central determination of curricula reduces even further the discretion of teachers over what and how they teach.
Meanwhile the languages and practices of corporate business seep cancer like into every aspect of school life. These are practices associated with corporate incompetence and corruption on a scale unprecedented in our time. In the quest for greater efficiency, for example, student intakes and class sizes are rising as is the amount of abstract knowledge in the curriculum, the volume of hand-outs, student home work and assignments to be assessed by teachers while practical and field work declines towards the token gesture. All of this rides on the back of the electronic aids listed earlier and the victims are students and teachers alike.
Such developments are seriously detrimental to relationships between teacher and student. 'Mutual struggle' powered by rational thinking reigns supreme as the ideology of the classroom. 'Moving with' in Schumacher's terms is being drowned out of sight and yet if teachers were to recognise that they share their plight with their students, good might come out of it. There must be some advantages to be gained from the crisis of education. The more oppressive and irrelevant the school system becomes in its application the less we, students in particular, privately expect of it. Though scope for the return of responsibility for learning and socialising to household and community is enhanced neither has the resources to deliver. Students and teachers have to take matters into their own hands. They have in adult education a model for learning based on freedom of movement. In the UK this is voluntary, task centred, caters for the needs of those who want and choose to learn has for the most part no exams and is organised very much on the basis of mutual aid.
Compulsory education remains the nursery of servile employment However, as truancy, self-employment and unemployment levels show, many young people are trying to find their way through the madness. It would indeed be a wonderful day if and when teachers like Schumacher find the courage to throw their lot in with those young people who strive to take responsibility for themselves. In the meantime the rest of us can recognise that our difficulties with each other and our tools and techniques are rooted in our acceptance of industrial schooling and industrial employment as the only way to prepare for life and to create wealth. For both are now squarely founded on an ideology at war with the relational.
© Denis Pym The Raven 16 pp324-333
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