Some might call me cynical, but I tend to think that the highest goal of the ‘educational establishment’ is not, in fact, education. Rather, I tend to think that the main goal of the education establishment is to turn out good little worker bees. Or maybe, more accurately, to separate the good little worker bees from the bad little worker bees. Sure, some learning takes place- and in some pockets of the establishment, I think dedicated teachers turn the focus towards learning as much as they can- but I think that for the most part the establishment itself is all about separating the ‘good workers’ from the ‘bad workers’.
But, okay, I have just admitted that this view is coming from a place of cynicism. So, with that in mind, I want to turn things around a bit and say that- you know- under the right circumstances, maybe there’s nothing inherently terrible about being a ‘good worker’. Maybe, if you have a job that supports you in turn and if you are internally motivated to work on that job and you find it satisfying in and of itself, then really, it’s all good.
Okay- I’m getting distracted from my original purpose for this post, which was to post a link to this page. It talks about worker motivation- and the fact that there is a whole area of psychology- organizational psychology- that is devoted to figuring out what the deal is with things like worker motivation, and how people fit into structured organizations, and stuff like that.
Then
again, I feel a little Durkheim coming on, now that I think about it that
way. Well, as some continental philosopher might say, power is power. It’s
how you use it that counts.
posted at 13:00 on Thu, 03 Nov, 2005 |
path: /living
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