Learning to Plan

Abstract

During recent decades there has been an increasing emphasis on approaches to teaching and learning in which students are expected to assume responsibility for their own learning. Collaborative learning, project work, self-evaluation, and other forms of student-centred activities are widely used in order to produce independent learners. The ideological inspiration for these approaches can be found in the educational philosophy of child-centred pedagogy preferred by many educational systems. The purpose of the chapter is to analyse teaching and learning practices in which children are expected to assume responsibility for planning their own work. This implies deciding what to learn, when to do it, and how to finish on time. The empirical material comes from a field study of authentic classroom activities. The results show that these disciplining practices invoke extensive meta-talk about school work, and, in particular, about how to use time in an accountable manner. It is also shown that the same differences in performance that can be observed in traditional subjects appear in planning activities as well. Some children are held to be good at this, while others are seen as less successful. It is argued that this kind of socialisation emphasising independence and self-monitoring is congenial with the goals of education in late-modernity.