Can we predict the outcomes?
Ontario is one of many places where “Outcomes-based Education” has taken hold. This educational philosophy focuses on “outputs” rather than “inputs.” For example, traditional curriculum documents might be nothing more than a table of contents from a textbook, with a suggested time frame for covering each unity. This type of syllabus focuses on educational “inputs” — that is, the content included in a course.
OBE, however, demands that a course be structured based upon clearly defined expectations and goals concerning the learning experience. In other words, a course document is a collection of statements that illustrate what each student should be able to do by the end of the course.
It’s the difference between “Shakespeare as social commentary” and “By the end of this course, students will be able to analyze Shakespearean drama from a social commentary perspective.”
Supporters of the movement appreciate the focus of the latter statement, while some critics claim that the “outcome” is still too vague to be any more useful than the former statement. And still other critics maintain that some of these outcomes are too specific, creating a “checklist mentality” among teachers who must sacrifice the bigger picture in order to micromanage students’ learning.
Perhaps the most compelling argument against OBE, however, is the fact that sometimes we don’t (and can’t) know exactly why we’re engaging in a learning experience or what we want to get out of it. We can have goals, but if we become overly reliant upon achieving them, to the exclusion of “the unexpected” that inevitably arises, we might miss out on some really cool stuff.
Ken Osborne says these “behavioural objectives . . . limit teaching to the achievement of pre-set and measurable objectives and ignore the very things that should be at the centre of education, in particular, to help students do the unexpected.” (Education: A Guide to the Canadian School Debate – - Or, Who Wants What and Why? 1999. Emphasis mine.)
Osborne points out that the argument that we don’t need knowledge (we only need to know where and how to look for it) suits business rather well. Employers would rather their workers have skills to carry out their jobs than the knowledge to question.
In a book that’s almost a decade old, Osborne points out that even to make sense of our daily life, we can’t possibly go looking up everything we need to know. How many of us have enough time to read the newspaper in its entirety every day, to make sense of what’s happening in the world around us?
It may not take us long to look something up on Google in this day and age, but the process is several times quicker when you just “know” something! Compound the effects of that happening dozens of times a day, and it certainly does begin to add up. Knowing is automatic, and we can do it even when we don’t have an internet connection. 
Professor Thomas Docherty, head of English at Warwick University speaks out against what he calls “the marketisation of higher education” by the Quality Assurance Agency in Tuesday’s online edition of The Guardian:
“That’s where the QAA is so constraining,” he says. “It expects me to predict the outcome of my teaching. Each student is expected to know certain things. But I don’t want them to be predictable. I want them to surprise me. You don’t know what you’re going to learn until you’ve discovered it. The system as it stands stifles imagination and stymies originality. They’re trying to mechanise an organic process so that it can be managed and standardised.”
Docherty is talking about university classroom education, but the issues affecting classroom teachers affect homeschoolers, too. Educational trends inevitably make their way into the homeschooling curricula that families use. Yesterday I saw one such program whose first selling point was that it was developed by professional teachers . . . teachers who are steeped in current educational issues, jargon, policies and practices.
We should be aware when using curriculum at home that much of it has been designed if not for classroom use, than with the traditional “teacher’s role” in mind: planner, assessor, reporter. It’s easy to think that because it’s pre-packaged, it should be followed to the letter. But, if you can’t predict what your child will get out of an experience, how could a stranger do it?
Does this mean we should never try to plan or have a purpose behind our learning activities? Should we vehemently object to any notions of pre-defined outcomes since we can’t predict the future? Not necessarily as goals can help focus us when we are aiming for desired outcomes.
But, it’s important to recognize that some of life’s most rewarding and educational experiences can’t be planned, measured or quantified.
And, some “skills” can’t just be checked off a list: dealing with the unexpected; living true to our values; understanding the world around us. Can we ever really say we’re “done” in that respect?
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