The Post-Industrial Accident

In an interview called "Surfing the Accident," Paul Virilio explains his theory that a new kind of accident has emerged--an accident that is contemporaneous with exponential speed and global scope of current technical innovation.

Just like there has been a change in the nature of the accident somewhere in the eighteenth and nineteenth century - from the natural accident towards the industrial accident - we now witness a fresh transmutation of the accident: from the industrial accident to its post-industrial successor. This transmutation is accompanied by a very substantial increase in scale. The industrial accident is still the kind of event that "takes place." The post-industrial accident, on the other hand, goes beyond a certain place, you may say that it does no longer "take place," but becomes an environment. The disaster that befell the Titanic involved only its passengers; the Millennium Bug will involve everybody on this Earth.

What bothers me most about the apparent logic of SB 6 is the belief that problems with the public education system can be treated (and solved) in the manner of an industrial accident/disaster.  That is, while the bill targets and seeks to reform instances where failure 'takes place' (in the most empirical, data-driven sense), supporters of the bill (and even many who oppose it) do not realize that the logic of the bill 'becomes an environment.'  This industrial treatment of the accident (ie, failing students/schools) is precisely what engenders disaster on a post-industrial scale.  Evaluation mechanisms have an enormous influence over day-to-day curriculum decisions, each subject/discipline requires its own form of thinking, and the learning strategies of K-12 accompany students as they enter college or the workforce.

By suiting educational practices to the evaluation mechanism (ie., standardized, multiple-choice tests), we impose restrictions over how much of the thinking unique to a subject/discipline can actually be exercised in the classroom.  How can the generative/creative thinking so crucial to the resolutely qualitative/subjective subjects (eg, art, music, English, humanities, etc) be mobilized or even approximated by the multiple-choice format?  FCAT questions dealing with literary passages, for example, generally remain anchored in sheer comprehension/regurgitation and occasionally ask students to choose among several interpretations and select the "correct" one, as if that interpretation was an inherent/eternal property of the work itself, independent of a reader's reading of the work.