Research Question: How can we disrupt the psychological impact of result-based education on current and former students?
What: My topic centers on the result-based orientation of the education system and the psychological impact it has on individuals. I’m interested in the fact that people within a society are required to form a balance of order in society and their own individuality, and education teaches individuals how to follow rules and to maintain order in a macroscopic sense. This either boosts idiosyncratic traits within students (because they want to escape) or it suppresses it entirely.
Why: Result-based education fuels a continuing belief in students (current and former) that grades or ranks would promise “a better future”, and we project it into whatever environment we enter next. This belief is quite common globally, especially in Asian countries, and a lot of people are suffering mentally (and sometimes physically) from it. Personally I have formed this belief as well during high school and I’m still trying to unlearn it.
How: Any system that marks or labels an individual casts a fictional shadow on them, and when this system is large enough to form a macroscopic narrative, it creates a collective belief that your fictional shadow is who you actually are. My aim is to create a similar fictional background myself for future interventions. I plan to create an alternate reality of my own perspective of result-based education and invite people to immerse into it. It’s like receiving a trigger warning or a vaccine of the real world.
Using fiction as a tool also helps to avoid confirmation bias. I strongly encourage skeptical comments about the worldbuilding itself because I’m very aware that my own perspective is biased. Therefore I would unconsciously seek conformation bias while researching. For this reason, skeptical, even negative comments are invaluable to this project.
I tested this idea during the mini-incubator by designing a puzzle in the shape of a test, with 3 pairs of questions that answers each other. (e.g. Question 1 contains the answer to Question 4, and vice versa.) The point of creating this puzzle is to create an immersive experience based on our collective memories of result-based education. I put the “test” in a fictional world called the Ministry of Potential.
1. What is the psychological term for the fear of public speaking? A. Agoraphobia B. Claustrophobia C. Glossophobia D. Hypochondria
4. People with Glossophobia often experience a fight-or-flight response when facing what situation? A. Reading B. Darkness C. Heights D. Public Speaking
Based on the feedback I got, I was partially successful. However, the demographics of my audience were mostly Asian students which is why the feedback I got was mainly positive. I will conduct my next intervention online, which will attract a larger and more diverse audience.
What If: I’m aiming for people to be more critical of the system they are in right now, that they’ll not only have the clarity of mind to question the system in their head, but also the courage to use the system to their own benefits.
In this project, I am not only the creator and researcher, but also one of the stakeholders because I am a former student of result-based education. Being perfectly aware that the education system couldn’t be “fixed”, my ultimate goal is to let more people obtain agency within the system and develop a more active way of learning themselves.
Reading List:
Bregman, R., Manton, E. and Moore, E. (2021) Human Kind: A Hopeful History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Brown, D. (2007). Tricks of the Mind. London: Channel 4 Books.
Brown, D. (2016). Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine. London: Transworld Publishers.
Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Curtis, A. (Producer & Director). (2002). The Century of the Self [Documentary]. BBC Four.
Foucault, M. (1961). Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge Classique [Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason]. Paris: Plon.
Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. London: Chatto & Windus.
Orwell, G. (1949). 1984. London: Secker & Warburg.
Staff, W. (2004) Engineering god in a petri dish, Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/2004/09/engineering-god-in-a-petri-dish/ (Accessed: 16 May 2024).
Steiner, R. (1995). The Spirit of the Waldorf School. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks.
Stewart, T. L. (2007). The Mysterious Benedict Society. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.