Questionning learning as a cumulative process
In my mother tongue, French, the vocabulary surrounding education has many similarities with that of show horse jumping. The French word “parcours scolaire” means “school path” in English. If we speak of the “admission average” we say “barre” ; whichmeans “pole” in English, in law school we describe mock exams as “galop.”
Using the metaphor of horse jumping, the installation visualizes our cumulative conception of learning. Both show jumping and curriculum-led schooling emphasize control, discipline and repetition as means to complete predetermined trails as flawlessly as possible. In horse jumping, the goal is to overcome stacked poles or “fences” without knocking them down. Similarly, curriculums assume the idea that learning is a linear process ought to be designed according to progressive complexity. Time and information webs are broken down into closed units for learners to stack like building blocks over a predetermined time.
This narrative, according to what passing a final exam equals taking a final jump or crossing the finish line is built on a „happy ever-after“ ending. This conception does better at sustaining the interest of institutionalized education, than it does support the development of individual and collective intelligence, for learning is a higly complex, variable in pace and multidirectional process.
installation cumulative conception learning