Managerial surveillance techniques in education deliberately spread anxiety and erode teacher autonomy

Evidence

The broader agenda here is the imposition of what I have called business ontology: the idea that only outcomes recognised by business count. It’s gradually become accepted that the principal — if not the only — role of education is to turn out the kind of compliant individuals which “business” wants. As systems from the private sector are increasingly introduced into education, the influence of managerialism grows, and the status of the teacher is downgraded. The pretext for the battery of bureaucratic and self-surveillance techniques that have been implemented by successive governments is that they “increase efficiency”, but their effect is to spread anxiety and erode the autonomy of the teacher. This isn’t an accident: it’s the real aim of these measures. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2215

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces and names ‘business ontology’ as a core Fisher concept.
• XREF: Links to the ch106 claim that ‘Vague, ever-reviewable assessment criteria generate functional anxiety in workers.’ — connects to: Vague, ever-reviewable assessment criteria generate functional anxiety in workers. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1660; Surveillance-based schooling constructs individuality only as a position in a sequence — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 262; Ongoing audience surveillance generates anxiety in online performers — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 511 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Order-obsession and fear of losing face silence dissent in classrooms #corroborates (0.85) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 354
• Unpredictable surveillance produces self-surveillance and disempowerment in its targets #corroborates (0.82) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 482
• Surveillance-based schooling constructs individuality only as a position in a sequence #expands (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 262
• Self-disciplined, freedom-granting educational systems breed procrastination and teacher overload #complicates (0.80)
• Uncertainty about being watched suffices to make surveillance effective #expands (0.80) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 303
• External surveillance becomes internalized as self-imposed bodily discipline #expands (0.78) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 512
• Automated surveillance threatens the open-ended self-transformative capacity that defines selfhood #expands (0.76) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 489
• Ongoing audience surveillance generates anxiety in online performers #exemplifies (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 511
• Brand monitoring is exhausting unpaid emotional labor enforcing a dual gaze of self-surveillance #complicates (0.74) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 491