Humanizing the Reaction Economy: EdTech’s Role in Developing Spontaneity and Freedom
The advent of EdTech ushers in a new era of continuous and pervasive surveillance, allowing us unprecedented insight into its users’ actions, motivations, and behavior. This grants us an improved understanding of the “reaction economy” and its consequences for self-expression, originality, and absolution.
The ‘reaction economy’ of the K-12 school environment is the balance between conformity and spontaneity in the classroom. Therefore, leadership in a K-12 environment must support students to find a balance between following instructions and engaging in creative, uninhibited, and spontaneous activities.
This is especially important in K-12 schools as it is here that children and young people are developing their sense of identity and exploration. They must be empowered to develop a sense of freedom and spontaneity, better to prepare them for a successful and fulfilling future.
EdTech in the reaction economy
EdTech’s role in the ‘reaction economy’ of the K-12 classroom is growing ever more pronounced. With the increasingly sophisticated tracking, monitoring, and control of data that tech brings, a new dynamic takes shape. Students are being asked to conform to specific standards within the educational environment, often at the expense of spontaneity and creativity. This increases the pressure to conform to specific standards and limits the ability of students to act of their own accord.
This leaves students feeling less empowered as individuals and reliant upon external forces to dictate their actions. However, educational and societal experts Hannah Arendt and Erich Fromm have argued that freedom and spontaneity remain essential to the educational experience.
Hannah Arendt’s view
The renowned educator, political theorist, and intellectual philosopher Hannah Arendt was convinced that politics’ unpredictable and incalculable aspects must be kept in clear view. According to her, this requires the individual’s freedom to act to engage in spontaneous activity. This must also be balanced with the need for personal responsibility and accountability.
Arendt suggested that political action ultimately requires us to be able to make and keep promises to one another, as well as the capacity to forgive. This is particularly relevant today since EdTech creates its unique reaction economy. But, unfortunately, it has the potential to make us overly reflexive and too attentive to the reactions of each other and of the technology itself.
Erich Fromm’s perspective
Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and social philosopher, believed that the demands of corporate capitalism had eroded mainly the freedom to engage in spontaneous activity. He noted that children and artists still had the capacity for such action and could be experienced in its original form through moments of sheer joy and pleasure.
However, Fromm also argued that much of mid-20th-century educational norms sought to eradicate the ‘spontaneity’ of the child in favor of discipline. This trend has been further exacerbated by the increasing use of EdTech, which is often created and dedicated to tracking, monitoring, and controlling the activities of its users.
Consequences of the reaction economy
The proliferation of EdTech has led to an increasingly sophisticated reaction economy. Now more than ever, we are conscious of the consequences of any given action and how our efforts will be received and responded to by others.
This reaction economy goes far beyond being simply mindful of our actions, and our peers will perceive them. With EdTech, students must also consider the possibility of their data being subjected to algorithms that track and analyze their behavior.
We also see a transformation in the educational dynamic between students and authority figures. EdTech creates a sense of enhanced surveillance and control over the activities of the students. This increases pressure on students to conform to specific standards, often at the expense of spontaneity.
The way forward
To reclaim student ability for spontaneous action, a new approach to EdTech is needed. EdTech can still be used to monitor and track the activities of its users, but it should also include the capacity to forgive and start anew.
This will require EdTech to be integrated with “human-centered” approaches that foster greater user autonomy and agency. We must also develop a more nuanced understanding of how EdTech can be used in educational contexts to promote autonomy and creativity.
To recover our capacity for spontaneous action, EdTech must be incorporated with human-centered approaches that strengthen user autonomy and control. A more thorough comprehension needs to be established of how EdTech can be used in the educational context to nurture creativity and independence. Concerning the reaction economy, we need to heighten awareness of its ethical and social implications, paying close attention to freedom, spontaneity, and forgivingness.
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