McDanaldization of Education

By To-Yin Cheng
Many people know McDanaldization has invaded our society for a long time. Indeed, it becomes a habit in our daily life. Nobody needs to help us take our money out from the bank, we use an ATM machine.  We use self-help machines to scan our food when we go to grocery store. We take our seat and throw out the trash by our own in the fast food store. It seems normal for us because we have already gotten used to it. It even becomes a main wave in the entire world. According to sociologist George Ritzer, McDonaldization is the process of rationalization which means a sociological term that simply means the substitution of logically consistent rules for traditional rules. In the beginning, it occurs when a culture possess the characteristics of McDonalization. However, it is hard to believe our education had already McDanaldiz. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/files/2010/11/students_1485569c.jpg

                In "The McDonaldization of Society", George Ritzer point out four components of McDonaldization. There are efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. Unfortunately, it happens in our education system.

In university, it always people always concerned about quantity more than quality, students like to compare the number of pages in the research paper, the number of credit they got. Students often skip the quality of what they learn. It is kinds of sad that no one really knows what they write and remember what they took in the course. After they finish the semester, most of the memorize knowledge will be given back to the professor.  For the professor, they have the calculability of the number of book they publish for a year. In facts, there are lots of parts written by the professor's students rather than the professor. Moreover, standardized exams make even essay test very predicable; the same subject uses the same book with the same multiple choice question in the exam. The departments have the guideline for the professor of what topic should they teach in course (control). It is efficient to evaluate students in the exact same way.  It is really hard to define what is in a student’s mind, for example, if they have some incredible thought. The standardized exam may hide their talent. If you enter in a room with no door, no matter where you go, you are going to stay in the same room. People always feel safe about the predictability, because it is someone forcing you the think about certain things but not getting you think about it in your own way. There will be no other exceptional thought. Also, some unique course had been cut out and replace to some general course to get more effective by the outcome.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slfcBbS2dsk

Although predictability has some strong points, ultimately is fails. For 300 years in the United States, some people have preferred Harvard; some have preferred Yale, and some study elsewhere. Each college has its own personality. Too much predictability will make all colleges identical, and that would be unbearably blink.