Over nearly 30 years ago Lyotard (1984) predicted a future, a new game, where humans would value the efficiency of completing a skill over optimizing knowledge. In the last few sections of The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard (1984) presents the possibility and consequences of performativity. Lyotard (1984) worried that the unstoppable advancements in technology would create an entirely new system of human operation. Ironically what Lyotard (1984) foresighted shortly begun after the publication of his writings, and is still in progress today.   

 

Lyotatd (1984) argues that higher educational institutions produce learners and students with sets of skills that will coincide with to the system and needs of that time. Lyotard (1984) states “…higher learning will have to continue to supply the social system with the skills fulfilling society’s own needs, which center on maintain its internal cohesion” (pg. 48). What can be argued here is that learning and acquiring new knowledge, questioning, critiquing and challenging ideas and theories is not something that is practiced or valued in higher schooling systems currently. Therefore educational institutions only teach learners and students the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of certain things, but not the ‘why’.

 

Educators and instructors of all grades and levels must teach students efficient skills that reflect the demands of society’s needs. Observing and studying the educational experience of many students in the 21st century, it has become a social wide initiative to educate young minds on how to organize data and arrange it in a new applicable way (Lyotard, 51). Lyotard (1984) expands on his idea about performativity “….since performativity is defined by an input output ratio, there is a presupposition that they system into which the input is entered in stable; that system must follow a regular ‘path’ that it is possible to express as a continuous function possessing a derivative,  so that an accurate prediction of the output can be made” (p.54). What Lyotard (1984) describes here is the idea that knowledge is in constant flux, therefore humans must adapt and change with it. With change comes the invention of new ideas, and the ongoing changes in technology are major assistants in creating new outputs of society.

 

I believe we are still in the condition that Lyotard (1984) describes. Lyotard (1984) states “In the context of delegitimation, universities and the institutions of higher learning are called upon to create skills, and no longer ideals- so many doctors, so many teachers in a given discipline, so many engineers, so many administrators etc.” (p.48). When we look at post secondary educational institutions that focus on trade careers for example, or even teacher’s college, sets of skills are transmitted to the students. For example, if you do ‘X’, ‘Y’ will happen. It is like a set equation with a solidified outcome. Many of today’s jobs are based on skills, and less about highly critical ideas. Students no longer question if the information being passed down is true Lyotard (1984) states “The question (overt or implied) now asked by the preofessionist student, the State, or institutions of higher education is no longer “Is it true?” but “What use is it?”(pg. 51).  Rather, students and teachers are totally concerned with what use is it, and how will our education get us a job and continue to make the system work which Lytoard (1984) describes as the input/output as described above.

 

Students are solely searchers of knowledge with the teacher now. Information can be found on various digital models and this has changed the roles of students and teachers in the classrooms. “..a professor in no more competent than memory bank networks in transmitting established knowledge, no more competent than interdisciplinary teams in imagining new moves of new games” (Lyotard, 53).  Does this mean that teachers will be completely abolished? The answer to this question I believe is no, just as Lyotard (1984) states that there teachers will still be needed in order to transmit new rules and teach students how to use different modes of technology (Lyotard, pg. 51).

 

Changes in technology and the Internet from the 1970’s onwards have reestablished how only one specific science can be utilized. With the turn of the digital age, students have more way to access different kinds of information. The Internet has reinvented how students engage with performativity. For example Lyotard (1984) states “what extra performativity depends on in the final analysis is ‘imagination’ which allows one either to make a new move or change the rules of the game’” (p.52). Integration of multiple ideas and rules are now easily accessible to anyone who uses smartphones, tablets and computers, as they are able to identify new theories and remake and connect them to their own interests. In addition Lyotard (1984) uses collaboration any students as a technique that enhances performativity. Lyotard (1984) argues, “In particular, it has been established that teamwork is especially successful in improving performativity within the framework of a given model, that is, for the implementation of a task” (p.53). Many schools at the elementary, secondary and post secondary level use Google Docs for example as a collaboration tool. The advancements in technology have made tools like this possible for integration of ideas, personal experiences, knowledge (old and new), new understandings and perspectives. Information has become universally accessible and students use these opportunities to create new knowledge and languages by taking what they already know, and making it meaningful to themselves and whoever this wish to share it with.