Introduction

It has been argued that school as an institution has been dominated by a historically specific type of learning called school learning or school-going activity. The theory of school learning advocated in this chapter provides a historically based conception of the essential problem of teaching and learning in the modern school. School learning is characterized by memorization and reproduction of school texts. It is accompanied by an instrumental motivation of school success that tends to eliminate substantive interest in the phenomena and knowledge to be studied. The fundamental problem is that knowledge learned in such a way is difficult to use and apply in life outside the school.

If we want to transcend the limitations of traditional school learning, it is important to analyze the nature and conditions of school learning and the germs of qualitatively new kinds of teaching and learning within the school. This chapter discusses the problem of learning at school both theoretically and with the help of empirical data. It contributes to an ongoing theoretical discussion on learning activity by analyzing the object and the subject of learning at school. The discussion is grounded in results of the author's study of business teachers' work at the Finnish Businessmen's Commercial College (SLK). In addition, the chapter draws on other examples of new forms of teaching in Finland, Sweden, and England.

The nature and persistence of traditional school learning

Bernd Fichtner (1984) and Yrjö Engestrom (1987) have analyzed the cultural and social history of learning from an activity-theoretical viewpoint.