Classroom control: Some cybernetic comments on the possible and the impossible

The application of basic cybernetic laws and information processing principles to the classroom situation suggests that “traditional” and “modern” teaching methods, regarded as control systems, are equivalent in terms of efficiency. As control structures, they embody different principles and are not decomposable. Examination of these principles reveals that the two methods are radically incompatible, in the sense that techniques developed in the one cannot be transferred to the other without dislocation of the system as a whole. Attempts to modernize the “traditional” method, or to formalize the “modern” method are ill-conceived. Such “mixed” methods violate basic laws of information and control, and cannot work. It is suggested that many of the problems underlying the “Great Education Debate” are a consequence of the impossible state of affairs created by the widespread introduction of “mixed” methods.