Introduction

Despite a long-lasting discourse about school reforms and about constructivism in education, the institution of the school still represents the institution that homogenizes people and set the hierarchical structure of society.

The central aspect of the institution of school are circumstances under which it was established, and goals that have to satisfy ever since. The school as an institution is a product of the needs of modern states arising in the 18^th and forming itself during the 19^th century (Gellner, 1995; Foucault, 1997, 1995). It was founded in Central Europe and, due to its political and economic success, then spread not only across Europe but also around the world (Ramirez, Boli, 1987; Green, 2013). Central European origin has, of course, given the institution an organizational form and an internal system of functioning which, to this day, influences all societies where a network of state school exists.

In the last five years, there is no scientific text indexed in the web of science and cited enough to be well-known in the professional community that reflects Central European origin of the institution. It is apparent that to be able to solve the problem we need a new perspective, a bigger picture. We need to make a shift from the inquiring individual aspects of educational reality, such as learning strategies, inclusion, neoliberal governmentality, or the role of habitus to the institution as such. This talk using sociological, historical, philosophical and cognitive (neurobiological) analyses and combining them provides auditory with a platform that can establish this approach.

 Key concept

To be able to find the bigger picture, the authors elaborate on the concept – cognitive landscape. The concept is compatible with biosemantic theories that explicitly use this term (conf. Farina, 1998, 2000; Stonier, 1996). However, it is developed independently on these theories and in close connection to the latest theories in cognitive psychology and cognitive sciences. This landscape is neither subjective nor objective; it is neither inside nor outside organism, neither individual nor societal.

Sociological and historical analysis:

The institution of school, as it had been established at the end of the 18th and the 19th centuries, was influenced by the needs of the modern state. The primary demand for it has been to consolidate the state unit – the nation. The school institution is therefore strictly linked to nationalism, is designed to help homogenize heterogeneous actors of the emerging national society. Foucault's analyses of the modern institutions (1997, 1995) discovered the primary mechanisms by which the institutions form humans. The school has become an effective tool for homogenizing society. The result of the aforementioned operational mechanisms of the institution is the fact that they emphasize the role of external authority that determines the norms and the role of the norms.

Consequences:

The school is very successful in achieving what it was created for – to subordinate the individual to surveillance and to ensure that the norms are met. These norms come from outside – the external authority decides what, when, and how the pupil must master. As a result, the pupil loses autonomy and control over the process of his / her education. Educational content and methods of its acquisition are something to be obeyed. This success is inscribed into the innermost structure and operating rules of the institution. Despite all the efforts of the actors involved – pupils, parents, teachers, school management, etc. – who are trying to improve the functioning of schools, the school is still a conservative and normative institution. Any change is paid for a great effort and too many costs.

The paper is one of the outputs of a three-year grant project of the Czech Science Foundation No GA19-13038S "Roads towards 21st Century Inclusive School". The authors develop two levels of inquiry which at the end are blended into a final analysis of the defined problem. The first level is based on Foucauldian analysis of the modern state institutions – army, hospital, prison, factory and, of course, school – as he put it in his Discipline and Punish (1995). In this text, Foucault depicts the implicit structure of the institutions that operate in mainstream schools until these days. Buildings of the schools, their architecture and their laboratory spirit (i.e. systematic separation from the outside world), day divided into respective classes, breaks between them, curriculum guided by the logic of separate subjects – English, physics, chemistry, civics, history etc. – all that permeated by ubiquitous examinations and rivalry. Following historiographical analysis deal with conditions under which the school institution was consolidated into a national state institution. The second level is an analysis of how humans (and organisms in general) get knowledge about their surroundings. This secondary analysis is interwoven from two sources. Firstly from philosophical approaches of late phenomenology (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, Barbaras and their modern followers in science as Varela, Nöe, Thompson) and pragmatism(James, Dewey, M. Johnson). Secondly from relatively new research in cognitive science and neurobiology results of which have led to surprising theories. Concerning these sources, we elaborate on the concept of cognitive landscape in close connection to latest theories in cognitive psychology and cognitive sciences (dynamic system theory – confer. e.g. Thelen, Smith, 1994; Rockwell, 2005; extended mind - Menary, 2010; Rupert, 2009; enacted mind theory – Varela, Thompson, Rosch, 2016; Thompson, 2007). In the third step, the authors contrast the first and the second level. Doing this enables to see a structural inconsistency between the core of the institution of the school stemming from its origin and the character of a successful process of autonomous cognition and learning. This inconsistency is detected as a tacit, deeply hidden cause of why it is almost impossible to turn schools into a form suitable for the 21st century.

The school institution breaks the cognitive landscapes of learners and slows down (and sometimes stops) the learning process. Its most important aims are to normalize and subordinate the individual. However, this is incompatible with the late modern, social networking society, because we have to learn how to behave in a relatively new, diverse, changing and interconnected world. The vistas of the late modern world conflict the structure and operations of the school institution. The biggest challenge for the transformation of public education will be how finding ways to transform the normalizing core of school institution so that the school would be able to appreciate the heterogeneity, the autonomous initiative and the diversity of its actors.

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