The Calvin Klein g-string Indicator for Educational Wellbeing

Ahh Insouci, you have just given me a new indicator for educational well being – another criterion for assessing the connectedness of mental spaces in education. 

Just as The Economists Big Mac Index makes exchange rate theory easier to understand, and Sulfuric Acid Production is a ready indicator for industrial well being, you have introduced the notion of a Calvin Klein g-string Index for wellbeing in the education sector. 

In New Zealand we have an aging workforce, the average age of teachers lies around 47 +, and in the disciplinary silos I once played (the physical and biological sciences in secondary  schools), the average age is I suspect significantly higher.

The mental space in which the New Zealand teaching workforce is thinking is different from that of the students they teach.  They are different, and we are ignorant of the depth of The Abyss of Difference because it lies “beyond the horizon of our attention”. 

The mental space in which I live is a different one from that of Goethe or of Schiller.  The  conceptual and perceptual topology in which I live is non continuous with the past. The  axioms that spin out of the space in which I move are not the same axioms my grandfather still took for granted. The certainties by which we can talk to each other without ever mentioning them – because  they lie so to speak, beyond the horizon of our attention – are different today than fifty  or a hundred years ago. Ivan Illich in Conversation P128

Perhaps it is this difference that explains the disconnection between teacher and learner, and between teaching and learning.  Perhaps it is this difference that explains the disconnection, and perhaps it does it more poignantly than any claims about compulsory institutionalisation in the classroom face2face environments or over managed and over limited on-line LMS learning environments arguments can.

Your new Calvin Klein g-string Index promises to be an effective rough and ready indicator  of wellbeing in education, of mindspace mis_alignments between teaching and learning.  We can forget about shallow judgements based on the  walk shorts, cardigans and retro M*A*S*H Hawaiian shirts because we have a new appearance based index of educational connectedness.

I have been made jealous by the recent techno_achievements of edu_bloggers who have been podcasting from the (e) learning conferences they attend.  I have been trying to think of  powerful questions I might ask and then record and podcast from the educators at LearningatSchool_06 ict_pd conference in February. 

Your comment resolves this Insouci, I reckon asking the educators present How comfortable would you be  teaching in a Calvin Klein g-string? will be a great place to start. 

And I will follow this up with the fabulous questions from George Siemens Enough with 2.0 post on his Connectivism Blog.

How can we portray that we are at a new place in regards to method of learning, but still in  the same place in regards to the act of learning?

How can we grow our scope, our image, our  conception of learning and learning design (especially when we break from courses and  classrooms)?

Think there may be some interesting insights [I might need help to put together one of those CORE Ed Microsoft Office Excel pivot tables Sandra] when I analyse the patterns in the responses.

Comments

[leighblackall]

I dunno if you've read this interesting paper looking at surveying the digital disconnect between teachers and the schools, and the kids that have to atend. I would love to see similar research on an ongoing basis, here in Australia/NZ:

http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=67

The Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools

By Doug Levin, Sousan Arafeh, Amanda Lenhart, Lee Rainie

Many schools and teachers have not yet recognized—much less responded to—the new ways students communicate and access information over the Internet. Students report that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction. For the most part, students’ educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building, outside the direction of their teachers.

Noticeable how I have not come across research like this in Australia. Were are the interviews of Australian net savvy high school students?

[Artichoke]

Thanks for the links Leigh,will follow them up.

This is an idea I'd be keen to explore further - I like the idea of faithfully listening to and responding to student voice in education, and have blogged about this sort of thing before

Our Ministry of Education put up something in relation to The New Zealand Curriculum Project - Students Views on the Curriculum page on TKI. Check what they claim students are saying about ICT in New Zealand - think you will be as mullett-stunned as I was

A prisoner of contemporaneity

Grabbed a kid and asked him

And also addressing the theme of disconnection

Why World of Warcraft™ is better than school

[Jo]

Great post Artichoke! I'll be looking for CKs on all my colleagues!

Unfortunately, I'm finding that in my work I'm having to wear my CKs, with a pair of Bonds Cottontails over the top all too often...so I look safe enough to the powers that be!

Anyway, maybe you could add something like this to your list:

1. What support do teachers need to take the leap - to embrace the technologies that our students use with ease? What will it take for you to wear your CKs with pride?

I'm often frustrated when working with teachers of the Cottontails variety, as they seem pretty negative about the stuff we're trying to do.

So I wanna know - what do we have to do to make these new ideas seem more appealing - to both our Managers and bosses.... and especially to all those Cottontails wearers!

PS. You gotta love a post that gives you an excuse to play more WoW! ;-)

[Insouciantfemme]

Oh dear, oh dear... what have I done this time? My grandma was right - I should have been a gardener. The only things I damage would be weeds. :)

The Calvin Klein G-String Index eh? hehehehehehe. That sounds fabulous Arti! I would love to read your conference paper. Please, please send it to me.

And I'm with you Jo. Cottonails are very last century - although, one might be willing to concede if it's Cottonails with torn sleeves and rude signs, or, Cottonails on my backside. Very comfortable.

I think Jo's question is an important one. "What will it take for you to wear your CKs with pride?" Ah... difficult, difficult question. First we must take into consideration the uncomfortableness of the G-String that shafts and burns the novice of such apparel. Then we must consider the identity of the wearer. The invisibility of such subversive action may go totally unnoticed by the younger generation. After all, we do not wear our Calvins on the outside of our pants or skirt. How do we make the invisible visible? How to make a glass house that could make obvious the necessity of this educational index? Ah... difficult, difficult questions. I shall ponder it with you Arti. As I said before, you stop my brain from going mush. :)

I.F.

[leighblackall]

Interesting.

A friend of mine is religious, a teacher, and a fine blogger - http://liveandletlearn.net/

Recently we were discussing whether a teacher should blog their life along with their teaching work - You know, the whole teacher thing, openning doors for relationship building (closing doors for some perhaps) but trying to build genuine human experiences into school.

Anyway, while we explored all the good reasons why a teacher should do this, inevitably we came up against reasons not to (mostly policy). Such as religion in schools... should my friend be allowed to celebrate his religion along side his teaching work? What about his sexuality, politics, subversivness, and opinions on everyday things.

In the end I say yes. But before it can be healthy, a teacher needs to stop being a teacher, to step down from that position of power, and be right their along side aunties and uncles, friends, soccer coach, councelor...

[leighblackall]

http://teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-arent-we-listening-to-kids-these.html

[botts]

i think if i wore my calvin kleins i'd probably get the sack....not for what i wear but because of how disturbing a look it would be...

however, beyond the ck issue, you make some great points here art. i'm particularly taken with the idea of "beyond the horizon of our attention". my experience would lead me to believe that this remoteness isn't only to do with technology, but more to do with the relationship between teachers and students in general. to retain the pretence of power, teachers can't afford to get too close to their students. they won't admit such simple things as liking the same music or watching the same movies because it brings the horizon dangerously close to the present. if the teacher becomes accessible, then their inherent power becomes weakened (or so they think). before teaching in a TAFE context in oz, i worked as a counsellor in a high school and i saw, more often than not, that the teachers who were most respected and who seemed to do the best job of engaging their students, were those who were prepared to allow the horizon to get close enough, that their students got a feel for who they were as people.

[Artichoke]

Just might have to give up my day job to cope with the complexity of thought required to process all these challenging comments

Jo’s query is interesting. “What do we have to do to make these new ideas seem more appealing” It reminds me of the Singapore ICCE2005 conference and a question raised at one of the sessions …

How is it that business’s such as McDonalds is able to counter cultural and social differences and franchise its product, process and even its culture successfully across the globe; whilst the adoption of good teaching practices in education seems sluggish
in comparison? Looi, Lim and Hung (2005) Sustaining Innovations in Singapore Schools: Implications for Research Work.

Reckon that to make something “seem more appealing” will require that we hand over the role of popularising ICT initiative in education to people who understand how to manipulate people.

We should hand over the role of popularising ICT in educational contexts to the people who can make McDonalds cheeseburgers and "Finding Nemo" seem so much more appealing than the rich cultural diversity of England's mushy peas and New Zealand's "How Maui captured the sun".

To make something “be more appealing”, now that is more challenging to answer.

Insouci’s “My grandmother was right- I should have been a gardener.” comment is more difficult to refute - – but with the help of Waikato University’s Dr Deborah Fraser work on metaphor perhaps I can reassure Insouci that grandmother was both right and wrong.

“Metaphor is not just a function of language...of mere words...human thought processes are largely metaphorical...the human conceptual system is metaphorically saturated and defined. (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 6)”

A “teacher in a CK g-string” is a “gardener”. And I believe that it is impossible when wearing a g-string to damage the weeds in education or in potting mix.

Leigh’s query about how much of our identities we could/should reveal as a teacher is even more difficult for me to answer.

Sexuality, religious belief, political affection, joys and anxieties, domestic harmonies and disharmonies, how much do we share, how much do we mute?

How much is important to disguise, how much is important to reveal?..

Is it possible that without revealing anything, our gender, culture, race and age already shout/give our words an authority that we do not deserve. Suspect this sort of thinking is worthy of an edu_blog of its own.

Think that an answer lies in part in a critique of Senge’s Learning organisation Learning Community - Learning organisation or learning community by Michael Feilding. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/documents/learning_organisation.pdf

And in trying to understand Fielding’s writing we nudge up against Botts’ query about remoteness and the pretence of power.

I think a tension arises because we pretend in education to be part of a learning community when in fact we part of a learning organization. “The two ideas are not interchangeable” they are quite different.

As teachers we claim to be both advocates for a learning community, and friends of the student YET “beyond the horizon of our attention” is “the stark and deliberate exclusion of anyone other than the managing elite from access to "the framework and institutions of governance”.

As teachers we “retain a traditional grip on the levers of power.” “At the fundamental level of ownership and control, nothing changes.”

We can share stuff about our lives, but when we share on OUR terms it is not really sharing, its something else.

If as teachers our role is to help the student to gain insight into new reality, then the power imbalance between us is critical. We risk absorbing/ coopting the learner rather than liberating the learner. – Feilding describes this as coming “perilously close to managing the design of people”

So in a way Botts perhaps it is not the pretence of power we should guard against in education but rather the pretence of friendship….

[strangecloud]

"...oh imaginary friends of the Artichoke - that the closest I will ever get to a C K g-string experience will be by squeezing those flamboyant and plumptious Artichokean buttocks into XL instead of XXL cotton tails..."

Hehehe....let me try visualizing this...:P