Things you seldom hear discussed at an (e) learning conference.

I have been following up on the great comments and links on the Artichoke happiness post and happened across a link from Lucychili, to a TED talk by technologist, scientist, physicist Clifford Stoll who made claims about computers in schools that were so unlike what I am used to hearing in New Zealand that I laughed aloud ...

“there is a massive and bizarre idea going around that we have to bring more computers into schools ... my idea is to get them out of schools and keep them out of schools.”

 

I am amazed that I haven’t nudged up against Stoll before - his background is enticing - impressive diverse and quirky - a polymath (astronomer, researcher, computer security expert , klein bottle maker ) and with his current determination to “think local act local” - a teacher (Stoll teaches physics to eighth graders). It gives him an domain experience and authority that I have not seen in the commentators we invite to speak at (e)learning conferences in New Zealand.

But all this doesn’t mean that Stoll’s analysis is sound .... he is a compelling presenter but his arguments about computers in school were more rhetorical than research balanced – However as other edu-bloggers have argued many of our arguments for introducing computers/ ICTs/ Web2.0 into school are based on generalisations and rhetoric.

I have ordered his books High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian  and The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage  to see what he can do when given longer than an 18 minute sound bite to explain his ideas ..

History, including educational history, is full of ideas that seemed good at the time.

Stoll’s comments challenged me to think about conversation starters I seldom hear/ questions seldom raised at (e) Learning conferences.  I decided to generate a list of questions seldom raised at (e) learning conferences in New Zealand using Postman’s five things as a framework – Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change because Postman’s thinking along with others like Ivan Illich, Carolyn Marvin and Larry Cuban provide a useful starting point for any thinking that might provoke analysis of our current “(e) learning is good” position about the integration of ICTs into school.

What follows is still clunky, and I am a little fearful of charges of techno determinism,  but here goes ...

“Five ideas I’d like to discuss at the next (e) learning conference"

In response to Postman's :
“First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price”

What do ICTs give to teachers and/or students?

What will ICTs do for pedagogy?

How will ICTs advantage the conditions of value in learning?

What does ICTs take away from teachers and/or students?

What will ICTs undo in pedagogy?

How will ICTs disadvantage the conditions of value in learning?

What is the cost of ICTs to education?

 In response to Postman's:
“Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners.”

Who specifically benefits from ICTs in school?

Which groups will be favoured by ICTs in school?

What kind of processes will be enhanced by ICTs in school?

Who specifically is harmed by ICTs in school?

Which groups will be harmed by ICTs in school?

What kind of processes will be harmed by ICTs in school?

Who are the winners when ICTs are introduced to schools?

Who is trying to persuade others of the benefits of ICTs in school?

Who are the losers when ICTs are introduced to schools?

Who is being persuaded by others on the benefits of ICTs in schools?

Are all schools benefited and/ or harmed in the same ways by the introduction of ICTs? 

In response to Postman's:
“Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on.”  

What bias does ICT bring to thinking?

What bias does ICT bring to managing self?

What bias does ICT bring to participating and contributing?

What bias does ICT bring to relating to others?

What bias does ICT bring to using language, symbols and text?

What bias does ICT bring to communication?

What bias does ICT bring to community?

In response to Postman's:
“Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.”

What are the consequences of the introduction of ICTs for the culture of school (culture = the things we do to belong)? 

What are the consequences of ICTs for the culture of the city, the suburb, small town and rural New Zealand? 

And finally in response to Postman's:
"And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us. .... When a technology become mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control."  

What are the ICTs that are ubiquitous in school?

What are the ICTs in school that we cannot imagine doing without?

What do these ICTs do for us?

What do these ICTs do to us?

 I want to keep refining these questions, and adding in some more as I read and think more carefully - I don’t hold out much hope that they will be on the formal ULearn08 conference programme BUT I am always hopeful that I will find others who will play with them in the evenings ... 

And as an aside I reckon that Postman’s criteria for speakers on technological change should be stuck to the screen of every (e) learning conference organiser.

One might say, then, that a sophisticated perspective on technological change includes one's being skeptical of Utopian and Messianic visions drawn by those who have no sense of history or of the precarious balances on which culture depends. In fact, if it were up to me, I would forbid anyone from talking about the new information technologies unless the person can demonstrate that he or she knows something about the social and psychic effects of the alphabet, the mechanical clock, the printing press, and telegraphy. In other words, knows something about the costs of great technologies.  Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change

Comments

[Bill Kerr]

The thing about computers is their potential (not always realised) flexibility, their ability to simulate any other information processing machine. The thing about humans is our innate ability to form an alliance with technology - that we are natural born cyborgs (Andy Clark). Think of the hand, with opposable thumb, as an early technology (Engels).

In my view the problems arise more through the existing social relations being used to mould the technology to their ends, ie. that the hidden agenda is in a lot of the software rather than in the computer as such, which is potentially far more flexible than an "application" or a particular "operating system" - reifications of ways of using the computer which suit commercial interests

The idea of a computer as a serial processor was conceived by Alan Turing, but nevertheless parallel processing computers also exist. So it is even wrong to say the computer is limited as media in that respect. One of Sherry Turkles metaphors of the computer is a mirror.

My feeling about the Postman essay is that he tends to frame technology as separate from humans, rather than a co-evolution of mutual benefit.

[sylvia martinez]

Stoll points out poor implementations of computers in schools. It doesn't follow that this proves that all uses are bad. But it's apparently more entertaining.

I think to answer any of your questions, you will have to define ICT. Various people could point to keyboarding training, open-ended tools, or drill programs and call any of them ICT. It's certainly not a monolith.

[Artichoke]

Thanks for the comments Bill and Sylvia,

Sylvia, I agree that definition of terms is necessary before any useful discussion can take place ...

(defining what is meant by ICT and for that matter is meant by school - I work in primary and secondary schools with 5 to 18 year olds)

....in New Zealand education we use the term ICT to refer to information communication technologies and we use it in the broadest sense of the term - so I am not thinking "keyboarding training, open-ended tools, or drill programs" I am thinking something more ..

For example the 2005 draft consulation document for teachers to comment on the draft e Learning Framework for the schools sector encouraged/ expected New Zealand teachers to link ICTs with e learning in the following ways

Reference: Consultation Booklet for the MoE Draft e Learning Framework for Schools Sector 2005 page 4

What is (e)learning?
Defined as ‘learning facilitated and supported
through the use of information and
communications technology’, (e)Learning may
involve the use of some, or all, of the following
technologies:
• desktop and laptop computers
• software, including assistive software
• interactive whiteboards
• digital cameras
• mobile and wireless tools, including mobile
phones
• electronic communication tools, including
email, discussion boards, chat facilities and
video conferencing
• Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)
• learning activity management systems
(e)Learning can cover a spectrum of activities from
supporting learning, to blended learning (the
combination of traditional and (e)Learning
practices), to learning that is delivered entirely
online. Whatever the technology, however, learning
is the vital element. (e)Learning is no longer simply
associated with distance or remote learning, but
forms part of a conscious choice of the best and
most appropriate ways of promoting effective
learning. Effective Practice with (e)Learning – a good
practice guide in designing for learning, JISC, (2004)
p.10
Earlier understandings of (e)Learning focused on
the use of ICTs in the development and distribution
of content, resulting in an emphasis on content
management systems, portals, and the ‘delivery’ of
education. As we move forward, the focus on
content will become just one part of a more
comprehensive view of (e)Learning, where the
focus must be on learning and the needs of the
learner.

I also agree that taking a contrarian viewpoint can be entertaining ... but I think it is important to engage with contrarian thinkers/ thinking - so much so that if they don't nudge up against you - you should seek them out - I would argue that confirmatory feedback though often welcomed is of little value to my thinking when I am attempting to understand something at a deeper, more connected and more abstract level

This is most especially important when evaluating the pedagogies we most love and most embrace ...it helps us adopt/ maintain a healthy scepticism about what we do .... and to counter the arguments is an important first step in avoiding a reliance on our "gut feelings" about improvements in our students learning outcomes through ICTs

For Stoll and the his counter - those who argue for ICTs in school I want to use Richard Paul's Key Questions (but I want to wait until I can read more of Stoll's arguments)

Paul's Key Questions for assessing claims (Critical Thinking p84)
1. To what extent could I test the truth of this claim by direct experience
2. To what extent is believing this consistent with what I know to be true or have justified confidence in?
3. How does the person who advances this claim support it?
4. Is there a definite system or procedure for assessing claims of this sort?
5. Does the acceptance of this information advance the vested interst of the person or the group asserting it?
6. Is the person asserting this information made uncomfortable by having it challenged?

And Bill thank you for your analysis ... you always force a new clarity on my ideas - I liked the metaphor of ICTs as a mirror - it allows me to understand Postman's ideas better - and the day job means I am highly alert to the educashin marketing opportunities for those talking ICTs and learning and how it might warp learning outcomes.

I hadn't thought about the separation inherent in the questions - I saw Postman's five ideas as a framework to help us analyse - to me his questions seem designed to help us break information into its constituent parts and find out how the parts relate to one another and to an overall idea. And its hard to analyse a whole without some kind of separation ... will have another look at the article

[Doug Noon]

This Artichoke quote should be made into a billboard and posted prominently where every legislator, policy maker, and teacher can see every day:

"History, including educational history, is full of ideas that seemed good at the time."

A gem.

The reason it's so may have something to do with those mirrors.

[Dorothy]

First of all, where do I book in to this conference? Everyone of those sub-questions deserves a session. And a lot of personal thinking time.
So my thought about the first one
"What do ICTs give to teachers and/or students?"
I am sure it depends on the students, so I can only speak about those I work with. ICTs give our students VOICE and that is very powerful. If you are into second generation+ of every major decision in your life being made by outside agencies (where you live, how much household income you have, which school you are eligible for, what sort of health care - if any- you are going to get etc) then the significance of having your voice heard is huge.
I read your posts where you rightly question the glib use of 'authentic audience' by the in-crowd at ICT events, but we do use that term at our school in combination with student voice. We define authentic audience as people who CHOOSE to listen to you. This has not been a common occurance for many in our community.
And ICTs have given this to our students. They know through their public television programme that every viewer has made a choice to watch them and their voice gets heard. They know through their podcasts and blogs that there are people around the world who choose to listen to them and give them feedback to affirm this.
Even holding that positive position I am aware that there is a price being paid by both teachers and students -probably by our wider community too- that has to be discussed. Not just the pedagogical, financial and educative issues you allude to, but also things such as the loss of annonymity and its effect on the community eco-system.
"The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson is talking about products and commercial interests, but in a discussion such as you have started on this post I think it could apply to people too and the students I work with fit somewhere to the right of that long tail. So what is important for them may be very different from what is important for those who dominate the popular left of his graph.

And that is only a partial response to sub-question 1a. I do want to go to this conference when you organise it!

[lucychili]

via Bill Kerr
http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=195

[artichoke]

Thanks for this Dorothy .... I enjoyed your attempt to analyse what ICTs give to your students, it takes courage to step back and look at what we do ... I look forward to an opportunity to continue this conversation in other settings than the comment box on a blog ...

Your comments about running a conference (something the Magnet and I did across for a couple of years in various New Zealand cities in a past life) clarified something for me ....it made me realise that the reasons these conversations do not occur at conferences is probably because conferences are not engineered for truth finding ... they are instead organised around the pursuit of what Illich might describe as a "deadly cleverness"

“Learned and leisured hospitality is the only antidote to the stance of deadly cleverness that is acquired in the professional pursuit of objectively secured knowledge. I remain certain that the quest for truth cannot thrive outside the nourishment of mutual trust flowering into a commitment to friendship. Therefore, I have tried to identify the climate that fosters and the ‘conditioned’ air that hinders the growth of friendship.” 1.

1. Illich, Ivan. (2002). “The Cultivation of Conspiracy,” pdf in The Challenges of Ivan Illich, (Eds) Lee Hoinacki and Carl Mitcham, (New York: SUNY Press), p.235.

Illich persuades me that a conference is not the right place for us to talk about this.

I would like to talk with people in a setting where we could "treasure the balance between auditory and visual presence" - in a setting intimate enough that there was no need for microphones .. a setting where the intimacy of our connection to each other meant the conversations around each question was an act of conviviality, an act of friendship

For a quarter of a century, now, I have tried to avoid using a microphone, even when addressing a large audience. I use it only when I'm on a panel, or when the architecture of the auditorium is so modern that it silences the naked voice. I refuse to be made into a loudspeaker. I refuse to address people who are beyond the reach of my voice. I refuse to address people who are put at an acoustic disadvantage during the question period because of my access to a microphone. I refuse, because I treasure the balance between auditory and visual presence, and reject that phony intimacy which arises from the distant speaker's overpowering "whisper." Illich The Loudspeaker on the Tower

In last few years trying to escape conferences has seen educators and others offer (un)conferences and barcamps as alternative ways to connect and learn with others F2F .... I was fortunate to attend the Dunedin leg of the 2006 (un) conference organised by Leigh Blackhall - TALO 2006 The Future of Learning in a Networked World ....

I like the ideas of the principles of Open Space

1. Whoever comes are the right people.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
3. Whenever it starts is the right time.
4. Whenever it is over it is over.

but neither (un) conference nor barcamp quite captures what I am after here ...

I think I would rather approach and unpack these Postman questions as Illich would - with friends ..... sitting around a table ... in a spirit of conviviality ... the candle light, potato soup are probably also important

We found ourselves in a quaint café: some five dozen small tables, each with a lighted candle on a colored napkin. For the occasion, the university's department of domestic science had squeezed a pot into the semester's budget, a pot large enough to cook potato soup for a company. The chancellor,absent on business in Beijing, had hired a Klezmer ensemble. Ludolf Kuchenbuch, dean of historians at a nearby university and a saxophonist, took charge of the jazz. A couple of clowns performing on a bicycle entertained us with their parody of my 1972 book, Energy and Equity. Illich Cultivation of Conspiracy p2

This is a project that is worth pursuing ... I already know the perfect venue ... I just need to carve out some time

[nix]

You will enjoy Stoll's books. I read the Cuckoo's Egg a long time ago. Back when I had a Commodore64 and looked down on people who had IBM compatibles. Shades of the current OS debates really. Later I got hold of Silicon Snake Oil and High Tech Heretic through interloan - Tokoroa Library wasn't that well stocked! But I digress ...

Stoll summerised some of his arguments in a 1995 Newsweek article that has been recently resurrected to make him the butt of many edu-bloggers' snide commentary.

Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We're told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software. Who needs teachers when you've got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames--but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I'll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life.

That paragraph could easily have been written thirteen years later. It's tempting to list all the reasons why he could be wrong but I think it might be more interesting to allow for where he might be right.

Of course he also said this,

As the networks evolve, so do my opinions toward them, and my divergent feelings bring out conflicting points of view. In advance, I apologize to those who expect a consistent position from me. (Silicon Snake Oil, 1995)

Which I could happily adopt as a personal mantra.

[Karen Janowski]

Funny. I watched the Stoll TED video last week and wondered how he survived public school. Does he address his own learning style, and teachers' responses to it, in his book? (I am curious because he exhibited energy and enthusiasm, or was it hyperactivity? that is not allowed in today's classrooms. Even the hand flapping and jumping would label one as being on the autism spectrum today). But I digress...

Let's put the students first. How do our students learn best? Through lecture? Through print - textbooks, worksheets? Through discussion? Yes, maybe some do, the so-called traditional learners. (Do they really exist or are they a figment of our imagination?)

But many require multiple methods of engagement, representation and expression, also known as universal design for learning. Research from CAST suggests "Learning is distributed across three interconnected networks: the recognition networks are specialized to receive and analyze information (the "what" of learning); the strategic networks are specialized to plan and execute actions (the "how" of learning); and the affective networks are specialized to evaluate and set priorities (the "why" of learning)." When we employ UDL principles in our classrooms, we are tapping into the three networks and enhancing learning.

Is technology necessary for successful UDL? Not necessarily, but it certainly makes it easier for students to access the curriculum and better demonstrate what they know with technology tools.
I work with too many disengaged and disinterested learners who have learned helplessness because the supports are not in place that tap into their learning challenges.
Give students who learn differently opportunities to excel using tools that build on their strengths and we are empowering these students for life beyond school.
You ask "What do ICTs give to teachers and/or students?" and "Who specifically benefits from ICTs in school? Which groups will be favoured by ICTs in school? What kind of processes will be enhanced by ICTs in school?"
Students are the ones who benefit because we recognize that there are multiple ways to access and assimilate information. Does research exist that demonstrates the superiority of single channel instruction (lecture, or textbook) over what is the potential of multiple channel instruction that technology offers? I have yet to find any.
Thank you for initiating this discussion.

[Tom Hoffman]

But you couldn't find anyone who has been more wrong about the internet in general over the years than Stoll. If I'd written this, I'd be embarrassed to ever talk at a technology conference again: http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554/

[Artichoke]

In response to Nix

Re: That paragraph could easily have been written thirteen years later.

I just was Nix

• I’ve been playing with Marvin. While I think it’s clever and cute, I’m not yet a convert to the avatar craze, so I can’t see me using it much. I’m puzzled about why the software was so ‘high profile’ of at the Learning@School Conference. Catch the Wave Blog

• The following tutorials have been created to help guide you into the many features of Marvin. Our trusty helper Felix will assist you through these tasks in no time to make you a Marvin expert!

Re: I think it might be more interesting to allow for where he might be right.

Me too Nix, me too, ... that dead white guy Aristotle pegged it as "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." But I like to think of accommodating other view points as the benefits that accumulate when you choose to live with paradox. I learn heaps more when I not only look for evidence that corroborates what I believe about technology/ teaching/ learning but also allow space for contrarians as well

I liked the acknowledgement by Stoll that when you are curious about life your opinions about what is going on are continually evolving ....

Tracking the changes in my thinking about ICTs in education over the past decade means I empathise with Stoll’s divergent feelings and conflicting points of view ... nothing is as it seems on the surface/ at the beginning

If you check out The Edge on What have you changed your mind about and why? You will find some lovely essays on just this theme ..

For example in this Sherry Turkle’s contribution is worth reading

• “What I’ve changed my mind about?
  Throughout my academic career – when I was studying the relationship between psychoanalysis and society and when I moved to the social and psychological studies of technology – I've seen myself as a cultural critic. I don't mention this to stress how lofty a job I put myself in, but rather that I saw the job as theoretical in its essence. Technologists designed things; I was able to offer insights about the nature of people's connections to them, the mix of feelings in the thoughts, how passions mixed with cognition. Trained in psychoanalysis, I didn't see my stance as therapeutic, but it did borrow from the reticence of that discipline. I was not there to meddle. I was there to listen and interpret. Over the past year, I've changed my mind: our current relationship with technology calls forth a more meddlesome me.

[Artichoke]

In response to Tom

Thanks for the link to Stoll’s thinking 13 years ago Tom – Nix also provided this for me in an earlier comment .... I am grateful to you both ....I am only just discovering Stoll .... I must admit that my response to the Newsweek article is not as intense as yours ... for reasons noted above ....I think we need to nurture the contrarians in society

I am interested in your comment about being embarrassed by the stuff we have written ...

In the past the only people who could safely raise controversial issues, political commentary, or offer social critique were the court jesters, the clown, the fool ...

and I wonder if it is this fear of embarrassment – this wariness of making a fool of ourselves that means we need more than ever before the return of the jester and the clown.

And that makes me wonder why we fear the judgements of others on our expressed thoughts ... why we fear "being wrong" ... and we do ... it is what makes many of the people I work with reticent about blogging ...

Ironically this new need for clowns (if it exists) can be tracked back to our schools – I reckon we inadvertently/ unintentionally teach this overwhelming fear of embarrassment through school where I see the candour of 5 year olds slowly replaced by students made mute by their fear of being judged by others ... too fearful to offer any opinion/ answer in class in case they are mocked.

[Artichoke]

In response to Karen

Thanks for unpacking some of the tilted positive questions Karen ... and it is not that I disagree with anything you have claimed (research supported or not) ... but I am also hungry to hear what you would answer with respect to the negative tilt technology questions ...

Sometimes these are best approached with “I have a friend who ....worries that ....”.

[lucychili]

fools have no value
sometimes that is useful
sometimes people with something to lose cant speak
during the ooxml standards process some people were cautious because of conflicting and overlapping interests.
this means that the core public interest was not effectively represented in au imho. new zealand did better.

sometimes having no value is not useful
i think part of the reason the internet mirrors broken social values is that this is the feedback loop we are selling ourselves
media sells maximum damage. our economics is very binary and
produces poverty and wealth in swathes.
structural organisations see risk as 'other'
our tools for managing complexity tend to be more efficient than subtle. communities navigate and learn outside of the structural organisations.

they are more like businesses and so the idea of value and cost outside of the entity as a function of diffuse social cost or diffuse social value has to be actively sought and isnt a natural function. some leaders see further than their own budgets.
we need them very much at the moment imho because the systems we use to understand ourselves do not feel like they have that sense of
constructive social mesh and public good in a structural sense.

artichoke do you read pratchett? try making money. it has a very nice fool in it.

[Artichoke]

Haven't read Making Money ... but have read rather more Pratchett than I care to admit to ... even have an autographed copy of Lords and Ladies that I badgered a friend into presenting for signing when Pratchett was touring in New Zealand ....

I agree with your analysis of societal need for fools but your allusion to Pratchett's Fool's Guild makes me suddenly aware that we probably oversimplify the ease with which we learn foolery -

And this makes me think that society not only needs fools it needs a curriculum wiki of foolery, something to ensure we develop foolery to the highest of standards.

[From Muggins to Gull to Dupe to Butt to Fool (Upon achieving this rank, a student gets his trousers filled with official whitewash) to Tomfool to Stupid Fool to Arch Fool to Complete Fool]

Then one day Lucychili we will read something like this

• You can be proud of the part you have played in creating this sound framework for foolery; a framework designed to ensure that all young [insert your own country/society/ organisation here] are equipped with the knowledge, competencies, and values they will need to be successful complete fools in the twenty-first century.
  
• The challenge now is to build on this framework, offering our young people the most effective and engaging teaching possible and supporting them to achieve to the highest of standards of foolery.

But then when I read "to the highest standards of foolery" I wonder if I have fallen into the mind trap that Illich writes about - of assuming that "man is born incompetent for society and remained so unless he was provided with "education". - and furthermore that my desire to educate for foolery is a version of Illich's "learning under the assumption of scarcity" - that by ensuring education for foolery is kept in short supply (within specialised institutions in my case the wiki) I am establishing / perpetuating a division between the need for foolery and the professional licensing of the provision of foolery.

That was close ... nearly fell into "the apartheid of production and consumption" thinking.

The wiki is not necessary for foolerisation any more than schools are necessary for socialisation ...

To paraphrase Illich

Foolery is not an intangible commodity that has to be produced for the benefit of all, and imparted to them in the manner in which the visible Church formerly imparted invisible grace.

Foolery is something else.

[lucychili]

perhaps foolery is a dimension of our relationship with value
and what happens when we step out the other side of a system or self? mirrormask lookingglass lear xkcd

perhaps when we pass 100% stress its like clocking it and having the needle return to sub-zero.
This chap does it with 'ah f**k it'. I wonder if he had learned to swear whether he would have skipped the shock therapy.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/189

disorienting empty hopeful.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

looking for small tangible purpose
perhaps there is a yinyang between foolery and useful things

[Bill Kerr]

On being contrary. I'd just make the observation that it is neither possible nor desirable to study all the different points of view

Not possible - there isn't time (and I'm a slow reader)
Not desirable - some are *clearly* wrong, eg. the earth is not flat

Even contrarians have filters. I like the Dawkins quote about being so open minded that your brains can fall out. ie. the idea that there is a God being as ridiculous as the idea that the earth is flat

Where does that leave us? That there is a reason to live with contradiction - that reason is that contradiction is part of the world, it is deeply wrought; but that to be contradictory just for the sake of it is a waste of time.

Take off the blinkers, put on the filters and be aware of what those filters are.

So, I won't read Stoll because I don't have time and from the little I have heard my guess is that he's playing at being different. To make me change this filter you have to do more than appeal to my sense of being contrary

[Artichoke]

Ahh Bill, so true ... we need to filter life's contrarians else we will find ourselves trapped in some online version of Monty Python's The Argument Clinic The trick is I suppose where you set the parameters of your contrarian filter to ensure you don't end up a M

(Walk down the corridor)
M: (Knock)
A: Come in.
M: Ah, Is this the right room for an argument?
A: I told you once.
M: No you haven't.
A: Yes I have.
M: When?
A: Just now.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't
A: I did!
M: You didn't!
A: I'm telling you I did!
M: You did not!!
A: Oh, I'm sorry, just one moment. Is this a five minute argument or the full half hour?
M: Oh, just the five minutes.
A: Ah, thank you. Anyway, I did.
M: You most certainly did not.
A: Look, let's get this thing clear; I quite definitely told you.
M: No you did not.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: No you didn't.
A: Yes I did.
M: You didn't.
A: Did.
M: Oh look, this isn't an argument.
A: Yes it is.
M: No it isn't. It's just contradiction.
A: No it isn't.
M: It is!
A: It is not.
M: Look, you just contradicted me.
A: I did not.
M: Oh you did!!
A: No, no, no.
M: You did just then.
A: Nonsense!
M: Oh, this is futile!
A: No it isn't.
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!

A: Yes it is!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
A: No it isn't.
M: It is.
A: Not at all.
M: Now look.
A: (Rings bell) Good Morning.
M: What?
A: That's it. Good morning.
M: I was just getting interested.
A: Sorry, the five minutes is up.
M: That was never five minutes!
A: I'm afraid it was.
M: It wasn't.
Pause
A: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue anymore.
M: What?!
A: If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
M: Yes, but that was never five minutes, just now. Oh come on!
A: (Hums)
M: Look, this is ridiculous.
A: I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid!
M: Oh, all right.
(pays money)
A: Thank you.
short pause
M: Well?
A: Well what?
M: That wasn't really five minutes, just now.
A: I told you, I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
M: I just paid!
A: No you didn't.
M: I DID!
A: No you didn't.
M: Look, I don't want to argue about that.
A: Well, you didn't pay.
M: Aha. If I didn't pay, why are you arguing? I Got you!
A: No you haven't.
M: Yes I have. If you're arguing, I must have paid.
A: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.
M: Oh I've had enough of this.
A: No you haven't.
M: Oh Shut up.

(Walks down the stairs. Opens door.)

[SC]

Claaaaasssik!

[leighblackall]

I've been looking forward to a discussion about Postman's Q's. AT the time they first came into view I was a big Postman fan but was bitterly disappointed by the Q's. I think I saw them as coming from yet another who felt it OK to challenge something that was no where near settled enough to comprehend. But my disrespect for wisdom runs deep in these matters.

Now, I'm not as much looking forward to participating in any discussion on the matter really. But when I'm wiser, or the wise ones have had their go, I might come back to it.

I hope you won't mind me copying some of your words Arti, onto a platform that does not accept Non Commercial restrictions such as your license. Let me know if you'd like me to take it off.. or better still, let us know its ok to extend the discussion in this direction. Reading groups are something I'm taking my time with and participating in on a very casual basis. But I think I've told you about these sorts of things before.. Anyway, hope its OK with you. Might be something that gets taken up in the next few years, and it'll be interesting to see where it might lead with the Wikiversity mob.

[ailsa]

Hi Arti, reminds of the (first) time I was shocked into thoughtfulness considering the value, or not, of IT in education, comes from a book by Henry Giroux(2001) Theory and resistance in education and forwarded by Paulo Friere.:
"In preference to focusing on reducing class size by hiring more teachers, reducing their workloads and raising salaries to attract better prepared college graduates, many schools squander their resources on computers and other technology purchases."
And then I remember my first ed conf presentation where I mispronounced Giroux ...

[Artichoke]

Use in any way you think useful Leigh ... I would be highly surprised - stunned mullett stuff - if the discussion of Postman's questions developed in the threaded and hierarchical comment box on a blog BUT I do intend to persevere with this thinking - to sit round a table with any friends I have left and force my mind to think in different ways about ICTs.

I have tried Postman's questions with primary school kids and their teachers - looking at the Achievement Objectives in The (new)New Zealand Curriculum wrt Social Sciences and Technology -(AO's pasted below) - and even though they are not wise in technology or technological development and human possibility for that matter - they come up with some interesting stuff - stuff I doubt we would have got to without Postman - if the responses of the under tens are anything to go by Leigh - Postman's questions are a powerful catalyst for new imaginings ... I wish I had recorded what they came out with in response to the ubiquitous supermarket trolley ...

Social Sciences:
Understand how technological development expands human possibilities
and how technology draws on knowledge from a wide range of disciplines.

Level 1
Understand how the past is important to people.
Level 2
Understand how time and change affect people’s lives.
Level 3
Understand how people make decisions about access to and use
of resources.
Level 4
Understand how exploration and innovation create opportunities and challenges for people, places, and environments.

Technology
Characteristics of technology
Level 1
Understand that technology is purposeful intervention through design.
Level 2
Understand that technology both reflects and changes society and the
environment and increases people’s capability.
Level 3
Understand how society and environments impact on and are infl uenced by
technology in historical and contemporary contexts and that technological
knowledge is validated by successful function.
Level 4

[Artichoke]

Am glad I don't have the web cam facility operating Ailsa and that no one can observe me trying to pronounce Giroux ...

"In preference to focusing on reducing class size by hiring more teachers, reducing their workloads and raising salaries to attract better prepared college graduates, many schools squander their resources on computers and other technology purchases."

... is an interesting observation - was it made by Giroux or Paulo Freire? ...

Is also a timely quote to share with me since I was just remarking in an email that one of the things that the MoE might have underestimated in setting up the ICTPD clusters was the pervasive nature of the marketing opportunities the ICTPD clusters have provided ...

(e) learning in New Zealand is rapidly being reframed as spending a whole heap of money to immobilise students in front of template flip charts and YouTube downloads .... and it is accompanied by hours of professional learning time to teach teachers how to operate the “interactive” surface ... when they could be planning learning experiences to help their students learn ...

[ailsa]

Stanley Aronowitz in the preface, pxvi

[Janet Hawtin]

education as binary attrition
http://blog.case.edu/singham/2007/08/28/reflections_on_the_working_poor

or schools for making constructive inclusive diverse resilience?

[Artichoke]

Ahh "Education as binary attrition" I wish I had said that Janet ... and as for your "constructive inclusive diverse resilence" it gives me brain freeze

I enjoyed Singham's address, thanks for the link

Mano Singham’s Reflections on the Working Poor address to his first year class is classic Illich stuff Janet ...

Compare Singham’s thinking ...

So a third possible answer to why all of us are different from the people described in Shipler's book is that the educational system is designed to make sure that only a small percentage (us) will succeed and a much larger percentage (like the people in the book) will fail.
But it is not enough to simply exclude people from success as they will resent it and rebel. After all, all people have had dreams of a good life. As Shipler writes on page 231: "Virtually all the youngsters I spoke with in poverty-ridden middle schools wanted to go on to college. . .Their ambitions spilled over the brims of their young lives." They dreamed of becoming doctors, lawyers, nurses, archeologists, and policemen. But those dreams have to be crushed to meet the needs of the economy. But crushing people's dreams carries risks.
In order to prevent people with crushed dreams from exploding, you have to make them resigned to their fate, to think it is their own fault, to consider themselves failures and unworthy. How do you do that? By making them repeatedly experience failure and discouragement so that by the time they reach high school or even middle school, their love for learning has been destroyed, they have been beaten down, their hopes and dreams crushed by being told repeatedly that they are lazy and no good, so that should not aim high and instead should they think of themselves as so worthless and invisible that it does not even matter if they show up for work or not.
And we have done that. Currently we have an educational system in which people do primarily blame themselves for failure.

With Illich’s

Illich (in response to a question from David Cayley): It was along this kind of circuitous road that I came to understand what this education system of Puerto Rico was doing. First, thanks to years of conversation with Everett, I read my way into the pragmatists and empiricists of the English tradition of thinkers and philosophers. Second I asked myself, what do schools do when I put into parentheses their claim to educate? Perhaps only in that way will I find what they do. They then had a machine which was called a computer. It had nothing to do with what you see around now, but it could already gobble up so-called data and organise them. So I was in a position to ask for data. When I looked at the printouts they gave me, it was quite evident that after ten years of intensive development (another one of those words!) of the school system in the country, which at that moment was, together with Israel, the showcase for development all over the world, schooling in Puerto Rico was so arranged that half the students – that half that came from the poorer families – had a one in three chance of finishing five years of elementary education, the amount that was compulsory.
Most of the discussion around me was about immediately making many more years of education compulsory. Nobody faced the fact that schooling served, at least in Puerto Rico, to compound the native poverty of half of the children with a new interiorised sense of guilt for not having made it. I therefore came to the conclusion that schools inevitably are a system to produce dropouts, and to produce more dropouts than successes. Because the school is open for sixteen years, eighteen years, nineteen years of schooling and never closes the door on anybody, it will always produce a few successes and a majority of failures. In the minds of the people who financed and engineered them, schools were established to increase equality. I discovered that they really acted as a lottery system in which those that didn’t make it didn’t just loose what they had paid in but were also stigmatised as inferior for the rest of their lives. P63 Ivan Illich in Conversation Chapter 1 The Myth of Education

And the paragraph in Mano Singham's address that needs discussion in the light of what we claim our education system and curriculum is designed for - that is

Our vision is for young people:
• who will be creative, energetic, and
enterprising;
• who will seize the opportunities offered by new
knowledge and technologies to secure a
sustainable social, cultural, economic, and
environmental future for our country;
• who will work to create an Aotearoa New
Zealand in which Maori and Pakeha recognise
each other as full Treaty partners, and in which
all cultures are valued for the contributions
they bring;
• who, in their school years, will continue to
develop the values, knowledge, and
competencies that will enable them to live full
and satisfying lives;
• who will be confident, connected, actively
involved, and lifelong learners.

Is this one

After all, think what would happen if everyone got a good education and college degrees? Where would we get enough people like those in the book, willing to work for low wages, often with little or no benefits, at places like Wal-Mart so that we can buy cheap goods? Or at McDonalds so that we get cheap hamburgers? Or as cleaning staff at restaurants and hotels so that we can eat out often? Or in the fields and sweatshops so that we can get cheap food and clothes? As the French philosopher Voltaire pointed out long ago: "The comfort of the rich depends upon the abundance of the poor."

[Jedd @ core]

Can't help myself - I have to offer the opportunity to share these thoughts and pursue truth finding at CORE Education's ULearn08. We are now calling for presentations, and the conference is designed around educators volunteering to present to others - teachers for teachers. The three themes are broad enough to encompass almost anything (collaborate, innovate, educate) and as it says on the conference site; "This is your chance to become an active participant and help us develop a conference for New Zealand's leaders and learners." J

[Artichoke]

Thanks Jedd@core for the offer - I am now fairly certain that I was mistaken in the post ....the questions are great but a conference with its focus on "presentations" or as you describe it "educators volunteering to present to others" misses what is most powerful in conversation and conviviality

I acknowledged this new thinking further up this page

• I think I would rather approach and unpack these Postman questions as Illich would - with friends ..... sitting around a table ... in a spirit of conviviality ... the candle light, potato soup are probably also important

What I will be looking for when I am in Christchurch during CORE Education's Learn08 is people who can make potato soup ....

and when I think about it - I'll need to find a room without a smoke alarm and a table just big enough for a group of friends

[lucychili]

Minsky via Mr Kerr
Mentoring and How do children acquire self-images?
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Memo_3#Role_Models.2C_Mentors.2C_and_Imprimers_and_Thinking