When you work in the educational wilderness – every edu_blog comment is a source of new thinking. This one is well worth a Sunday evening trip into the woods with Yogi …
“Really the IT in schools stuff is a dodo. Reached its limits in the late or mid 80s and amazing teachers have been continuing to do amazing things ever since at huge cost--cos school is a technology--a way of doing things. And it's a big hairy scary bear of a technology and any new kid on the block better conform/align with the way the bear wants to do things or it gets gobbled.
You see what is possible with kids and all this stuff when you look outside schools. Nuff said.
Cj comment on “How does technology use us”
cj’s comment collects the "pin up poster bird for extinction" the dodo, a hairy bear and "being gobbled" all in one comment box. Got to admire the eclecticism here.
So what does it mean when cj claims school is a big hairy scary bear of a technology? Been a while since I’ve sought insight from that Hanna Barbera character "The deeper you go in the woods, the more nuts you find!" Yogi Bear
I can start like this
If 48 teaspoons can equal a cup, and 2.54 cm equals an inch,
If Eyeore can equal Marvin the Paranoid Android, and September 11th can equal Pear Harbour,
If Star Wars can equal The Bible, and Botulinum toxin equal a Trojan horse
If the Irish potato blight can equal anti-Semitism, and Migratory patterns of geese can equal agile processes in project management
If Inquiry learning, discovery learning, problem based learning, experiential learning, constructivist learning, generative learning, cognitive apprenticeship, discovery learning, situated learning and knowledge building can be pedagogical equivalents involving student centred exploration within a given edu_landscape.
Then there must be a way in which I can think about school as an ursine technology.
Perhaps the analogy - thinking about schools as a ursine technology – is based on a relational factor of “pushing at the limits”
With a cast of zoo animals and hundreds of furry lemurs on the film's namesake island, the animators had to push the limits of technology to render an eye-catching yet believable effect. Every hair on every animal represented a line of computer code, for a countless number of algorithms that had to be compressed and rendered overnight to create the images in just one scene. Madagascar: A hairy technology challenge played out on screen
Have not been into too many schools recently that push at the limits, so
Perhaps the analogy - thinking about schools as an ursine technology – is based on a relational factor of “stickability”
Scaling tall buildings may have been easier if Spiderman's suit was covered in thousands of tiny hairs, new research suggests. A team from Germany and Switzerland found that a type of jumping spider can climb smooth surfaces because thousands of tiny hairs act like molecular velcro.
Have never been much attracted to the notion of school reunions so I am going to struggle with arguments about stickability and schools, so
Perhaps the analogy – thinking about schools as an ursine technology – is based on a relational factor of gendered hirsutism – schools as centres of wisdom or schools as bearded lady freak shows
Male pogonotrophy (the growing of facial hair; beardedness) is often culturally associated with wisdom and virility. Excessive hairiness (especially facially) is known as hirsutism, and is usually an indication of normal hormonal variation. In contemporary western culture, almost all women shave, tweeze or otherwise depilate facial hair which does appear, as there is considerable social stigma associated with facial hair in women. Wikipedia
Have never bought into that whole boys learn differently from girls bit, so
Perhaps the analogy – thinking about schools as an ursine technology – is based on the relational factor of scariness of the bear and the need for separation
Ever since grizzly bears killed and ate Tim Treadwell and Amie Huguenard last October, speculation has been rife about why this happened. Critics often blame Treadwell's unusually close association with bears and apparent neglect of normal safety precautions. Some of these same factors also are blamed for the recent death and consumption of Russian naturalist Vitaly Nikolayenko. He, like Treadwell, spent years interacting with coastal grizzlies, getting to know them personally and making extensive film records of their behavior. Separation is Critical to Minimizing Danger from Bears, other Animals
Since I have walked the talk of alternative schooling in my past, I am prepared to concede that separation is critical to minimising danger from both bears and schools. I might be onto something.
Perhaps cj is making an analogy that alerts us to the dangers of getting too close to school. The perils of being captured by, and making too many “authentic” connections with that technological process we call school. Perhaps embracing schools like embracing grizzlies will kill something - kill our belief in, and acknowledgement of, learning that might happen without the mediation of an institution.
How then should we imagine the collision of technologies? - the collision of hairy scary school with ICT
And what if anything can we salvage from the pile up that results when the technologies of ICT and institutionalised learning smash into each other? Or are we in 2006, too late to prevent the extinction of the IT in schools stuff?
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