Educational Wunderkammern (“cabinets of curiosity”)

"The clock gave us increments, and saved us from eternity."

The thinking in Lewis Mumford's quote from Technics and Civilization made me ask, What has education given us? And what has it saved us from?

I have given this question all my spare “Arti’think” time this week, and my best answer to date is 

Education gave us myth, metaphor and the MoE, and saved us from knowing ourselves.

It is not just the education system - I reckon that all systems suffer from an excess of subordination.  In bending, crimping, editing, and folding the complex whole so that it fits into a “system” we dominate and subordinate the unknowable into something less – into a representation of the whole.  With apologies to Bob Eberle - we substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to other purposes, eliminate, and rearrange the whole into something we can tolerate. 

And when it comes to kids and learning “tolerate” is not good enough.

I have a folder in My Documents labelled Wunderkammern.  It is my “personalised” cabinet of educational curiosity, and it features Wunderkammern about education and learning. 

This month my recommended Wunderkammern exhibit comes from Lucychili  who pointed me at Seeniraj Sivakumar’s fabulous “Raising an edifice” post on Idea Action Achievement for students in rural schools in India

A large number of students from rural schools, especially government schools, must enter the elite institutions every year. For that, we must set high standards in school education. The foundation must be strong enough if you are to raise an edifice.  Here is the blogger’s wish list. Some can be implemented immediately. Some may take years. All ideas need funds.

Seeniraj’s wish list for rural schools post is a profoundly moving for any educator who wants to make a difference to student learning outcomes.  It is also comprehensive and detailed, covering the New Zealand equivalent of,

ERO (Educational Review Office) Ko te Tamaiti te Pūtake o te Kaupapa 

27. There must be an auditing body to find out the needs of every school every year. A 360-degree analysis is a must for improvement. A mere inspection visit would not suffice. The audit should cover the areas such as physical infrastructure, laboratories, sports and games, quality of teaching etc. The auditor must be a caring person. He must also be an unbiased faultfinder. The recommendations should be implemented without compromise.

Mixing it with the community

18. The teacher-parent meet must happen at least once in fifteen days as far as the government schools are concerned. The private primary schools communicate with the parents through a calendar. Take a leaf out of their book.

Formative assessment

19.  The students must not be punished severely for growing long hair and nails, for late coming, and for scoring low marks. Some schools force the student to kneel down, out in the sun. Some schools tie a tuft of the hair with a rubber band. The words like “You are only too good for grazing a buffalo” should be strictly avoided. Only the parents must be informed on the progress of a kid. Or call the student’s faults to his attention indirectly. Nurture, don’t torture, a talent.

E learning

16. Bill Gates and Paul Allen learnt computers and programming languages in eighth grade. The year was 1968. All government schools in India must have, at the very least, two hundred computers for a thousand students. We are in A.D. 2007.

EHSAS clusters

8. The education departments of all states shall share their experiences with each other. For example, one can study how Kerala achieved the literacy rate of over ninety percent and emulate the feat in his jurisdiction.

And even refers to Post Occupancy Evaluations of Property Projects

26.  There is a dry brook behind a government school where I studied. The students, during recess, wet the brook en masse with straw-yellow spray. I hope the situation has changed now!

I couldn’t help but compare Seeniraj’s wish list and “All ideas need funds” rider with The Ministry of Education’s Statement of Intent 2007-2012 (SOI) and budget allocations.

All that  Education for New Times Diverse Differentiated Changing Social Roles Personalising Learning Globalisation Information and Communication Technologies Flexible Specialisation Creative Relevant Responsive Innovative Realising Youth Potential Excellence New Identities stuff

The introductory SOI statements from Hon Steve Maharey, Minister of Education, Hon Dr Michael Cullen, Minister for Tertiary Education, and Karen Sewell, Secretary for Education were just what I have been Tag Crowd waiting for.  Data is everything and nothing in analysis and i wanted to check out what the ability to create a frequency tag cloud from any text - to visualize their word frequency would do to critical analysis.

I hoped it might be more useful even than the ability to determine a blogger’s gender from the text in their post.   (Gender Genie will reveal why I didn’t burn my bra in the 60’s).

The tag crowds created from the three introductory statements in the MoE’s SOI - are interesting for what they emphasise and what they neglect

1.  “This government is committed to transforming New Zealand over the next decade”

The “WE ARE TRANSFORMING NEW ZEALAND”-  Tag Crowd analysis reveals that Hon Steve Maharey Minister of Education emphasises–“learning” (10) and “education” (9) over everything else.

2. “A top priority for the government is transforming the economy through a commitment to increasing the skills and knowledge of New Zealanders"

A more subdued “WE ARE TRANSFORMING THE ECONOMY” Tag Crowd analysis reveals that Hon Dr Michael Cullen, Minister for Tertiary Education, favours the words “tertiary”(14) and “education” (10) whilst “Learning” (3) hardly gets a mention

3.  "This Statement of Intent sets out how the ministry will deliver education’s contribution to the implementation of government themes, and on key ministerial priorities for education".

In contrast to her colleagues, Karen Sewell, Secretary for Education is measured rather than hyperbolic in her introduction.  Her “WE ARE DELIVERING EDUCATION’S CONTRIBUTION TO” introduction shows a Tag Crowd frequency favouring “education” (17) “ministry” (11) and the “system” (10). 

However, I am a little like Leigh in these things and prefer to think about the ideas within the text rather than any word count frequency data. 

So my punt is that the thinking in Sewell’s SOI introduction trumps the others.  Her “challenge of equity”, “challenge of urgency”, “challenge of 21st century learning” and “challenge of change” structure brings a clarity of purpose to the message missing from the first two introductions.  I also liked Sewell’s targeting of greater accountability and the inclusion of measures to ensure this.  It reminded me of the passion, commitment, and detail, evident in Seeniraj’s wish list for rural schools in India post. 

"...we must set high standards in school education. The foundation must be strong enough if you are to raise an edifice.“ Seeniraj Sivakumar 2007

All New Zealand’s children are entitled to the best education and we cannot be tolerant of failure where it affects the education of New Zealand’s children and young people.” Sewell 2007 

Sewell’s intro makes me hopeful of different answers for Mumford's inspired questions - What has education given us? And what has it saved us from?

Comments

[botts]

an algorithm that determines gender on the basis of text used is an interesting concept. historically, authors have proved on countless occasions that even the most discerning readers are unable to detect gender from text... anybody remember "henry handel richardson", a woman who couldn't get published as a woman but had much more luck passing herself off as a man.....

btw i actually had arti pegged as someone of the bra burning gender after my first read of her blog, but it took me many months to then confirm my suspicions.

all this of course brings me to wonder whether the systems that drive education are in fact not unlike the gender algorithm, in that the system attempts to determine the needs of the individual learner based on collections of data and mathematical formulae derived from the government's desired, long term, economic aims. when the truth of the matter would be more accurately ascertained by sitting down and actually asking students what they want to know and how they want to get that knowledge. by asking them about their hopes and dreams, about their fears and trepidations. by getting to know them as people rather than numbers.

/rant (again)

botts

[Artichoke]

Hey Botts i love this analogy - the MoE's current affection for personalisation (through e-Learning) as a rarked up "gender algorithm" -

I am beginning to suspect that "Putting the child or student at the center" is cynical and manipulative rhetoric.

You are right - no amount of psychometric data profiling against Government Themes and Ministerial Priorities of Economic Transformation, Families – Young and Old, and National
Identity can capture the complexity of the individual - just as no LMS, PLE, or elearning community will capture the needs of a young person mandated to experience the education system five days a week.