To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
Audioslave Be Yourself
I love the comments on the Bogong Moth post from Roberto, Lucychili, Josie, Ailsa and Stephen. They have helped me unpack and clarify the “flocking sentiment” of edu_bloggers attending conferences" better than defaulting to any Oscar Wilde quote could.
"Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
Their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." Oscar Wilde
Stephen’s "networks and groups "comments saw me deliciously distracted - imagining ways in which I might enhance the conditions of value for interaction rather than experience – the “Back Propagation and Boltzmann associationism” in my life. And if it does not present an impossible internal contradiction, imagining how we might enhance conditions for Back Propagation and Boltzmann associationism in the dialogic design of our classroom, staffroom and conference interactions.
“1. Hebbian associationism. People are connected by common interests. Affinity groups, religions, communities of practice - these are all examples of similarity-based association.
2. Accidental, or proximity-based, associationism. People who are proximate are connected. You may have nothing to do with your neightbour, but you're connected. The mind associates cause and effect because one follows the other (Hume). Retinal cells that are beside each other become associated through common connections.
3. Back-propagation. Existing structures of association are modified through feedback. Complain about the 'me too' posts, for example, and they decline in number. Adversity creates connections.
4. Boltzmann Associationism. Connections are created which reflect the most naturally stable configuration. The way ripples in a pond smooth out. This is how opposites can attract - they are most comfortable with each other. Or, people making alliances of convenience.
Two of these forms are qualitative. They are based on direct experience. They are not critical or evaluative. They tend to lead to groups.
The other two - Back Propagation and Boltzmann associationism - are reflective. They are created through a process of interaction, and not simply through experience. They are critical or evaluative. They tend to lead to networks.” Stephen Downes
I was particularly taken by the idea of connecting for stability – it explained the attraction I have for people whose ideas I reject,– I love to be undermined, to be made uncertain and actively seek individuals who can challenge the ideas I hold most dear. Deep friendships result from adversarial difference and respect.
And then I read Teemu’s post - Do not localise make your own - and I sensed another perspective, another connection on the reasons for my initial disappointment. Teemu, in response to David Wiley’s “Few Framing Thoughts – About Localization and Learning” in the Open Education 2007 conference, challenged the assertion “that content is educational infrastructure and for this reason localizing open educational resources is important when we try to expand global access to education.” He argued that “Content is infrastructure only when it is made locally. The key is not localizing some existing content but doing unique local content. “
Teemu helped me see that edu bloggers posting on conferences are too often simply “localising existing content” rather than making links from the conference to "unique local content". And as such cannot be seen to develop infrastructure.
Stephen’s comments made me focus on the ways in which an edu_conference might enhance (or betray) the conditions of value for “interaction” versus “experience”. And this led me to re-read something Adam Lefstein recommended at ULearn06 The Pedagogy of The Interhuman Alexander M. Sidorkin University of Washington
Sidorkin argues that
The main paradox of the interhuman is that we cannot just get together to relate to each other. As Buber noticed, we must instead become partners in a living event. Consequently, the event must be present first. But ironically, almost any event of our social life is so challenging that we have to band together in a rigid group in order to cooperate in coping with the challenge. We cannot relate without some reason, and the reason makes us unable to communicate.
We come together to work, and the demands of work cast us in a work institution. We gather in a school, and schooling lays its heavy hand on our ability to see each other as humans. Even having fun, if taken as a goal, handicaps true dialogue. Yet when we try just to build a relation, it reeks of falsehood and boredom. Now, in nurturing communities people get together as if they wanted to work, or to solve some problem. In reality they are looking for an excuse to be together, to experience the interhuman.
We educators, teachers, and parents take the job of upbringing too seriously. Schooling should, in reality, just be an excuse for human beings to get together. What we really should do is to give ourselves fully to the children, to catch that simple moment of direct encounter with a child, and just hold on there. As I mentioned, the curious Third will soon be knocking at our door, and we will let her in. If we do it persistently enough, we will discover that our multi-voiced selves start resonating. It happens because we will have some common people and shared events in that flock of ghosts we bring into a conversation. We will develop a community that does not limit our freedom more than we want to allow.
It all makes me wonder if the best outcomes for interaction (and Downes’ networking) will come from those edu_conferences where we don’t take the conference itself or the inherent power hierarchies of keynoters, spotlighters, presenters and attendees too seriously.
Conferences where we give ourselves fully to the first person we meet by the coffee urn, or in the smokers hideout, at the conference dinner, or outside in the conference venue lobby who challenges our thinking, disagrees or offers feedback – where this moment of direct encounter (that we hold onto), attracts others – attracts Sidorkins curious third, and fourth and fifth other … Conferences “Where to be yourself is all that you can do”.
What would we blog about then?
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