This week in CCK08 covers the topics of power, control, validity, and authority in distributed environments and I’m quite interested to see where the discussion takes us; especially in light of yesterday’s excitement in the Moodle forum.
The week began with an authoritarian decision to force everyone in the course to subscribe to the week’s forum thread – whether they wanted to or not. Downes’ preliminary post to the thread read as follows:
Moodle offers me the option to ‘force everyone to be subscribed to this forum’.
Given that this week we are talking about Power, Authority, and Control… what did you think about that?
And if you are one of the many who simply did not subscribe to new weeks’ forums as they came up… why not?
My interpretation is the move was obviously intended to make a point and instigate some discussion – and in that sense it was quite effective. In my case it’s led to a very interesting, philosophical train of thought that I’d like to explore here.
Statement of Philosophy
This began with the following thought:
Power and authority are not things to be taken, but given. Their source lay not in the hands of those who claim to possess it; but rather in the minds of those who relinquish their own internal power and authority. Control, real control, is an illusion.
Upholding an Ideology
Rather than grow irate about some sort of violation of my personal space, after chuckling about the irony of Downes’ example, my next immediate thought was “You think you can force me to read these forum threads, do you? I don’t think so! Let’s find a way around this.”
I know I’m not alone here, but I don’t react particularly well to people telling me I must do something. I am, among other things, a left-wing, open source sympathiser after all, which means I don’t like to have pressure exerted on me – especially arbitrary pressure – nor technological decisions made on my behalf without consultation, or indeed in contradiction to my wishes. So my mind immediately turned to how best to fend off the unwanted email.
Ultimately I opted for a relatively simple Gmail filter that took any message from the forum, tagged it as “CCK08″, and immediately archived it – thus bypassing the Inbox completely. It wasn’t so much about a lack of interest in the thread so much as an ideological stance against an intrusion on my personal freedoms. I’ll probably go back and reread the responses later – in the meantime I choose to protest on principle.
On Power and Authority
Having ventured down that philosophical path I was then brought to consider the concept of combating authority and exertion of power. This is where my philosophy statement originated from.
We live in a world where physical prowess and military might often determines victory, and yet this does not equate to authority – and especially not validity. Might does not make right, as they say.
From much a less violent standpoint, our culture has also traditionally cast teachers and educators in a role of power, control and influence over students – with learners portrayed at a lower, more subservient level in the hierarchy. The arrival of the digital age has seen this notion emerge online in the form of the Learning Management System – which as the name implies, seeks to manage learning. Perhaps not surprisingly the LMS has been largely embraced by institutions, as it is in keeping with the commonly held socio-educational perspectives on the roles and position of administrators, teachers and students.
Importantly too, throughout the traditional schooling process something much more fundamental has occurred, and this is the conditioning of learners to look for direction, guidance and personal validation externally rather than internally. We are taught to listen, memorize, recite, and importantly, to obey.
The result is a student who needs a teacher, a curriculum and a classroom in order to learn, rather than realising the power to do so lay within themselves, and their fellow students; that the world around them is filled with learning opportunities and networks that need only be seen and embraced, but instead know only to focus on the teacher in the front of the classroom.
Without knowing, students begin their learning journey by making it someone elses, and giving authority to those who would not have it otherwise.
The Illusion
The concept of control is an illusion, because ultimately it implies lack of choice on the part of the individual. This is incorrect. Politicians in Democratic countries would not be in power were it not for choice. Using proprietary software is a choice. Attending formal schooling is a choice. Reading the threads in the Moodle forum is a choice, and indeed so too is having an account in the Moodle installation at all. Like all choices, we can change our minds; this is where the true power and control lay.
Certainly choices aren’t always easy, but the power to make them is ultimately in our hands – the critical element in this is that we realise it.
Hi Mike,
A really nice post. The apocryphal story, of course, is about students so conditioned to authority that they assumed that the guy wearing the “question authority” button was actually an authority on questions:-) And yes on choice– I’d take it a step farther and say that not only do we need be aware of and exercise our choices, but also that we need to ask ourselves what choices we want to preserve and create now and for the future. Hopefully, choices don’t and won’t come from a small bucket of default options.
Hi Mike, Thanks for your insights.
I just visited your blog. I echoed so strongly with your view that I said, wow! it’s amazing that though I was educated in a different country and was brought up with a different culture from yours, I realised that there are so much views on power and authority in common between us. I don’t know why!
I have this dream of looking for full control of my learning some 30 years ago. I resisted unwarranted power exerted on me, especially when it related to my learning goals and strategies. I had started the journey in questioning the legitimacy of power and control exerted by the teachers for a long time. And I found that learning was in the control of the institution and the teachers back in the 70′s to 90′s. I was surprised to find that the only person who could assess and grant me a pass was the “lecturer or teacher”. I started to reflect why the educational system was structured like that, and that why learners were to serve the teacher, and not the other way round. Now, I have got my questions answered. As a teacher, I realised the importance of sharing of power and empowerment of learners, in learning and assessment. It’s still not too late to support our fellow learners to achieve their goals and meet their needs.
I have made further comments on http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com
Renewed thanks for your great post.
Thanks for this post which has been a great basis to start me off thinking about power and connectivism. I’m still not sure what I think about all the issues, but I am sure that one way to ‘empower’ students is to get out of closed learning management systems.