I’m quite interested in the history of education myself. It’s not an area I’m an expert in, so perhaps this is a homework assignment I can give myself.

As to the question of molding the citizenry, I guess that depends on whether you think people need molding in the first place; and for that matter whether, in the absence of control measures, people will be inherently cooperative with one another, exploit one another, or be somewhere in the middle.

As for standardized testing, my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is that people have disputed the objectivity of these sorts of tests, saying they can be inherently biased depending on who designs the tests (be it due to factors of culture, ethnicity, gender or something else). Given the diversity of society, how can the standardization of testing NOT benefit one demographic more than another?

I’m not trying to suggest it’s done this way on purpose, merely that it’s an unavoidable consequence of trying to apply a common template to a population of individuals who are inherently diverse.

Goes back to knowledge and the perception of knowledge being a matter of perspective I think.

Very tricky questions I tried not to get into a discussion on semantics and my interpretation of language here, but as it turned out I couldn’t avoid it LOL

First though, I think the short answer to your question “What does a good job look like in a more adaptive connective school system?” is “One that the individual is satisfied with.”

This of course leads to the question of “what satisfies the individual?”. I think there are several points here – at least to me – and those are the notions of and/or need for:

- Personal relevance of and sense of ownership for the subject matter (e.g. a curiosity or vested interest in)

- Capacity to evaluate and self-assess results and performance (e.g. Am I able to do what I want to do, or do I understand what I’m trying to understand)

- Willingness to make changes and pursuit improvements (e.g. What can I do to learn more about this and/or improve)

Providing these things are in place (there maybe others but these are the ones that come to mind), I think a cycle of action will be in place to keep the individual motivated to continue to delve deeper into the subject matter and/or keep trying. In fact I’d argue you’d have far better results in the long run if learners see a tangible relevance to them – there would be an inherent interest in assuring they achieve the best results, since it was something they decided they want to learn.

Regarding the definition of the industrial model as one of offering “a means to assess value and efficiency of the school, ” I guess the first question or perhaps issue in that sort is who determines or dictates value, because ultimately value is a matter of perspective. Are we looking at personal value, institutional value, social value, cultural value, global value, etcetera. I also note this definition adopts an inherently institutional-centric view, which doesn’t necessarily translate to a quality learning experience for the individual.

If I were to go into a school in Japan, for example, and teach according to what is acceptable behavior in a Western Culture I would be encouraging the development of skills that might be valuable and significant to me and yet might be completely out of sync with those of the local culture. So in that instance who’s judgment of value is “correct”?

What I think is something that’s important to know may be completely irrelevant or unimportant to you and vice versa. So by relying on a external sources of judgement to determine value or relevance you almost immediately start undermining the sense of personal relevance and therefore ownership, and placing the interests of the organisation or central figure over those of the individual.

As a result the willingness to self-assess is lower, and so too a lower vested interested in pursuing changes and improvement. So the cycle of action and motivation is much lower, and I’d argue the effectiveness of the exercise is much less for all parties involved.

Besides if knowledge is indeed distributed across a network (as Connectivism says), and the quality of the knowledge directly relates to the depth and diversity of the nodes within the network, then it is in the best interests of the members of the network to have as many perspectives on value represented as possible.

Secondly regarding efficiency, to me that’s a very slippery slope because depending on how the efficiency-gains were approached it might result in limiting or preventing learning opportunities, development of deeper thinking skills, etcetera. I think the value of efficiency is less a concern of the learner, and more a concern of the institution – or particularly of industry. So once again we’re undermining the sense of relevance and ownership for the learner to pursuit the interests of the school or industry.

http://brains.parslow.net/node/1474

Wow, this post got a bit more attention than I was expecting. Thanks very much for all the thought-provoking comments. I don’t think I’ll manage to give them all the attention they deserve tonight, but here are my initial thoughts.

A colleague and friend of mine brought up this post on the way to work today, sounding somewhat concerned about what I was suggesting and seemingly thinking I mean to do away with the institution of education entirely. So for the record I thought might clarify my position by adapting a quote from Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience“:

“…to speak practically and as a [Learner], unlike those who call themselves no-[School] men, I ask for, not at once no [School], but at once a better [School]. Let every man make known what kind of [School] would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”

My interpretation of Thoreau is that beneath the antagonistic stance he exhibits in the first three quarters of the essay, he also has an equally passionate admiration and love for the United States; it is the failings of government that earn his contempt. So it goes with my perspective towards the difference between the fundamental idea of education and the failings of existing educational processes – and in particular the external mandates that impact and constrain these process.

As Karen says, much of the realities of a teacher’s circumstances are outside of their realm of control – so there are many levels of administrative expectations and governmental bureaucracy to be faced. In the case of the government of Thoreau’s essays, the source of the malady that affected the government – and arguably continues to do so – was not attributed to a single source, but many. It would seem the same complexities apply to the challenges of formal education.

My partner was a teacher and educational designer for many years, and echoed Karen’s sentiments, saying something to the effect of:

“There is so much material crammed into the required curriculum these days that there is virtually no time left for flexibility on the part of the teacher. Teacher’s can’t risk the class falling behind because of the repercussions from the State regarding existing classroom benchmarks.”

This must place teachers – especially progressive ones – in a very frustrating situation. Yet in my view this is even more reason to push back and challenge current policy. This notion leads me to the next quote from Thoreau:

“…it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.”

For those of us who believe the course of education needs to change, it seems to me that the most important things that we can do to affect this change are to trust our beliefs, remain vigilant in our cause, realise that each of our contributions are singularly important in their own right, and maintain the hope that so long as we enact the changes we want to see in education we will eventually realise the goal.

Cheers,

Mike

Radical? Yes. But at least you have the cojones to call a spade a spade.

Power. Control. Authority. Coercion. This is what much of the education system is still about. And it’s these terms which are strangely missing from many of the discussions about “progressive” education.