Can New Meanings of Knowledge Change Education?

A wise man once told me average minds talk about people, good minds talk about events, and great minds talk about ideas.

So here’s an idea that I’m not sure what to do with or what it means, but I needed to get it out to somebody and that somebody is you.

I’ve recently resigned from my job as a result of who I am, how I teach, and my views of the value of learning and knowledge. It’s the life of a non-tenured teacher. No worries though, as it seems to have opened up my mind to ideas which were previously locked away in the security that is a steady job.

I just wrote a term paper for a grad school class, and in it I came across the following table titled, “Learning Over Time.” (see attached). It comes from a paper from some guys at Harvard. “Learning: Peering Backward and Looking Forward in the digital era.” (http://db.tt/tNDhUPN). I’ve not read it all, but the story told in the table is one that I don’t feel many are aware of; Knowledge and its powerful capabilities. The paper itself, also has aspects which are critical to this story. I’ll let the table speak for itself, but you can see the major shifts as knowledge acquisition has evolved over the centuries. History is important to this story, because to fully understand where we are now and where we are going, we need to see where we’ve been. Few have this awareness.

Further influencing my thoughts was a piece of Chomsky’s I just read, Human intelligence and the environment. http://chomsky.info/talks/20100930.htm. He basically posits the question that human intelligence is a lethal mutation, and we are irrational when it comes to making decisions that could potentially harm the next generation. You really need to read it though as everyone reads and interprets the world differently.

So let’s see if I can wrap this into a coherent pitch…Knowledge and its powers have been evolving ever since the dawn of literacy. This has changed the lives of everyone on the planet. From who can learn, where they learn, what they learn, and the dominant media that influences the culture. Basically the column headings of the “Learning Over Time” table.

Today, we are entrenched in the political environment and therefore educational environment that standardization is the best method for all. This is folly and leads to atrocities in what we do to kids in schools. For an example of one of the many stories relating to this that I know of, see here: http://youtu.be/JyljNAqAZ40. This control over and power given to factual knowledge reins supreme in most educational settings. Everyone is held accountable, and for what? Some Neil Postman fits in here to: Technolopoly, End of Education (God of Economic Utility), Entertaining Ourselves to Death. The real irony of the whole matter is that once we have all of these test scores, that actually measure very little, we don’t even do anything in education productive with it: http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/data-driven-instruction-and-the-practice-of-teaching/.

So, I feel we’re at an epistemological “tipping point” or paradigm shift in regards to knowledge. The world is changing. It’s in its infancy, and many of the dominant systems that once had control over that knowledge are becoming obsolete and detrimental as we reach the pinocle of standardization….high-stakes tests for students and more recently for teachers (“value-added”). So as people in this culture/society begin to see, if they are allowed to, the new possibilities that Web 2.0 technologies are affording us, a new more individualized, relevant, constructivist, authentic, real-world education is possible. Knowledge can be social, collaborative, communicated, and viewed differently by everyone, but yet still appreciated and valued.

So the film I’m envisioning in my head tells this story. I honestly don’t feel a lot outside of select educational circles know this story and I feel its value to everyone is immense. I feel big concerns such as the environment, poverty, out of control consumerism, DIRT & PLASTIC, are all symptoms of a an educational system that is inherently not prepared to help humankind perceiver into the future and continue on the beautiful experience that is life.   

I’ll end with the conclusion of my 15 page paper which puts more of a face on this story. I’ll make it available  if anyone is curious. It was written in two days, but I still like it.

I’d like to conclude with a story to wrap up where I’ve been and hopefully gone in this paper. I
realize my own limitations in this paper may be somewhat obvious to someone more versed in the field
of knowledge epistemologies, technology in education, and purpose in education, yet, I feel that my
own construction of this paper has illustrated my thinking and feelings of what is sadly occurring in
schools today as this paradigm shift is beginning.
I was recently in a computer lab with my class and a student who I’d had the semester before
was sitting at a nearby computer. I’ve come to know this student quite well through formal and informal
situations. I know she works extremely hard at her job virtually every night. I know she
has a fondness for animals that goes well beyond most. I know that she has low self esteem and a self-
consciousness about her appearance. And lastly I know that she couldn’t write a coherent essay about a
topic such as censorship, which she was asked to do by a language arts teacher, at or above a middle
school writing level. Still, here she was. Attempting to get the answer to the question, ‘How is
censorship affecting our society today?’ Her first and only attempt at answering the question, typing it
into Google. When her results came back, she felt flustered and confused. She had never been taught
how to conduct such a search. She’d never been given the tools to look for multiple sources that attempt
to answer the same question with different perspectives. She’d never been asked or shown how to
organize those ideas into a manner in which she could communicate and attempt to make sense of. So
ultimately she was lost and upset. Her ability to communicate her own knowledge of the word
censorship and its impacts on the society today where lost. Taken away from her by an educational
system that never told her that sometimes there are no “right” answers. Taken away from her by an
educational system that seemed to only value how she filled in a bubble on a multiple choice exam.
Taken away from her by an educational system that never taught her that her view of the world matters
and her experiences in the world matter and she has the right to express those feelings in ways that are
comprehensible to her.
A very Orwellian view of the world is depicted to me when I reflect on examples of information
overload and disengagement such as this. I have more stories. Questions by students ranging from
‘Why do we have to learn this?’ to ‘Why can’t we use the Internet on the test?’ Far too often I too find
myself asking the same types of questions. When will a system that does so much harm to so many
people take a look at the world which surrounds it and realize that there are a new and profoundly
different ways to go about doing what its doing. When and if this is ever realized, will be  a day I hope to be standing at the forefront screaming ‘FINALLY!’

So, am I preaching to the choir here, or is this a story that needs to be told?

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