The long tail cometh in education….but slowly!

Posted on | January 7, 2007 | 2 Comments

Despite being well aware of Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail” theory, and being largely persuaded by it, I had not actually read his book until I picked it up in Waterstone’s over the Christmas and New Year break. I haven”t read all of it yet (and probably never will – I almost never read the whole of any book other than a good novel) but I have read enough to wonder to what extent his theory might or might not apply to education.

The simplistic view would be to see the long tail in curricular terms: the interactive Web means that, in theory, every learner should be able to learn what they want when they want, without having to worry about the structural constraints that are inherent in any formal system of education. But this doesn”t work – as yet – in reality. Why not?

The reason is that Anderson’s theory is most clearly demonstrated in the relatively uncluttered market for a specific range of goods (music, books, etc), but it cannot work in quite so simplistic a fashion in the complex social, political and regulatory context of a state education system. That long-tail graph that Anderson has made so familiar is intersected, in education, by successive barriers: the legal structures that comprise a compulsory state education system, the inertia-laden force of the teaching “profession”, religious structures in some places, the limiting factors inherent in the “it was good enough for me” attitudes to schooling of so many parents, and the constant political bandwagoning that state education has to endure.

The long tail can steamroller old markets but it cannot steamroller old state regulation of education.

This does not, of course, invalidate Anderson’s theory in the educational context: far from it! It does, however, make it all the more imperative that those who are pushing the whole Learning 2.0 agenda (I know!…there must be a better shorthand…) do not permit themselves to view the struggle in simplistic, hippyish, “love will win out” terms – they must be willing to engage pragmatically with the ingrained realities of the state apparatus of schooling if they are to see the “new educational narrative” come to the fore and begin to take root. They must also be willing to gain ground gradually, and to concede ground occasionally when it is tactically advantageous to do so.

The workings of Anderson’s long tail in education is one of the reasons why the notion of the big, centrally-determined, all-inclusive curriculum has had its day – but a range of resilient forces is still very much in existence that will be unable or unwilling to concede this inevitability. Greg Whitby has spoken of the need for “distributive leadership” throughout education, and he and I and many others have also pushed the notion of the continuously negotiable curriculum. These are the areas in which Anderson’s long tail can begin to make ground in education, and can begin to break down the forces of inertia that inhabit, to varying degrees, every system of formal education across the world.

Technorati Tags: longtail, chrisanderson, stateeducation, curriculum, negotiation, distributive leadership

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