Control and more Control

Posted on | March 15, 2008 | 1 Comment

“The great mistake we educationists make is to suppose that schools are about education. It is not so…they are about control.”

So said RF Mackenzie, and they are words I have quoted before on this blog and many times in talks around the world. Anyone who harbours any doubts about the truth in his words should think about the events this week around the demise of Al Upton’s miniLegends blog and the resignation of Jabiz Raisdana, both of which I wrote about yesterday. It seems I’m ending the week on a series of negatives – that is a pity.

How many teachers out there might hope to have their students write words such as these about them:

“Although I never liked writing a lot, you made me see a different side of writing as to where I could let my thoughts spill out onto a piece of paper and then suddenly you made my thoughts turn into a huge lively botanical garden. Although we probably don”t agree on a lot of political ideas and such, I thought that you were the best, easy going, fun, expressive teacher I have ever had. My days without you throughout eigth grade will never be the same. When I first saw you I thought that you were some loony computer guy that was inspired about how cool programs are on the computer, but now I look at you as a man who didn”t care about grades but on how we could succeed throughout life, a man who encourages growing awareness on all the world, someone who knows that everyone is ignorant including himself but tries his very best to find out more, a person that strives for cooperation, not competition, and last but not least a man that knows exactly how he wants to influence people.”

And how many teachers out there could hope that parents and fellow teachers would write this about them:

“As a parent I would have climbed over hot coals to have my kids in your class Al and to have been part of the miniLegends. As a teacher I was envious of the real world experiences your kids were getting and the careful way that they were exposed to that world. As an educational technologist I sent many people to the miniLegends blog to learn how blogging can be a fully integrated part of the school curriculum.”

The conservative nexus of educational bureaucracies, parents, media and politicians is feeling threatened by the shifts in practice being taken forward by real teachers such as Al and Jabiz. If we are not, yet, convincing them about the benefits of a kind of education that better fits the times we find ourselves in, it simply means we have to work all the harder to do so.

Technorati Tags: al upton, minilegends, jabiz raisdana, conservative nexus

Category: Web 2.0, authority, censorship, children, curriculum, education, government, ict, innovation, learning, pedagogy, politics, praxis, safety, social technology, teaching, trust

Comments

One Response to “Control and more Control”

Mike Ball
March 16th, 2008 @ 11:30 am

Control and more control.
“The great mistake we educationists make is to suppose that schools are about education. It is not so…they are about control.”
So said RF Mackenzie, and they are words I have quoted before on this blog and many times in talks around the world. Anyone who harbours any doubts about the truth in his words should think about the events this week around the demise of Al Upton’ miniLegends blog and the resignation of Jabiz Raisdana, both of which I wrote about yesterday. It seems I”m ending the week on a series of negatives – that is a pity.
Negatives.
Hmm.
Realism.
An understanding of the world we live in.
Control is part of the political order.
Not to be forgotten.
Needs to be taught.
Lessons from history.
Many and various.
Democracy only useful when you’ve got control.
Oaths of allegiance.
Stifle dissent.
More recently.
Fingerprints.
Acceptable now, just to borrow a book from a school library.
More recently
CCTV Cameras in schools.
DNA databases.
Primary children from 5. You can tell!
ID Cards.
Public sector workers get them first.
19 pieces of information just to get on a plane.
Masquerading as keeping people safe.
Keeping Control.
Global Warming.
The concern is the breakdown.
But they hope they’ve go it covered?
It’s the real politic.
Will it work?
Democracy could be summed up as the freedom
to be controlled I guess.
The ongoing battle is the freedom v the control.