Teaching at a Crossroads

Posted on | April 16, 2008 | 22 Comments

Learning 2.0 is a term that has been used to denote the burgeoning set of possibilities in education around the emergence of social and other Web 2.0 technologies, and the profound implications of those developments for teaching and learning. It is an inadequate term in many ways, but useful shorthand nonetheless. These developments are asking hard questions of educationists in relation to their use of basic categories such as pedagogy, curriculum, teaching, learning and so on. At one level we can play the game of perceiving all such categories as universals, as fixed terms that have universal application in all times and in all circumstances. To play this game, however, leads us to make the mistake that many have made when they offer specious mantras such as:

“Education First, Technology Second.”

“Pedagogy must lead the technology.”

If we dissect this mindset we find a couple of contentious assertions:

….first, that the very essense of learning, and the various components that make up teaching and learning, are more or less unchanging – such categories can be seen as, in some sense, fixed theoretical and practical entities across time, culture and context;

….secondly, that technology is somehow subservient to pedagogy.

The reality, I believe, is that, throughout human history, that very essence we speak of has shifted and metamorphised considerably, and often, in response to changing economic and technological possibilities. It is an absolute truth that the technological basis of the society we inhabit will have a profound effect on the nature and form of education that can take place in that society. Indeed, new technologies can change what we mean by education because they change what it means to be educated. It is no more useful, in this context, to place ‘education before technology’ than it is to put ‘technology before education’.

Of course such shifts rarely occur suddenly, and even when they do, it can take a long time for the effects of these shifts to permeate all the interstices of society, every nook and cranny of the formal processes and institutions of education. That is why, in an age where technological development has changed the game in education, changed it to its core, the innately conservative nature of the formal institutions of education are recognizing such shifts only very slowly, and in some places hardly at all.

I feel we find ourselves at a juncture in which we are faced with a rather significant dilemma.

The dilemma arises out of the recognition that good teaching, and therefore good teachers, are essential for good education. Study after study tells us what we already know, that the most successful education systems worldwide can claim to have, not surprisingly, the best teachers. I might argue with some of the criteria used in many such reports to define success in a national education system, but let us leave those arguments for another time and accept the basic premiss for the moment.

Good teachers make a good education system. It just makes sense that this should be one, significant, factor in defining success across an education system.

But, in most education systems in most parts of the world, it can be argued that the teaching profession stands today between an increasingly strained and outdated form of education and the possibilities offered by Learning 2.0. The innate conservatism of teachers, this argument would opine, is the principal barrier to change.

Teachers will shout, of course, that it is the lack of vision of education leaders and of politicians and policy makers, with the consequent funding gap, that is to blame, since this is what leads to the current lack of training for teachers in the new kinds of education possible today, as well as, of course, to the inadequacy of the infrastructure and tools required to modernize. They are correct, of course, but I cannot help feeling that the conservatism of teachers and the conservatism of education leaders feed off each other – a cycle of thinking that leads to the fundamental error of: “We just need to do what we already do, but a little better.”

Very many teachers, of course, do not accept such conservative attitudes and lead the way in classrooms, and often beyond the classroom, in every part of the world. But they are few and far between as yet, and few of them are in positions to influence and inspire more than a handful of colleagues around them.

And while teachers meander into the future with their faces to the past, the very nature of what it means to be literate, to be educated, is shifting around them. The deeply social nature of the technologies and digital platforms available today, an ever-expanding set of tools that continue to offer new possibilities for self-expression and for collective expression almost on a daily basis, already puts in question many of the long-held assumptions that have been part and parcel of schooling for so long. The nature of what it means to know, the role of the teacher in the learning process, the relationship between teacher and learner, the diminishing importance of prescribed content within curricula, the inadequacy (some might argue, irrelevance) of the school building as a self-contained place within which learning is supposed to happen, the questionable efficacy of arbitrary ’standards’ to be tested over and over again during a young person’s school career – all of these and many other issues mean that teachers today are faced with a stark choice between an outmoded reality that, if sustained, will render school increasingly irrelevant to most children most of the time, and the new reality, one that recognises the major shifts brought about by the developments in Web technology in recent years.

The true failure of schooling can be seen in those children who do not want to be at school. Education should be about teaching children to want to learn, to want to know what they have to know, to want to know how to decide what it is important to know. If a school cannot teach children to want to learn, the school risks becoming irrelevant. And it will be to their teachers that children will look, do look, to help them make their experience in school an experience that will be of relevance to them throughout their lives as they strive to learn, unlearn and re-learn.

Teachers are at the crossroads – time to make the choice!

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Category: children, curriculum, education, epistemology, government, knowledge, learning, network learning, pedagogy, philosophy, platform, praxis, schooling, social technology, society, teaching, technology

Comments

22 Responses to “Teaching at a Crossroads”

Martin
April 16th, 2008 @ 9:31 am

Hurrah John! The ‘pedagogy is what’s important’ mantra, (or ‘the technology is irrelevant’ version), really gets my goat. I’ve heard it so many times and everyone nods their heads sagely. What it often means is ‘I don’t want to engage with technology so I’m dismissing it.’ As soon as I put the counter argument that often technology suggests and affords new ways of teaching/learning, I’m accused of being a technological determinist. To the point that I now start off saying ‘I’m a technological determinist’. I’m not really, I believe it’s a dialogue between the people and technology, but it seems to me that in order to avoid claims of technological determinism people go so far to the other extreme that they think the technology is irrelevant. Ask anyone working in the record industry, the newspaper business or the media if technology is irrelevant…
Ian Stuart
April 16th, 2008 @ 11:50 am

So true in so many levels.
I like the question which Ken Robinson asks, “Why did Shakespeare not write more novels?”. The reason he gives is that the culture and technology were not in place for novels. Drama and Sonnets were culturally acceptable as a lot of people couldn’t read. The technology to produce Mass produced books hadn’t been invented.
We, I feel, are at that crossroad you talk about.
Rebecca
April 16th, 2008 @ 12:49 pm

There is resistance in FE as well. The most frequent argument that I hear is that it takes too long to do, which I feel is a little short-sighted, particullaly as my experiments into this type of learning have been very positive. Its also unrealistic (forgive the mangling of Tolkien); you can fence yourself in, but you cannot forever fence IT out.
Martin Stewart-Weeks
April 17th, 2008 @ 2:20 am

Question – how do you have the discussion inherent in the analysis (which is pretty much right i think) with teachers? Can this discussion actually be had with teachers? Or perhaps only with a very few. For the most part, presumably the only other option is prolonged avoidance and denail followed by cataclysmic externally-imposed change that will sweep away the old order anyway.
John Connell
April 17th, 2008 @ 5:57 am

Martin – I immediately asked myself a couple of very similar questions the moment I posted this piece, and I started sketching a few points that I’m sure I will turn into a follow-up post soon. Apart from the kind of question you ask, the other one that come to mind is, how do we really define relevance in relation to schooling? Some of us speak or write blithely of the impending irrelevance of school, but it is a basic truth that schools and schooling are quite clearly not irrelevant to many of the system’s stakeholders. So…..some questions to ponder…..
Hilery
April 17th, 2008 @ 8:43 am

I’m reading a terrific book at the moment with the glorious title: ‘Proust and the Squid’ by Maaryanne Wolf which describes the ’story and science of the reading brain’. (No time to make a link – have to go to teach. Shame that stands in the way of my learning!!)
Wolf’s fundamental thesis is that because ‘we were never born to read’, our brains could only grasp the concept and skills of literacy because of their ‘enormous capacity to be shaped by experience’. ‘Our ancestor’s extraordinary ability to make new connections among its existing structures… this plasticity at the heart of the brain’s design forms the basis for much of who we are, and who we might become’.
Might I suggest that the same process is happening with our brains now, half a millenium after the invention of the printing press?
Bobby
April 17th, 2008 @ 3:32 pm

John, we should all challenge the “primacy of pedagogy” argument. The relationship between technology and teaching is not as simple as “teaching first”, since technology affects what, and how, things can be taught. But education is an oil tanker. It can’t simply be stopped and pointed in a new direction. There are no crossroads. All we can do is change direction over the long haul and we do that in small steps, every time we advocate more modern ways to teach and learn.
Neil Winton
April 17th, 2008 @ 11:27 pm

John,
This is so true. While I am a great believer in the idea that (as Ewan is wont to say) “It’s the teach, not the tech” I am also aware that, in some ways, the mantra is used as a sop to those who are resistant to change. All too often, we need to keep them on board if we are to move forward… and therein lies the rub…

The simple fact is that some of the 2.0 technologies allow us to work in a completely different way, and so they encourage and allow new ways of learning and teaching. Dare I say that these are ‘better’ ways of working? Maybe not, but in many cases 2.0 tools are more relevant to the pupils we teach in their own lives, and increasingly, in the ‘real world’ where they will need to find employment after school. Sometimes, it is the tech â€” rather than the teacher â€” that drives the change.

The meandering teacher is never going to see this until it is too late… not too late for them, but too late for the pupils they will have ‘taught’ in the meantime.
Jaye Richards
April 18th, 2008 @ 7:19 pm

I’m treating this discussion with a little more guarded caution. Though I agree with much of what you say, I still think we have to engage the majority of teachers with web 2.0 by showing them how to use them to enhance their work, and thus I think that this is putting the pedgogy before the tech. I do agree with the crossroads concept, and am continually frustrated by my colleagues resistance to change. I think the relationship between the ped and the tech is far more of a transactional process, as they both affect each other. This is how I reflect on each of my lessons – what are the pocesses that have gone on in class and how have these come about?

I think those of us who are digital evangelists nust be wary of falling into the optimist-rhetoric camp. We need to temper our enthusiasm with some good methodologically sound research. This, as much as anything may win the cynics over.
Mark
April 19th, 2008 @ 4:06 am

Hello John,

Sorry, but I see little here beyond rhetoric and generalisation, the sort of commentary that edubloggers really need to move beyond if they are to make a mainstream difference. I mean, “the very nature of what it means to be literate, to be educated, is shifting around them” – what did it used to mean? How has it really changed? How do new technologies “change what it means to be educated”? Is this an endorsement of connectivism, a theory that is yet to prove itself as a viable basis for framed education? Is connectivism suddenly a deterministic theory rather than a descriptive one? Also, is a Web 2.0-based education going to solve all educational woes? Are we even expecting too much of a system where success is more a matter of the student’s own social context than they way in which they are ‘educated’? There’s simply too much assumption underlying what you have posted here that lies beneath the surface. Are you assuming a ‘teacher-tells-all’ incumbent system? How accurate is this?

Again, sorry. I’ve read this sort of post too many times before, and each time I am frustrated at the way in which the honest and valuable efforts of teachers in today’s classrooms are perceived as being inadequate, incomplete or a waste of time because they are not perfect for all and do not embrace Web 2.0! Also, all too frequently, the benefits of our own ‘Web 1.0′ education are largely overlooked.

I’m looking for deeper commentary, research-based, self-critical, perhaps based on appreciative inquiry. Is there any edublogger who does this?

Sorry to vent in your comments!

Best regards,

Mark.
Jaye Richards
April 19th, 2008 @ 2:51 pm

Interesting comments Mark – I’m trying to do this type of research at the moment. Quantitative and classroom based, that is. As a web 2.0 user though, its going to need a fair bit of reflexive analysis and this takes time…

Please don’t write off web 2.0 stuff yet..
David Gilmour
April 20th, 2008 @ 8:43 pm

Unlike Mark, I think you do make some important points here. In particular, I agree that new technologies do “change what it means to be educated”. If education is the process of preparing people to join a society – I’ll spare you the mantra – then it must follow that as society changes, so must what it means to be educated.
During the 1990s, after PCs had become ubiquitous, my workplace recruited many staff who were “women returners”. It was striking how disorientated many of these women were by the complete change in the office world since they had taken career breaks. At that time all that was required was to get up to speed on email, spreadsheets and word processing. The same things were being done, but in electronic ways. Now, though, as the world of work continues to change, a completely new global, interconnected workplace is emerging and the education system needs to prepare people for that. This isn’t just about using search engines in class, or playing on social sites at home, to develop superficial, functional competence. The students in our schools need to develop a structural understanding of the tools available, what they can and can’t do, and how to use them effectively to extend their own capabilities.
Bryan Gregg
April 20th, 2008 @ 9:55 pm

Fair point there Mr. Gilmour:

“The students in our schools need to develop a structural understanding of the tools available, what they can and can”t do, and how to use them effectively to extend their own capabilities”

but remember that appropriate CPD needs to be in place in order that teachers themselves can at least, if not facilitate, then learn about these emergent technologies (if you’re speaking about, for example, programming, coding, etc)…it’s all very well to consider onself a lifelong learner and think “yeah, I can kind of teach myself this as I go and pass it on to my class/students because I’m keen and an ‘evangelist’ ” but the quality has to be there (in terms of what one – as the teacher – understands) in order to really help shape and guide students’ experiences.

And yes, I can appreciate the “experiential learning” or “learning as problem solving” argument that could be presented but teachers themselves must be armed (if that is the right term) with the materials (knowledge?) to support – and perhaps by definition extend – the work of their classes.

Just a thought. Me? I love ICT by the way
Bill Kerr
April 22nd, 2008 @ 7:40 am

I agree with Marks swimming against the tide comment and have left a follow up comment on his blog . Might be worthwhile John given your self critical follow up in comment 5: “how do we really define relevance in relation to schooling?”

Another issue I had was the argument that is good teachers that oppose web2.0, ie. this progression of logic:
1) many teachers are web2.0 reticent – true
2) good schools are those which have good teachers – true
3) therefore good teachers are reticent about web2.0

Point 3 might be true but it doesn’t really follow from points 1 and 2, it would need to be established independently of those points
John Connell
April 22nd, 2008 @ 9:31 am

Interesting logic, Bill, but more than a little circular? Much depends on one’s definition of a ‘good’ school or a ‘good’ education system – you will note that I added a personal caveat in terms of current understandings of how ‘good’ might be defined in this context. Of course, at the end of the day, we all must make any such assessments based on our own working assumptions.

And I am working on a post around the question of relevance – coming soon, I hope.
Robert Hughes, Jr.
April 22nd, 2008 @ 12:47 pm

I sometimes find it useful to think about the impact of technology on learning and the types of changes that need to occur in schooling, but recalling the impact that the invention of the printing press had on the expansion of books in the world. The printed book is only 500 years old (the WWW perhaps 15). The advent of the printed book transformed teaching and learning. Few teachers today would expect to teach without this special “technology.” Yet I am also reminded that despite 500 years of trying there are still significant numbers of people around the world who have not adapted to the “changing nature of learning” around them. It is clearly a long and complicated process!
Greg Whitby
April 23rd, 2008 @ 1:42 am

John, it’s great to know we’re all having the same conversation. As difficult as it is, we owe it to our students to name the problem and deal with how we remain relevant in a Web 2.0 world.

Teachers will maintain the status quo unless they are challenged, engaged and enabled not as individuals but as part of their professional learning community. I also think it’s critical in the ‘educational change process’ that good theory informs good practice.
Bill Kerr
April 23rd, 2008 @ 2:18 am

hi john,

I reread your post following our discussion at my blog. Here is how I see it, an update from my previous superficial comment:

part 1: some broad generalisations, of philosophical nature, which I agree with ->>
* humans / technology is a dialectic, don’t artificially separate
* everything changes, the notion of fundamentals is dubious

part 2: description of the blame game for schools being stuck and not changing enough.
teachers resist Learning2.0 – agree
teachers blame admin and politicians – agree
leads to avoidance of change where change is desirable – agree

OK, as you say, these are generalisation and as such over simplifications but do provide a macro level description of something that is happening or rather, not happening – even though I would focus the blame more on the admin and politicians, as in the al upton blog closure issue – hardly an encouragement for those who want to initiate change at the grass roots (but I’m not arguing with you here)

so far: you have provided a philosophical framework for the need for change an analysis of a reason that change is blocked (the blame game)

At this point I would observe that the philosophical framework is an argument for continual change (I agree) but not an endorsement of Learning2.0 as something of particular importance. I can agree with your philosophical points here 100% but evaluate Learning2.0 differently.

part 3: you have a really nice flowing sentence beginning with “The nature of what it means to know …” describing some of the problems and issues in schools. Those points are valid but need more discussion IMO. I’m serious when I say it’s a great sentence but also this particular description of the problem is written from the framework that Learning2.0 is the solution or more precisely that Learning2.0 is the only or the main solution, the only player in the main game.

Your final points are that many students find school irrelevant and that Learning2.0 is the answer.

My critique here is that this blog taken in isolation from your other work (which I have not read) is magic.

For example, you introduce the key sentence I referred to in this way. I need to quote this whole sentence:
“The deeply social nature of the technologies and digital platforms available today, an ever-expanding set of tools that continue to offer new possibilities for self-expression and for collective expression almost on a daily basis, already puts in question many of the long-held assumptions that have been part and parcel of schooling for so long”

This is just about totally ahistorical – when you say, “puts in question many of the long-held assumptions that have been part and parcel of schooling for so long” it sounds like you are saying that everything in the garden was rosy and perceived to be rosy until Learning2.0 came along. Well, I now know that you know this to be not true.

I did debate these issues with George Siemens in February 07, my paper is here , where I do attempt some sort of historical evaluation of the new technologies – and have been pursuing those issues since then in my blog and the learning evolves wiki.
Bill Kerr
April 23rd, 2008 @ 2:23 am

sorry, corrections to some bad links in my last comment:
discussion with john at my blog
learning evolves wiki
John Connell
April 23rd, 2008 @ 1:42 pm

Superb resume of your thinking here, Bill – thank you. I’ll take some time to think about it and get back to you.
John
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