Coup de Grâce? A work in progress

Posted on | July 9, 2008 | 5 Comments

What is the mainstream in education?

Despite the seeming diversity of social, cultural and political influences on educational policies and practices across the globe, the received wisdom around what constitutes a sound education system is, I would suggest, pretty similar from one country to another. While the structure of schooling can vary considerably from place to place, few if any national systems deviate very far from those models of schooling that seek to transfer a centrally-defined canon of knowledge from one generation to the next. The detail of any particular canon may change from time to time, and certainly differ from country to country, but the aim remains the same: to decide nationally or regionally what people need to know in order to serve society and the economy, to devise the necessary curriculum along with appropriate content, and then to train teachers to pass on that knowledge in as efficient a manner as can be achieved.

It would be difficult to typify any one pedagogy as mainstream since any good teacher and any good school tends to deploy a range of pedagogies to suit different circumstances for varying groups of students and across different subject matters. However, the educational mainstream certainly does still see the role of the teacher primarily as that of the expert whose task it is to take the pre-determined curriculum as a given, and then to select the best means they can at any one moment to ensure the necessary transfer of knowledge. While it would be pointlessly churlish to deny that teachers working within the paradigm of mainstream education can genuinely engage learners actively in their own learning, it is by no means churlish to point out that the role of the student in that paradigm is still, largely, passive in the particular matters of what, when and how they have to learn.

If this, or something like it, is the mainstream, then the lively discourse surging and swirling around Learning 2.0 might be described as a countercultural alternative to the mainstream. Of course, many countercultures can be found competing for space around any social or political mainstream, and education can certainly claim more than its share of competing countercultures. Learning 2.0, with all its many variants, however, seems to be enjoying the benefit of a strong technological and cultural tail wind driving it onward at the present time.

Many contributors to the discourse, lifted and carried by that same tail wind, speak and write about the inevitability – one day soon, eventually, in the long run, in due course – of the mainstreaming of Learning 2.0. Such optimism can be exhilerating, and it can be cheering to listen to those who propose an ineluctable logic to the eventual primacy of Learning 2.0 in education systems around the world.

I just don’t buy it.

There is, I would agree, a logic to the rightness of the broad principles and aspirations of Learning 2.0. As so many of us have written and said before, and will continue to espouse, we know the world is changed, and we know that the still prevalent smokestack schooling model was designed for a different era, serving the needs of the industrial age efficiently and effectively. With ubiquitous access to information, with the emergence of social-productive technologies, and with the decisive shift to the globalised knowledge-based economy, the context within which education systems need to work is changed. But we also know there is a dogged tenacity to the old familiar ways in education, and few if any large-scale education systems around the world show many signs yet of succumbing to the charms of Learning 2.0. The key sets of stakeholders, the world over – governments, parents, business, the teaching profession, universities – remain obdurately tied to industrial-age education, and few show signs of shifting ground any time soon. Indeed, in some parts of the world, there are definite signs of retrenchment in mainstream education systems.

So, if the shift from the current prevailing model to Learning 2.0 is to happen, how will it be brought about? As long ago as 2000 – almost an earlier era given all that has happened in the intervening years – Chris Locke was able to write in the Cluetrain Manifesto:

“Before any Old Order of Things can be given the final heave-ho coup de grâce, it’s necessary to create a parallel infrastructure controlled by people acting in cooperation for their own benefit and mutual support.”

He also wrote:

“Just because you’re not seeing a revolution – or what Hollywood has told you a revolution ought to look like – doesn”t mean there isn’t one going down.”

The global conversation that is happening, a conversation of educators and other interested people, is creating the transformation needed bit by bit, day by day, classroom by classroom, learner by learner, teacher by teacher. I don”t believe that we are anywhere close, as yet, to Chris Locke’s “parallel infrastructure” – but gradually, in some places more quickly than others, some signs of the new, co-existant learning paradigm are beginning to take place.

If the likes of Metcalfe’s Law (or Reed’s Law) has any credibility, each new person that joins the conversation, each new node on the network of Learning 2.0, expands the universe of the new education exponentially. This process will continue, and every individual that joins, every education authority that sees the light, every civil servant, politician and education leader that recognises the truth in the new paradigm, pulls us that little bit closer to the coup de grâce of the Old Order of Things in Education.

Finally, in any counterculture, there are always some people who, while shouting revolution from the rooftops, do very well, thank you very much, from the continued deferment of the revolution. While they are able to portray themselves as the avant-garde, as the trailblazing insurgents leading us all to our inevitable destiny, they really prefer the counterculture to remain a counterculture. Our aim has to be to mainstream the counterculture and to bypass not only those who maintain and reproduce the Old Order of Things, but also those who enjoy their countercultural credentials just a little too much.

Technorati Tags: old order of things, learning 2.0, chris locke, cluetrain manifesto

Category: curriculum, education, elitism, globalization, knowledge, pedagogy

Comments

5 Responses to “Coup de Grâce? A work in progress”

Bob Hill
July 9th, 2008 @ 9:49 pm

A very insightful piece. You really do state the current position, but I do hope that Glow will push the revolution a little bit faster here in Scotland
Jenny Luca
July 10th, 2008 @ 7:18 am

Well said John. I got a bit of a sense of the counterculture wanting it to remain the counterculture last week when reading a lot of what was coming out of NECC. Lots of tweets bemoaning the ‘difference’ between edubloggercon last year compared to this year. People saying they had lost something. My take on it was that they had actually gained something by having many more interested parties joining in -but instead of embracing the fact that new voices are around they complained about the numbers. What’s needed are people who are happy to share their learning and keep the focus on an improved learning environment for our students rather than focusing on themselves. I noticed you are reading ‘Here comes everybody’. In it, Clay Shirky refers to the introduction of the Gutenberg press. He notes that scribes continued to enjoy status for the next 50 yrs or so after its introduction. I think we are seeing a similar pattern here now with the tools that enable mass collaboration, but the adoption point will hopefully be quicker than the 50 yr example from the past!
Jenny Luca.
Hilery
July 10th, 2008 @ 2:55 pm

John, thanks for yet another thought-provoking post.

I think the question about what we mean by ‘mainstream’ is hugely important.

The ‘presumption of mainstreaming’, embedded in the SSS Act 2000 (discussed in http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/01/05142243/0)
is designed to put the onus on education authorities to place children – including those with disabilities – in a mainstream school and thus ensure inclusion and equality for learners with additional support needs. (The fact that the principle very frequently results in placement rather than true inclusion in practice is a debate for another forum.)

If all children can have additional support needs at some time, as I believe and as the legislation enshrines in theory, then what indeed does the notion of ‘mainstream’ mean?

This is a question that relates directly to the one of the “broad principles and aspirations of Learning 2.0″”.

“Genuine personalisation demands a system capable of offering bespoke support for each individual that recognizes and builds upon their diverse strengths, interests, abilities and needs, in order to foster engaged and independent learners”. (The Learner’ Charter for a Personalised Learning Environment”. http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Learners_Charter.pdf).

If we are truly to consider the change from transmission to transformation then the voices of support for learning teachers as well as of students need to be heard. Teachers who support youngsters who do not conform to the mainstream often negotiate with their pupils to define their desires and goals more precisely than perhaps their counterparts in “mainstream” classes do; they are skilled in devising alternative curricula and pedagogy which place the needs of the learner at the centre; are less constrained by the exigencies of the great god Examination.

In short, SfL staff are equipped to investigate and provide for the requirements of individual learners. And isn”t that broadly what Learning 2.0 promises?

P.S. How refreshing it would be if one (actually I!) could locate a dyslexia friendly blog theme (sans serif font, coloured background); and if accessibility guidelines were intrinsic to the process of developing platforms rather than as add-ons once the real work was done (and, yes, I am referring to Glow).
John Connell
July 10th, 2008 @ 7:46 pm

Bob – you put your finger precisely on one of the fundamental motivations for Glow: to mainstream, for Scottish education, the Web as the core learning platform. And you’re right, of course – time is critical.

Jenny – funny thing is, reading those same trivial comments about edubloggercon that you refer to helped bolster some of my thoughts as I was writing this post. It’s good to know that others share my frustration with such inconsequentialities.

Hilery – you make more than one important point here. Interestingly, I did not have in mind, at all, the definition of ‘mainstream’ that you use here – but it is an important reminder to me of a facet of the issues involved that I should have considered, and will do. You’re final point about Glow is well made, and understood. You know from your own experience with the early stages of SSDN that we did try to take seriously all the issues you raise here – some, but not all by any means, of the access issues were dealt with in the first iteration of Glow. I am aware that the process of outlining and defining the specification for ‘Glow 2′ is starting soon, if it has not already begun. I think it is critical that authoritative voices such as yours are heard again in that process of definition and refinement.
David Gilmour
July 14th, 2008 @ 12:58 am

Thanks for an excellent post, John. I found the broad-brush picture you paint of education systems round the world particularly helpful. Clearly the dynamics of the situation are similar everywhere.
Since joining the education world, I’ve been surprised in particular by the extent of support for the status quo, sometimes in surprising places, and how unusual it is to encounter a sense of urgency – even in relation to important, national developments. Part of the reason, of course, is the pressure for efficiency that you mention.
You didn’t include students among your group of key stakeholders. I can see why you did that. Many are lucky to have even limited input to low-level school decisions, after all.
Perhaps, though, we should be viewing them as the key stakeholders in the system that they undoubtedly are, and taking advantage of their ideas? I don’t just mean in terms of their own learning, as Hilery describes, but as the best representatives of future generations we’ve got. I’ve a hunch they could be the most effective change agents in the system, because they’ve no interest in flogging dead horses.
I recently discovered, via Judy O’Connell’s sidebar, the wonderful Students 2.0 blog.

There is unfortunately one place that remains unchanged, the place that could benefit most from the changes we see today… the classroom. The education system continues to “stay the course” upon a falling ship. Yet, the widgets within the machine are no longer content to grind away. Ideas are popping up everywhere, across the globe. Students are continually redefining their own lives and how they want to learn and interact.
This blog is an attempt to give students a voice in where the future of education is headed.

(I’d also recommend reading Scottish student Sean’s thoughts on joining the group, at his Bass Player’s Blog.)
Up till now, change efforts have focussed on everyone but the most important stakeholders. Now that they’re starting to get involved for themselves, we should encourage it.