A Democratic Agency

Posted on by Brian Hughes

For me, the story about EdLab—its purpose, vision, and strategy—boils down to the goal of democracy. This post is a reflection on today’s seminar by Gary Natriello, but I think it may also resonate with anyone who’s a part of a similar organization.

Gary articulated a vision of the future of the education sector that follows from a few basic assumptions about learning, economics, and technology. Namely, that the so-called “digital revolution” is ringing in a new age of “networked learning” (think: low-cost, p2p learning). He also shared his concern that while we ought to want to help shape this future, it seems unlikely that we at EdLab—as products of the current educational system—can feasibly do so. Why exactly? Because it would be too hard for us to participate in the midwifery of this new sector: pay cuts, lay-offs, new (possibly lower, or non-existant) educational standards, and so on.

Sound bad? It sounded even more bleak when he said it in front of a Keynote deck that juxtaposed glamourous visions of childhood with the realities of work at Foxconn. . .

But I don’t really follow his line of thinking all the way down that bleak path, and I’m particularly skeptical about two of his basic assumptions (and let me acknowledge that it’s easy to be skeptical—it’s hard to be the one in front of the room).

Assumption #1: We currently prioritize uniformity as an educational outcome.

Well. . . I guess so, but it seems like uniformity is just one of many outcomes of the current educational system. I agree we value it, as it seems integral to a democratic ideal of equal opportunity, so it’s hard to imagine a successful democracy without a shared sense of history, science, culture, etc. Perhaps Gary’s view of education can aptly be described as post-democratic.

Assumption #2: The expense of the current educational system makes it unsustainable.

I don’t know enough about economic principles to mount a compelling counterargument, but what the heck, it’s a blog, right? I don’t buy it, and here’s why: Somewhere there must be a principle of modern capitalism about potential and purpose of “creating new markets,” and the point must be that when everything is accounted for, there is a huge surplus of labor in the world. That is, the amenities of capital-generating activities seem to be diverse enough to support a virtuous circle of labor. (Sure wealth is distributed unequally, but hey, a lot of people are willing to work to afford the data plan on their iPhone.)

Why should this come to an end? And why shouldn’t education—even in its increasingly expensive forms—partake in this economy? My response to Gary is that the current education is sustainable. But I wouldn’t want to suggest that it’s deeply democratic. In terms of the cost of education, I think the education sector is already incredibly diverse (though we don’t like to admit it)—if only because education is so unevenly applied (note: additional skepticism about uniformity). So it’s going to become more interestingly diverse as different types of education are increasingly acknowledged as legitimate. In this way, I think Gary’s view is overly pessimistic about future economic conditions.

Conclusions

When I reflect on where my views intersect with Gary’s, I’m confronted by a surprisingly optimistic view of education. It’s a view that counterbalances the news cycle—how putting iPads in kid’s hands is going to empower them and “save schools”—and affords us a different, more democratic space to work (at EdLab, and similar do-tanks). Yes, it’s a technology-rich space, but that’s not the point. Our goal is to locate or create cheap tools that give more learners access to key knowledge. It’s not about the best education. It’s probably not even good yet. But it’s getting better, and more real every day.

Further Questions. . .

  • Isn’t the Internet itself enough? It’s cheap, and it provides key knowledge! But let’s make it even better. . .
  • Can or should educational organizations compete with no-cost, advertising-driven technologies?
  • Can or will the anti-democratic effects of high-cost education ever be overcome through other social means?

Intellectual Cosmopolitanism

Posted on by Brian Hughes
A suggestive graphic by http://www.flickr.com/photos/acolavecchio/

I’m getting excited for the upcoming New York Times’ Schools for Tomorrow conference, and working on my presentation. I’ll be on the “Tools Available (college-level)” panel, and I’d like to convey some ideas about the future balance between tradition and timeliness in the academy. It’s hard to articulate an interesting position in the 5-10 minutes that I’ll likely have. So here’s one idea . . .

Without prognosticating, I’ll sketch out a view of the growing necessity of intellectual cosmopolitanism at the K-12 level—the idea that curriculum must continue to diversify around cultures and cultural practices.[1] Why? Well, as people around the world are increasingly connected, it’ll be harder to maintain a narrow worldview—and related mental habits. Right? (Hey, I’m not suggesting this will happen overnight.) In other words: more tech = more appreciation of diversity.

The import for college-level learning is that students will already have formed a two-pronged approach to education: increasingly relying on personal and non-school tools (more appreciation of diversity = a greater economic incentive to learn) for rote and “professional” learning (including deep expertise in academic subjects) while engaging community-focused and group-based learning in the classroom.

On this view (and let’s say 10-20 years away, just to push the limits of non-prognostication), civics emerges as a dominant theme of secondary formal education, while higher education increasingly becomes grounded in problem-solving (now more fashionably called “design”). Traditional modes of liberal learning (reading, writing, discussing) will not disappear so much as take place outside of formal education (fingers-crossed?). Instead of lamenting this retreat, educators must to pursue ways to connect group work to liberal learning—to make it count, so to speak.

Sound familiar? The more things change . . .

OK, so this isn’t groundbreaking stuff, but I think this perspective allows me to speak to several interesting points:

  • Group work will be standard practice. And it needs to get much better. Mainstream collaboration tools like Google Docs have improved communication and information sharing (full disclosure: I haven’t yet checked for evidence here), but there is room for improvement and specialization. Today, there are dozens of collaborative writing tools for different purposes. We can expect to see these options across all disciplines and modes of knowledge-sharing. Goodbye lectures.
  • Certification will happen outside of school. Yep, that’s right: no more “high stakes” tests in college, at least. Probably K-12 too. Students will still have to take them for a variety of reasons, but they’ll be created and offered by national (international!) consortiums (of one sort or another) and proctored by a handful private companies (want to take the SAT at a Google facility, anyone?).
  • Open data standards don’t matter. Students of all ages will want access to their own data. And they should get it from small companies and large educational organizations alike by virtue of market pressure. But that doesn’t mean companies have to adopt complex systems (like Raymond’s data backpack). I know this is speaking heresy, but this is good news for small companies who would otherwise be squeezed out of the education space but tech giants—a scenario that would be reminiscent of publishing giants dictating curriculum through textbook production.

Thoughts? I still have plenty of time to sharpen my thinking!

[1] I’m not sure if the term “intellectual cosmopolitanism” has been used elsewhere, but I think it poetically captures the force that technologies are exerting on curriculums and teaching practices.