CCK08 Opportunities and Resistance
Short paper 3 Due In November 17th 2008
A real opportunity to create student centred learning has arisen due to a participatory era when all can have a say about TV programmes, radio talks, news making, even how people drive their vans and politicians actions. Most of British society can see tools that are good for connecting with others and tools for constructing our own individualised play list, film viewing order, phone ring tones and personal layouts for our own lap top.
Educational governance defines very formal structures and values that reduce the individual to an institutional number with a scorecard and a target to reach. The curriculum is defined by steps, a road everyone follows in order ,over the set year for the child’s age. It is written centrally by “experts” and teachers are expected to follow it, design lessons around learning outcomes and mark tests from learners knowledge about the said outcomes. The learner learns to follow set teaching and stop being an individual thinker or social entity that could upset the marking systems and undermine the behavioural policy.
With lots of industry a child might reach the governments targets of 5 GCSE s at grade C and go onto college. (or if a minority get better grades and apply to university)
If the magic target is not reached by their set time the failure is blamed on the parents, the system of education, lack of discipline, absent fathers, mothers who don’t read to their off-spring and many other society ills.
The tension between the education system and those who misfit can be seen as an opportunity to use connectivism as a learning theory. Just as the “bad boys” tend to go on every out of school trip they might be put onto a computer to keep them out of the proper classrooms. They usually can face book and therefore could be shown blogging and wiki building, creation and design of their own site. From this could come collaboration and peer support. Then, just like in Montessori’s time the under dogs could be seen as achieving as highly as the privately taught learners .A modern day model classroom to show off.
Ideas in teaching that offer better foundations to gaining the softer skills and literacy for finding a job are more than welcome in today’s climate but innovation and collaboration are not easy when competitiveness and business models are adopted amongst education providers. A consumer being the employers not the learner and the purchaser being government who demand certain practices that resist changes and these must be inspected for their money to be paid to colleges.
The move from industrial models to newer network models where is a real opportunity for meritocracy. If a learner finds a skill through the learning community or networks that can be developed and used to support individual hopes and experiences they can sell it.
Education then becomes for the individual not for the employers, the school league tables and any other stakeholder with a cause to push through on the back of the education system in general and the college system in particular. But because the learner becomes educated the employer,Ofsted inspector and college people are in a win win situation.
Education would then be for improving opportunities and access , for creating powerful collectives to fight against inequalities such as gender ,pay and conditions or specific educational needs .
Diversity in education can be a real opportunity for individuals and a big threat to social cohesion as it reduces possibilities for controlling and taming the masses.This becomes an opportunity to repect ,empower and let go of control and practice facilitating.
Another threat or resistance to free web access is copyright. Learners and tutors stealing or using others work is considered so serious the first weeks induction on courses always covers plagiarism. It could be hard to assess the true value of a worker if the group project masked their proportion of the work. To gain employment the job role usually requires team work but an individual is expected to have level of skill and ability.An opportunity to learn how to segregate own work into off shoots of personal pages and sites.
Another resistant part of the present model is around Insurances and timetabling in college. If learners are all set up for one afternoon a week in the IT room as a group with a common task and a tutor it stops the connectivity. A real opportunity is to install wy fi and bring learners into a lap top scheme. Alternatively this could create a whole new generation of learners who won’t talk and commit to a social space -hiding behind their computer. Efficient consumption of the computer room is a threat to participatory education. A challenge would be to design spaces for learning to fit social spaces with firm pedagogy behind it .
Another opportunity is to use the context of weak ties and easy connections that are super for taking part in Face book , X box games and Bebo spaces that are excellent for contextualising individuals .Using lunch time breaks to connect would produce better behaviours in social spaces. The use of these tools can be supplemented by teaching blogs, wikis and podcasts. The tools chosen and used by the well thought out tutor would actually produce some exchanges of content /knowledge made by learners for learners and changed or used to jump off onto other ideas. This deep meaningful connection is so experienced it is not easily forgotten.So exam work would be well rehearsed.
The real opportunity is for tutors In this age. They can see a step change happening and a chance to jump on the bus (or horse drawn carriage)and develop unique specialised skills developed through trial and error with learners in a participatory classroom without walls.
To reach our full potential as teachers with a responsibility to provide for the digital age we need to reverse the aspects of the current system and take the opportunity at every meeting and teaching occasion to change our paradigm to participatory work. Connecting with others across countries to support and guide us and give us faith to speak even with the voices of resistance who demand a uniform answer.
The co-constructed ,reconstructed, reconstituted and rehashed and re-mashed materials made with learners have always been the best way to teach.
The real voices of resistance to the education system are those that wont vote, wont participate in civic society and wont get a decent education or job–the drop outs , failures and not good enough’s that are blamed for being un-teachable!
Don’t we all love it when the famous person tells the story of the teacher who said they would never amount to much?
