Researching the self and the (in)significance of trends

I was checking to see if an interview that I did for a local issue had appeared yet. In my searching, I stumbled over a small piece I wrote for CPSR in 1997. At the time, I recall having a bit of fun doing the scribbles. But that was written or at least published (an odd term these days when most everything is published) ten years ago. I was pondering the cultural and educational imperialism of the US. It seemed to fit with my lived experience at the time. And now with the flood of AJAX software (I recall reading that AJAX was simply Java script that worked!) that imperialism is a little less certain. Sure the US is still the centre of the Internet universe but the "all to all" of social media makes national boundaries almost quaint. I don't want to get all romantic about the longer term play out of "all to all" networking but there is now a small but fairly insightful (IMHO) group of folk who figure that all of this is really Gutenberg 2. In 1997 I got it kinda wrong. I am puzzling the prospect of a global community which shifts to an "all to all" communication system and the impact that will have on virtually all of the social institutions we have built upon the one to many, broadcast logic of the past century. My favourite piece on this was written a good while back (1994) by Jay Weston. I figure it is one of those not seeing the forest for the trees moments. Lots of good folk all out their busily worrying about "applying" various bits of "social software" to their educational practice and somehow unable to zoom out to see the larger shifts that are happening. Popular culture (music a movies) might be the current sites of interest but I think it is now only a matter of time before we see similar kinds of disruptions around various bits of formal education.

Peeling onions

Roger Shank recently picked a couple of video clips from The Onion, a sometimes useful source of satire about most things human. For those afficionados of curriculum debates I'd recommend: Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales? For those with interests in international comparisons this piece may appeal.

Moments that matter

I am reading the draft of a proposal for research from a long standing colleague, a Principal who has been working with KPS curriculum for a good number of years. Like the other Principals and teachers who work in this space they are simply wonderful teachers, leaders and thinkers and from whom I have learned so much these past years. The piece I am reading was mapping some of the early experiences this Principal had which has prompted her to more formally study this approach to schooling.

She asked one of the teachers about what stood out to her in doing this work. She quoted her thus:

“Knowledge they’ve (students) retained, by listening to language they’re using during tasks, talk and play (when they’re playing with their mines).”

“Lower achievers taking on leadership roles because they are more of the experts than my academic kids”

The last statement put a large smile on my face.

Revisiting a curriculum of questions

I was scribbling a note to an internal Faculty blog and trying to make a case for thinking about curriculum in terms of questions. I gestured back to the piece I scribbled about that a few years back and in doing so had to use Google's blogsearch to find it. But, as is the way of the web, I stumbled over a long piece by Bill Ayers which while writing about Peter McLaren's work made this lovely observation:

The most important lesson I learned in the earliest days of my teaching came from the Freedom Schools in Mississippi in the early 1960s. These schools were premised on the idea that while the black people of Mississippi had been denied many things—decent facilities, forward-looking curriculum, fully trained teachers—the fundamental injury was the denial of the right to think for themselves about the circumstances of their lives, how they got to where they were, and how things might be changed. The curriculum for these schools was a curriculum of questions, of inquiry and dialogue, a curriculum of posing problems: why are we, students and teachers, in the Freedom Movement? What do we want to change? This is an example of critical pedagogy at its best. It invites people to engage, to participate, to transform their lives, and to change their world.

Which, to me, begs the question, what, with our right answer obsessed curriculum are we denying the young of this country? From Ayers point of view quite a lot.