The Conceptual Region

An interesting series of posts about about the social function teachers serve and the role of digital technology in schools has moved me to crawl out of hibernation today and resume blogging. Posts and commentaries listed below seem to define a problematic conceptual region for education bloggers.

This is actually a widely dispersed discussion topic which I am pulling together here because I see a theme in these posts that addresses basic issues that seem to especially concern educational bloggers. As we approach the change to another new year, it seems appropriate to wonder about the uses and effects that technology may have in education. I sympathize with those who challenge conventional notions of schooling and question the role of technology in that process. I can say with confidence that a shift in our professional activity will not be accomplished without risk of criticism. This is contested territory, and the transition to a new paradigm will not be smooth. None of us knows the way.

Defining the Problem

Miguel issued a manifesto when he acknowledged that we can’t have it both ways:

What, there’s middle ground you say? No, there isn’t…not anymore. We either use computer labs to support information literacy or do online state assessments/test prep. We either train teachers on how to help students learn information-problem-solving strategies or how to help their students maximize scores on tests. We can no longer do both.

The time for parley under a white flag is over. We are involved in a war for the survival of our Nation, our very ideals, and children’s minds. What we do–or fail to do–will determine the course of history…not just United States, but every other country in the world. Digital literacy is critical…but most of us live our lives as if was a choice. We are, like Thomas Friedman wrote, acting as if this were just a test of the emergency broadcasting system. The truth is, as he points out, this is not a test.

It’s both reassuring and disturbing that Ivan Illich, in Deschooling Society, spoke decades ago about the colonizing influence of education, a problem that we find increasingly important in our present time. Cultural diversity, standardization of curriculum, and technological innovation are simultaneously affecting educational discourse, and each perspective brings its own logic to the discussion. Illich argued that social degradation follows from “the institutionalization of values,” a process that is “accelerated when nonmaterial needs are transformed into demands for commodities.”

Educational activism that sees technology in school as the answer to limitations of conventional education confuses process with product. When we head down this path we tend to equate ‘new’ and ‘more’ with ‘better’ so that we can finally claim that technology enables more relevant learning. But is it really more? And in what context is technological learning relevant? It’s important to understand the answers to those questions before we sit back and applaud ourselves for being innovative. The real need we all have is for critical literacies, as opposed to digital literacy or any other kind of literacy. Without a critical perspective we accomplish nothing substantially new no matter how skillful students become with using either pencils and print, or keyboards, microphones, and monitors.

Our society takes a near reverential attitude toward technology. We see progress in terms of technical sophistication, competence in terms of skill, and knowledge as the aggregation of infomation. The commodification of knowledge is driving us rapidly toward new forms of social manipulation and control, where advertising and government propaganda are masked as news; where political consensus is cultivated by media reports of poll results, and where values are defined by legislative acts.

The Power of Dialog

We’ve all become “consumers” of information, and some of us may also be producers, but what are we talking about? As a teacher I’m implicated in the cultural production of a schooled society, and it isn’t easy to be critical of the institution that employs me as an agent. My point of view is contradictory in many ways. I believe that teachers are the most important institutional component, and yet I want to avoid taking too much responsibility for student learning because I recognize that teachers are merely one part of the dynamic. I recognize that new technologies are powerful and transformative, but I doubt their ability to bring significant change to the institution without a critical reappraisal of what we mean when we use the words, ‘literacy’ and ‘instruction.’ The best I can do to work for change on my own is to question the moral righteousness of activist pedagogy, and concentrate on simply cultivating human connections with students and their parents through dialog. The time for sweeping changes may be overdue, but I don’t see how educators are going to initiate that process. The problems we confront are not merely institutional, they are embedded in the relationship between schools and society. Sincere dialog may be the most practical revolutionary stance a teacher can assume at this time. Revolution is Not an AOL Keyword is a poetic statement about what technology will not do for us.

Readers of Borderland can look forward to following a line of inquiry about a broadened conceptualization of curriculum I plan to explore with my students in the coming months. I’m restless and dissatisfied, looking for a better way.