I am very grateful to have the opportunity to join nearly 100 other educators, thought weavers, business leaders and policy-thinkers this week at the C21Canada Summit outside Toronto. For two days, we’ll be gathered to continue thinking about new models for learning, schooling and education as we continue to move deeper into that frame known as the 21st century. Oh yes, and there’s even some talk of SEX!
I’ve never been invited to a Summit before and, to be totally honest, I wasn’t initially invited to this one. I have to thank my friend and colleague, Ron Canuel, for creating the space for me to attend. (I think that, before last night, he kind of felt a little sorry for my stubborn loyalty to the Toronto Maple Leafs!)
But I also have to thank Ron for introducing me to a conversation between Bill Moyers and author/scientist, Isaac Asimov. The second part of the interview that I’ve included here touches on a vision for life-long learning that is passionate and—wait for it—forward-thinking. In fact, in 1988 when this interview was recorded, Asimov’s vision would have been deemed futuristic and somewhat of a dream. For us living in 2013, the sense is that we’re somehow playing catch-up!
So, as I prepare to join others for two days of imagining and visioning, I can’t help but think that there is something here that might get us closer to heart of what we mean by 21st century learning.
This segment will resonate with different people in different ways. I would love to know what captures your attention and what sparks your imagination.
What an inspiring conversation. It’s hard to believe how old it is!
This is a stream of consciousness response, so bear with me while I think and type.
While the interview was packed with many ideas I want to address, at this point in time the part that continues to resonate with me is his identification of how school is something that is done to you as a kid and you finish it. I think of how many times we reinforce that model in high schools, especially at this time of year as we help students choose courses for second semester so that they can graduate in June. It’s all about playing the game, “getting” the right number of credits in each category, and getting out of high school.
How often do we say to students who are struggling that they just need to hang in there, do the work and get the credit so that they don’t have to come back for it again?
It’s no wonder that politicians know they can attack teachers. The whole system reinforces the idea that school is something you need to get done and move on from. As well, the idea of closing community schools and busing children long distances away from home means that learning is no longer for the community but just for the kids getting on the buses.
Community schools, open to learning for everyone, would promote learning as a lifelong activity, and something that does not have to be done in a desk in a room with 20 other people your exact age. I love Asimov’s thinking that there are things we need to learn, but at the same time we need to be able to go off and explore our passions. What if our schools were places where all community members could access technology to explore their interests?
It’s that combination that excites me – “need to know” (curriculum) along with “want to know” (interests). I think that John Hattie is correct (http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/leaders/john.html – bottom video) in that content knowledge is critical for exploring our interests. We do need to know some basic information before we can successfully inquire and learn more, but it is that balance between what we need to know and what we want to know that needs to be respected and honoured in our schools.
Hi Donna,
You have pointed to one of the things that resonated the most with me when I first saw the video: the idea of “getting out” of school. Bill Moyers analogy of “school as prison”, where the ultimate goal is “serving your time and being free once again” is an important one, especially now that technology has made so much more to individual learners.
While Asimov didn’t go on here to suggest changes to school as an institution, I find myself wondering about the difference (and signifcance of) between what I am able to learn on my own and what I can learn in the context of a social group and setting.
To be sure, our technology allows us to do more of the former, but I don’t think that this provides a powerful enough model for what schools could and, perhaps, should be. If, at the end of the day, the proxy for success is how much “I” have learned, then we have to question the effiiciencies and value of school. (And I think that many are, implicitly and explicitly) questioning in that way.
But, where I find the conversations about new modes and models of learning to be most exciting and hopeful is when our attention gets shifted to how much “we” have learned. I think that this opens up the possibility of redefining some of the “need to know” that you talk about.
But this highlights that tension between the individual and social benefits and goals of education.
Probably not what our friend, Isaac, was talking about, but that’s OK.
Thanks for thinking out loud on this.
Hi Stephen,
I am pleased to hear that you plan on attending C21Summit13. I hope that you can offer some semblance of a counter-weight to C21Canada’s agenda.
As you are aware, I researched 21CL policy in BC for my MA, and in my thesis (https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/43675/ubc_2013_spring_steeves_cory.pdf) I found that the 21CL policy agenda can best be understood as a managerialist and despotic reconceptualization of teachers’ work. More broadly, I found that 21CL masks a corporate set of values and may be implicated as contributing to a ‘democratic deficit in public education.’
Against this backdrop, I feel compelled to add a note of concern regarding your accommodation for (i) learnification and (ii) a neoliberal politics of authority vis-a-vis teachers’ work.
In my thesis I draw on Gert Biesta’s notion of learnification to foreground the distance between the logics of practice that guide 21CL and the logics of practice that guide teachers’ work. To summarize, learnification involves the translation of all there is know and say about teachers’ and their work into a discourse of learning and learners. This is problematic, because learning is (a) a process term – and is thus empty with regard to content and value; and (b) learning is an individualistic event – and obscures the relational basis that underlies educational encounters.
“[T]he words ‘education’ and ‘learning’ are not the same and are not interchangeable. This does not mean, of course, that they have nothing to do with each other. One could say that the general aim of educational activities is that people will learn from them. But that doesn’t make education into learning; it simply says that learning is the intended outcome of educational processes and practices. All this also doesn’t mean that people cannot learn without or outside of education. It simply highlights the fact that when we talk about education we refer to a specific setting in which learning takes place; a setting, moreover, with a specific set of relationships, roles and responsibilities.
[...]
the language of learning is rather unhelpful for discussion of educational matters as it tends to obscure the relational dimensions of education – the fact that education is always about teachers and students in relationship – and also because it makes it more difficult to raise questions about content and purpose. I have also argued that when we use the word ‘learning’ we are actually involved in a judgement about change, a judgement we can only make after the event. For that reason using the word ‘learning’ to describe the activities of students is as imprecise as it is to refer to students as ‘learners.’ This is also the reason why we cannot ask from students that they take responsibility for their own learning – they can only take responsibility for their studying, their activities, their efforts, et cetera, and it is this that teachers should demand from students. All this also means that learning can not be the object of any strategy. Despite the many teaching and learning strategies that are being developed in schools, colleges and universities, and despite the fact that many of such institutions make individuals responsible for ‘teaching & learning,’ it is only teaching – and related aspects such as curriculum and assessment – that can be the object of a strategy and thus can be the responsibility of individuals whose task it is to take care of what, with a simple word, we might perhaps best refer to as ‘education.’” (Biesta, 2009)
In addition to the affirmation of learnification, I also note an accommodation for a managerialist politics of authority vis-a-vis teachers’ work. For instance, C21Canada would have us think that C21Summit13 will be attended by “100 of Canada’s education and business leaders” (http://www.c21canada.org/2013/02/06/the-right-honourable-paul-martin-to-speak-at-the-2nd-annual-c21-canada-summit/), but if you check the list of speakers you’ll find administrators, politicians, transnational tech firms, etc – not “Canada’s education … leaders.” Check the info page for the summit and there’s a dandy picture of the country-club-esque fun that awaits attendees => http://www.c21canada.org/summit/
Lacking entirely from C21Summit13′s agenda is a discussion on education policy as a vehicle for stratification and inequality, or anyone who could talk about 21CL in relation to epistemology. And no one on the list of speakers has /any/ meaningful background in social justice or democratization. IOW, the list of speakers suggests that the summit is more likely to be a corporate schmooze fest than a meaningful discussion of public education in Canada.
From inside this lion’s maw, I hope you are able to offer a ray of sunlight in a very, very dark room.