education

by

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

irvington_statue_of_rip_van_winkleOn November 4, voters in the US made a momentous choice, not only by taking another step towards racial equality, but also by demanding new ways of relating to other countries, to injustice, to the environment, and to truth itself. As of today, that is only one step; nothing has changed except the direction we are pointed.

Where the path leads next depends even more on the rest of us than it does on President-Elect Obama. The great challenges of globalization, racism, poverty, and violence are unaffected by a single election. Yet, there is a risk that we can fall asleep, lose sight of those challenges, and begin to think only of narrow issues, such as many that surfaced in the campaign.

We have the opportunity now to respond to the challenges posed 43 years ago in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s excellent speech, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution. In his talk, he relates the story of “Rip Van Winkle,” who slept 20 years. But he reminds us that when Rip went up to the mountain, the sign on the local inn had a picture of King George III of England. Twenty years later, the sign had a picture of George Washington. Rip had not only slept 20 years; he had slept through a revolution. As King says, “Rip Van Winkle knew nothing about it; he was asleep.”

King saw that we are experiencing a scientific and technological revolution, one that challenges us to remain awake, and to develop a world perspective. It’s more imperative than ever to eradicate racial injustice and rid the world of poverty, and to find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Long before talk of flat worlds, King saw that our destinies were intertwined:250px-martin_luther_king_jr_nywts

All I’m saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be – this is the interrelated structure of reality…And by believing this, by living out this fact, we will be able to remain awake through a great revolution.

Remaining awake means looking beyond government as usual and recognizing that children in Haiti are in our “garment of destiny,” as much a part of our world as the person next door. It means knowing that justice is an ongoing project that needs to be defended wherever we hear of abuses of human rights, not seeking ways to justify them. It means finding an end to wars, not simply moving from one venue to another.

Can we do any better now at addressing King’s great challenges?

References

King, Jr, Martin Luther (1965, June). Remaining awake through a great revolution. Commencement address for Oberlin College, Oberlin Ohio.

by

the informal education site

Here’s a vote for infed.org on a big election day in the US: When needing to investigate the topic of multiculturalism recently, I was reminded again of the site, a great starting point for “exploring the theory and practice of informal education, lifelong learning and social action.” The articles are well-written and have good source lists. For example, see ‘race’ and difference – developing practice in lifelong learning, a recently updated piece by Mark K. Smith.

infed (the informal education homepage) was established in 1995 as an open, independent and not-for-profit site.

Put together by a small group of educators, it is now accessed around 6 million times a year.

a space to explore

Our aim is to provide a space for people to explore the theory and practice of informal education, social action and lifelong learning. We want to encourage educators and animateurs to develop ways of working and being that foster association, conversation and relationship.

via about us @ the informal education homepage

by

LIS 590 IBL, Inquiry-Based Learning, Spring 2009

We’ve changed the format for my spring course, Inquiry-Based Learning. It was originally scheduled as a LEEP (online) offering, LIS 590 IBO, but will now instead be offered on campus as LIS 590 IBL. Please share this description with anyone who may be interested.

  • Course: LIS 590 IBL, Inquiry-Based Learning (CRN: 36880)
  • Instructor: Bertram (Chip) Bruce
  • Semester: Spring, 2009
  • Prerequisites: Graduate student status
  • Schedule: Mondays, 9:00-11:50 am, 109 LISB
  • Website: http://illinois.edu/goto/ibl

Inquiry-based learning is a powerful way of thinking about learning as it occurs in libraries, museums, community centers, homes, workplaces, or online, as well as in formal settings, such as schools and universities. It implies the creation of environments in which learners are actively engaged in making meaning through personal and collaborative inquiry. It does not ignore the usual focus on content/skills: “What should be taught?,” or method: “How should we teach?” but begins with even more basic questions about the nature of learning and life.

Because of this, considerations of inquiry-based learning lead directly to issues of lifelong learning, the nature of knowledge, purpose, social justice, and democracy. This broad sweep makes it impossible to encapsulate inquiry-based learning in a simple framework or method. But it is also an indication of its importance in defining ways of thinking about the meaning of community, the roles of teachers and students, the relations between school and society, and how learning and life go together.

In the course we will examine the nature of inquiry and of inquiry-based learning, drawing on philosophical, historical, and critical sources such as Jane Addams, John Dewey, Paolo Freire, and Myles Horton. We’ll read about, observe, and engage in inquiry-based learning. In the course of this, we’ll also consider challenges to inquiry-based learning, including those related to management, assessment, basic skills, cultural differences, and pedagogical goals.

by

John Dewey in Turkey: Lessons for today

The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on October 29, 1923. As its first President, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (photo below) sought to establish the modern Turkey as a “vital, free, independent, and lay republic in full membership of the circle of civilized states.” He recognized the need for “public culture,” which would enable citizens to participate fully in public life, and saw the unification and modernization of education as the key. Accordingly, one of his first acts was to invite John Dewey, who arrived in Turkey just nine months after the proclamation.

In this endeavor, the ideas of Atatürk and Dewey were consonant. Dewey’s words above (“vital, free, …”) could have been written by Atatürk, just as Dewey might have talked about “public culture.” Both recognized the need to institute compulsory primary education for both girls and boys, to promote literacy, to establish libraries and translate foreign literature into Turkish, and to connect formal schooling, the workplace, and government.

Today is John Dewey’s 149th birthday. Back in 1924, he was nearing the age of 65, when many people think of retiring. But his three-month-long study in Turkey was an ambitious project. He addressed issues of the overall educational program, the organization of the Ministry of Public Instruction, the training and treatment of teachers, the school system itself, health and hygiene, and school discipline. Within those broad topics, he studied and wrote about orphanages, libraries, museums, playgrounds, finances and land grants for education, and what we might call service learning or public engagement today.

He laid out specific ideas, such as how students in a malarial region might locate the breeding grounds of mosquitoes and drain pools of water of cover them with oil. In addition to learning science they would improve community health and teach community members about disease and health. Workplaces should offer day care centers and job training for youth. Libraries were to be more than places to collect books, but active agents in the community promoting literacy and distributing books. In these ways, every institution in society would foster learning and be connected to actual community life. As Dewey (1983, p. 293) argued,

The great weakness of almost all schools, a weakness not confined in any sense to Turkey, is the separation of school studies from the actual life of children and the conditions and opportunities of the environment. The school comes to be isolated and what is done there does not seem to the pupils to have anything to do with the real life around them, but to form a separate and artificial world.

Atatürk saw the need to unify Turkey into a nation state, despite its great diversity. Dewey supported that but emphasized that unity cannot come through top-down enforcement of sameness (p. 281):

While Turkey needs unity in its educational system, it must be remembered that there is a great difference between unity and uniformity, and that a mechanical system of uniformity may be harmful to real unity. The central Ministry should stand for unity, but against uniformity and in favor of diversity. Only by diversification of materials can schools be adapted to local conditions and needs and the interest of different localities be enlisted. Unity is primarily an intellectual matter, rather than an administrative and clerical one. It is to be attained by so equipping and staffing the central Ministry of Public Instruction that it will be the inspiration and leader, rather than dictator, of education in Turkey.

This was realized in many ways. For example, the central ministry should require nature study, so that all children have the opportunity to learn about and from their natural environment, but it should insist upon diversity in the topics, materials, and methods. Those would be adapted to local conditions, so that those in a coastal village might study fish and fishing while those in an urban center or a cotton-raising area would study their own particular conditions.

Many of Dewey’s ideas were implemented and can be seen in Turkey today, as we come upon its 85th birthday next week. What’s even more striking to me is how relevant they are to the US today. Many of our problems can be traced to the “separation of school studies from the actual life of children and the conditions and opportunities of the environment,” but also to the separation of work from learning, of health from community, of libraries from literacy development, or of universities from the public. Dewey would be the first to argue that we need to re-create solutions in new contexts, but his report from long ago and far away still provides insights for a way forward today.

References

Ata, Bahri (2000). The influence of an American educator (John Dewey) on the Turkish educational system. Turkish Yearbook of International Relations (Milletlerarası Münasebetler Türk Yıllığı), 31. Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi.

Bilgi, Sabiha, & Özsoy, Seckin (2005). John Dewey’s travelings into the project of Turkish modernity. In Thomas S. Popkewitz (ed.), Inventing the modern self and John Dewey: Modernities and the traveling of pragmatism in education (pp. 153-177). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dewey, John (1983). Report and recommendations upon Turkish education. In Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works: Essays on Politics and Society, 1923-1924. Vol. 15 of Collected Works. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press.

Wolf-Gazo, Ernest (1996). John Dewey in Turkey: An educational mission. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, 3, 15-42.

by

Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young

UN LITERACY DECADEIt’s not a new idea, that providing opportunities for people to earn a living and to contribute to society is at the heart of peacebuiding, but it was good to hear Martti Ahtisaari highlighting that in his recent speech:

Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari said Saturday that finding jobs for more than 1 billion young people in the Middle East and Asia will be a major challenge to peacebuilding in the next decade.

“During the next 10 years about 1.2 billion young 15-to-30-year-olds will be entering the job market and with the means now at our disposal about 300 million will get a job,” Ahtisaari said in an interview with Finnish YLE TV.

“What will we offer these young, about a billion of them, or will we leave them to be recruited by criminal leagues and terrorists?” he asked.

Nobel Peace Prize winner wants jobs for the young – International Herald Tribune

I would just add that the need for meaningful, self-sustaining work is not limited to the Middle East and Asia, and that oppressed peoples only rarely turn to violence, but Ahtisaari’s challenge stands as one we must not ignore. Our global economic system increasingly robs people of the opportunity for self-sustaining work and for economic self-determination.

The economic injustice is closely related to lack of education, a problem addressed by the United Nations Literacy Decade 2003-2012 project, whose motto is “Literacy for all: voice for all, learning for all.” The Literacy Decade emphasizes adult literacy as well as one prerequisite for a more just society.

It’s tragic to see how great the gap is between our response to terrorism and global unrest and our appreciation of its underlying causes.

by

Liberating Voices

Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (MIT Press), edited by Doug Schuler will appear this coming December. The book contains 136 patterns designed to meet challenges of communication in a world of new communication systems and global connections. Patterns integrate theory and practice to address social and environmental problems through citizen activism. Each describes a problem and its context, a discussion, a solution, and links to other patterns.

The book was inspired by Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, and is part of the Public Sphere Project. You can get a preview of the book and explore the network of patterns online.

a visionary manual rich in insights and directly useful in any attempt to connect people and information technologies in the quest for real democracy. This is a crucial book for our time. —Langdon Winner, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

a pattern language that can be used as a framework for rethinking how we build community and create a more humane, equitable future. —Nancy Kranich Former President, American Library Association, author of Libraries & Democracy

by

Predictable teaching

flowersA colleague writes about a workshop she co-presented recently, in which participants generated their own questions and engaged in guided inquiry. The workshop went well and generated plenty of debate (one of its goals), but “some liked it more then others.” Knowing the presenters, I’m confident that the workshop was a big success, but there was clearly variation in how successful it was for different participants.

That kind of variation, or unpredictability, is what leads some teachers to prefer methods with clearly-defined objectives, carefully-orchestrated procedures, and techniques for keeping everyone “on task.” Methods like that, are seen as more predictable, hence easier to measure, repeat, and guarantee results.

But things are not always as they seem. When the emphasis is on the procedure, and not on the student’s own inquiry, one can ensure that the procedure is executed faithfully. The formal lecture is the epitome of that, with the timing and mode of delivery all specifiable in advance. But the student learning can actually be far less predicitable. When students are in a lecture hall, or even going through a highly-structured exercise, their minds can be far away. The predicitability for the teacher is matched by unpredictability for the learner.

On the other hand, when students are supported in their own inquiries, the teacher’s job can feel very unpredictable, and because of that scary, and even unprofessional. It can be unpredictable for the students as well, because true inquiry can lead into unknown territory. But what goes on in the interaction among students and teachers becomes more visible and manageable. Collaborative inquiry allows engagement with the student’s thought and action, while the so-called “structured lesson” may obscure what students really think and feel. When students’ work is highly constrained, we’re left with little insight into their learning; teaching becomes totally unpredictable.

Our quest for certainty in teaching thus leads us to adopt methods that actually increase the uncertainty. But there is no way to ensure predictable teaching and learning. As Amos Pettingill says in The White Flower Farm Garden Book (referring to a zone chart for planting):

As a guide for the experimentation we so freely encourage, the table opposite will be helpful. We must caution, however, that it is rife with half-truths–despite our best efforts at disclosure. We are dealing here with living things whose colors, habits, and general constitutions will vary with locale and with the skill of the individual gardener. This unpredictability, which strikes terror into the heart of the beginner, is in fact one of the glories of gardening. Things change, certainly from year to year and sometimes from morning to evening. There are mysteries, surprises, and always, lessons to be learned. After almost 40 years hard at it, we are only beginning.

by

Is Finland cheating on international tests?

International comparisons of school systems have become a sport, maybe not so universally engaging as the Olympics, but still of high interest to policy makers in education. There are many reasons to question the assumptions behind these comparisons and the way that they are carried out. Nevertheless, they give a rough indication of how school systems are doing in relative to one another.

For example, OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) has shown that the best performing countries do much better than the worst. Moreover, the same countries are perennial leaders: Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, South Korea. But there may be a flaw as serious as any Olympics scandal—a case of cheating!

Laat year, McKinsey, a major consulting company, asked “why?”—why do some school systems produce students who regularly perform so well on international tests? They issued a report: How the World’s Best-Performing School Systems Come Out on Top.

There were a number of interesting findings. One was that Finland, which regularly tops the list, has largely dispensed with national examinations. They have no formal reviews and keep the results of informal audits confidential. They devote their school days to teaching and learning.

Meanwhile, the US is on an ever-expanding testing binge. A study from QED found that over a quarter of teachers report spending more than an hour a day preparing students for standardized tests. Nearly half of teachers believe standardized tests negatively impact student learning. More than three-quarters of teachers report being evaluated based on student test scores, even though they rank this as the least effective method.

An increasing percentage of class time is now spent testing students. A much bigger portion is spent preparing for the tests. And to a large extent the entire curriculum has been devoted to testing in just reading and basic mathematics.

The net result is that US students don’t have the same opportunity to learn that students in Finland have. While Finnish students engage in critical thinking, reasoning, arts, science, history, and much more, ours in the US spend time being tested or drilling on basic skills to prepare for the test.

So, my question is: Is it fair to compare Finnish and US schools? Of course, Finnish students can do better if they spend more time learning. But isn’t that cheating? Shouldn’t they have to be tested just as much? Shouldn’t the teachers and principals there be subject to the same score-driven evaluations? Shouldn’t their curriculum be restricted just like ours?

International comparisons make no sense if Finland is allowed to maintain a system built around highly-qualified, well-supported teachers (as McKinsey shows), a full curriculum, and a valuing of learning, while the US requires its schools to dumb-down to the misleadingly named “No Child Left Behind.” Let’s level the playing field and make it equally hard for Finnish students to learn!

Tom Chapin’s Not on the Test offers a musical version of this argument.

by

first Youth Community Informatics Forum

In the Youth Community Informatics Forum held June 27-28, 2008, about 40 young people and youth leaders came to Champaign from a variety of economically disadvantaged, mostly minority communities throughout the state.

There was a youth media festival on Friday. Then on Saturday, participants spent the morning working in one of four small groups to investigate “information spaces” in the community. These included the Center for Children’s Books, Champaign Public Library, the Independent Media Center, Espresso Royale, Native House, Cafe Paradiso, Transit Plaza, Illini Union, and bronze plaques around campus. The group leader introduced a staff member from the center to the students for a small tour and helped them use a Flip video camera and a GPS receiver to record their observations.

At each site, the youth asked questions such as:

  1. What do we see in this information center? How do we like it?
  2. What is this center about?
  3. What do we want people to know about the center?
  4. How can we give others a clear idea about the center through watching/hearing our report?

In the afternoon, they created a Google map with their videos, text, and GPS coordinates. They also added music (an innovation we hadn’t planned on, but perfectly appropriate). They then shared their findings in a public presentation.

The activity was conceived in terms of an Inquiry Cycle:

Inquiry cycle

Inquiry cycle

  • Ask: What are the information spaces in the community?
  • Investigate: Visit, listen, explore, video, determine geo-coordinates.
  • Create: Make a GIS site with video, music, text.
  • Discuss: Share the product and the findings with others.
  • Reflect: Think about issues of journalism, democracy, careers, technologies, etc.

We found that the students learned technology skills, problem solving, cooperative work, writing, public presentation, specific information spaces, community journalism, university life, and much more.

Although the June activity made use of diverse new technologies, it is important to note that the focus was on learning about the community, asking questions, and sharing findings with others, not on the technologies per se. The most effective use of these technologies in libraries and similar settings would likely involve embedding that use in a larger, purposeful context. That context in turn could be a way to help connect youth with other resources, such as books and structured activities.

We’re now planning a similar activity in October with the Mortenson Center Associates, a group of visiting, international librarians. This will be the first day of a two- or three-day event. The longer time will allow for discussion about how the information spaces might differ in different countries, what technologies are available in different contexts, how valuable the activity would be for youth in their libraries, and so on. Students from the Community Informatics (LEEP) course would lead the investigation of the local-area information centers.

Both youth leaders and young people said they enjoyed the Forum, learned a lot, and hope for more. One youth leader said that next year he’d like to bring a much larger group. Another wrote,

I believe, in the not too distant future, that this conference will be seen as a landmark in developing a new perspective as part of the partnership between those marginalized sectors of civil society and the university in bridging the digital divide.

As Myles Horton might say, that’s a long haul, but at least there was good spirit of cooperation in learning, which I hope will carry over to continuing work in these communities.

[Cross-posted on social issues]

by

Living teaching: The genius loci

My most memorable moments in Dublin came through encounters with living people, the many warm individuals who introduced me to life in the city and country, and from all the enriching, direct experiences, some of which I’ve tried to recount here.

But oddly enough, I also value the encounters I had with people who live on only in their writings or institutions. I say “oddly,” because I could easily have come to know them somewhat without being physically present in Ireland, and yet I seemed to need the tradition of place, or genius loci, to open the book.

One of these is Cardinal John Henry Newman. I didn’t know much about his work, other than valuing the many Newman Centers on university campuses. Frankly, I had a negative view, that his focus was on education for “gentlemen,” and that he held an elitist and sectarian approach to learning. At best, his ideas were locked away in 19th-century Ireland and unlikely to be relevant to my world today.

Cardinal John Henry NewmanFortunately, a colleague, Leo Casey, was able to gently point out that my conception was based on not knowing anything, and to suggest that if I did open a book, I might learn something.

In this case, the book was Cardinal Newman: The Catholic University, which contains a selection of his writings. University College Dublin, which he presided over, published it in 1990, to commemorate the century after his death. One of the essays in the collection is entitled “Living Teaching rather than passive reception of facts.” It’s from his The Idea of the University, and introduced me among other things to the term, genius loci.

Newman writes about “young men,” but I believe that today he’d quickly revise his essay to include all people. He asks a provocative question: Suppose we

had to choose between a so-called University, which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence, and gave its degrees to any person who passed an examination in a wide range of subjects, and a University which had no professors or examinations at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three or four years, and then sent them away…[which of these would be] more successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind, which sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced better public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity

Newman is quick to say, in his 19th-century style, that he can’t fully endorse the second model, as he considers “idleness an intolerable mischief.” But he has “no hesitation in giving the preference to that University which did nothing, over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with every science under the sun.” He explains as follows:

When a multitude of young men, keen, open-hearted, sympathetic, and observant, … come together and freely mix with each other, they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day…students come from very different places, and with widely different notions, and there is much to generalize, much to adjust, much to eliminate, there are inter-relations to be defined, and conventional rules to be established, in the process, by which the whole assemblage is moulded together, and gains one tone and one character…

that youthful community will constitute a whole, it will embody a specific idea, it will represent a doctrine, it will administer a code of conduct, and it will furnish principles of thought and action. It will give birth to a living teaching, which in course of time will take the shape of a self-perpetuating tradition, or a genius loci…

Here then is a real teaching…it at least recognizes that knowledge is something more than a sort of passive reception of scraps and details; it is a something, and it does a something, which never will issue from the most strenuous efforts of a set of teachers, with no mutual sympathies and no inter-communion, of a set of examiners with no opinions which they dare profess, and with no common principles, who are teaching or questioning a set of youths who do not know them, and do not know each other, on a large number of subjects, different in kind, and connected by no wide philosophy

Newman recognizes the limits of such self-education, but nevertheless argues, the result is better than for

those earnest but ill-used persons, who are forced to load their minds with a score of subjects against an examination, who have too much on their hands to indulge themselves in thinking or investigation, who devour premiss and conclusion together with indiscriminate greediness, who hold whole sciences on faith, and commit demonstrations to memory, and who too often, as might be expected, when their period of education is passed, throw up all they have learned in disgust…they leave their place of education simply dissipated and relaxed by the multiplicity of subjects, which they have never really mastered, and so shallow as not even to know their shallowness.

How much better, he says,

to eschew the College and the University altogether, than to submit to a drudgery so ignoble, a mockery so contumelious! How much more profitable for the independent mind, after the mere rudiments of education, to range through a library at random, taking down books as they meet him, and pursuing the trains of thought which his mother wit suggests! How much healthier to wander into the fields…

[or from] the beach, and the quay, and the fisher’s boat, and the inn’s fireside, and the tradesman’s shop, and the shepherd’s walk, and the smuggler’s hut, and the mossy moor, and the screaming gulls, and the restless waves, to fashion for himself a philosophy and a poetry of his own!

Newman’s style is dated, but his questions are more relevant today than when he wrote. Our university education, indeed formal education at all levels in both the US and Ireland, often strives to do little more than load minds against examinations. We run from the idea of genius loci and see no need for living teaching.

Meanwhile, university administrators worldwide now measure success against a benchmark of mechanization. Efficient, modular, and uniform delivery of certifications is the goal. Newman reminds us that achieving that goal means not only that students will “throw up all they have learned in disgust,” but that society will ultimately throw up the university in disgust as well.