On Technology in Learning (to be updated soon)
In the film Learn and Live, hosted by Robin Williams and produced by George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars trilogy, we see that and how our schools, the system in which we've grown, was developed to suit the needs of another age, when schools were expected to produce workers more than thinkers. Schools have become antiquated by their inability to keep up with the needs and tools of the individual learner, they make clear, tools which are widely available commercially, that can serve the unique educational needs of individual students, at the speed of light.
Schools have become expert in serving those subjects and areas of study best taught in groups (and these are many), but they have taken the liberty of organizing the body of human knowledge into a useful linear arrangement, which may or may not be the best order for any given child. We teach as if only one proper order, and judge, and flunk and label those who don't follow the prescribed order of understanding...(put Gatto*) Unfortunately, for all their good intentions, such methods can ruin kids lives before they've even begun, and send smart kids who somehow step off the prescribed path spiraling down slippery-slopes to defeat and failure. Many kids are moved along without opportunity to revisit or review the materials which went by too quickly, too slowly, or simply at the wrong time. While this same child might have been ready for a study of the stars or rocket science at 12, but has lost interest by 15, when his genius is busy coordinating muscle memory and mind for skateboarding. Meanwhile, the skateboarding 15 year old might be ready for calculus and trigonometry, better than the 18 year old college freshman who couldn't care less. If we were cognizant of the true nature of learning, we would make sure the kids who blew it early on, would be free when the time is right to come back around full circle to the educational paths they rejected at an earlier age.
It is the readiness needs of every idiosyncratic individual learner that are inevitably neglected in group learning, and which computer and advancing technology make possible -- even easier and more effective – than our antiquated educational methods, which may well use technology, although probably not in ways that actually respond to individual student learning needs. While technology had inevitably bled into the classroom, and does help alleviate this problem, even the most progressive school districts predict it will be years, if ever, before we have sufficient freedom in classrooms for this technology to serve individuality of learning.
Thus, there is a very real, if largely unfelt, need for a service that will aid individual kids and adults alike in the pursuit of their unique learning paths, the revisiting and review of what, for whatever reason one missed along the way in one's formal education ("I was sick that day!").
The proliferation of standardized testing makes this exercise just what the doctor ordered for many, since statistic after statistic indicates that the biggest problem with our educational methods is that kids don't remember what they learn beyond the test that measures what they recall only a few days after it was presented to them, usually by outside-in instruction.
The importance of intrinsic motivation and personalized timing in the success of new learning methods cannot be over-stated, and this need for individuation reminds us to reiterate here that not all kids are ready for or in need of technological innovation, and that the principle of individuation brings us to recall as we go that technological aids are only one kind of tool, among many, and that the principle of first things first will keep us from promoting technology for it's own sake.
Rather, our focus ought to be on the individual student, and computer tools are but one (albeit especially effective) means to that end. But computers, for all their value, ought not be allowed to distract the young student from first hand experience of the world, which is found only second hand, once removed, as mere copies (as Plato noted) of the world. There is much to be discovered from such means, but they are means, and the end is understanding which is first and foremost person to person.
So perhaps we ought to hold with Socrates, who argued that people need interactive dialogue. What does this mean, exactly? Not that we aim to practice the 'Socratic method' as it is so erroneously portrayed by some (*put cartoon from History of Universe, Karl Popper, and the Plato in 90 min book), but the Socratic method, in the sense for which Socrates argued -- that of meeting each student, face to face, one on one, in trust and respect, and by agreement and consent, wherein lies justice, treating one as friends ought.
Yes, if we had to sum it up concisely, our job would be to be their friend, their advocate, and their personal coach. And it is because this task is so individuated that we must reserve the right to limit ourselves to those who actually choose and want this aid. For we wish we could, but we cannot do for our students what they must do for themselves. We can, however, and ought simply do our best to help them do their best.
We ought aim to serve the need in kids to talk out their problems, take seriously their potentials, with qualified, albeit humble, mentors. We try to listen and respond with our best heart and mind, and we have every reason to be sincere in this effort, since it follows from the principles we are founded on that only such sincerity can succeed in earning trust. We give kids credit for being able to discern who they can trust, and the freedom to change teachers until they find them. And so this principle also prescribes that hiring practices and internal conflict resolution, for the ability to give sincere and unconditional positive regard is an art too few of us are really good at, but one that many of us would greatly benefit from the better practice of,.
As Confucius, Socrates, and Aristotle would have us remember, in teaching, as in anything else, we are always changing, always either getting better or getting worse, and having an ideal at which to aim is the critical 'golden mean', or light house, toward which the sincere teacher will continually navigate. Promise to keep to this ideal regulates many potentially problematic situations between learning partners, for it helps to illuminate unfairness wherever it arises, usually without words or reprimand. For only by being ourselves sincerely fair in our efforts with regard to each individual learner can we expect as much from them. And I think we have a better chance of honoring this ideal only if we dialogue amongst ourselves about the meaning of the ideal of 'good teaching'...of Socratic dialogue...of hard cases...
Every child faces a unique challenge, and our job would be to get to know every child, on their own terms, as an individual with idiosyncratic needs and interests. We might wonder whether helping them to build strengths overcomes weaknesses, and helping them find their best work involves helping them discover what they're good at, what they like doing, and helping them overcome their weaknesses, by fuller development of their strengths, in other words, use their strengths to make their weaknesses make sense in a context.
One on one dialogue and first hand experience of the physical world is essential to making anything useful of what is found in cyberspace, which is, in a sense, only inside us. It connects human beings in ways they have barely dreamed possible, and in this way, given way to a flood of human communication never before seen on this planet. It is clear that -- baring any tragic collective forgetting which interrupts the maintenance and development of technology -- the world will never be the same. And yet, some things will never change. Human interaction is a great good that computers are able to improve, and thus ought not serve merely to interrupt.
On the other hand, many throughout the ages have lived for many unfortunate reasons with no physical interaction with others at all. So for some, the internet and related technology makes possible a kind of connection such lives would never otherwise experience. We are all individual, but what we have in common is the need to know one another, to learn from one another, and to love one another as well as we possibly can. Computers make many things possible, even love where there otherwise may be none.
Through ongoing questioning and answering, together, we will learn from one another what we can. Putting a premium on spontaneity and flexibility, all are encouraged toward self-direction and intrinsic development, which is the goal. To be all we can, realize our higher potentials, as measured by our own internal standards about our own best work, thus making constant use of our ability to weigh the good and bad of our choice. And soon we'll find, students become teachers, teams become learning partners, and eventually, learning communities, wherein each and all learn from one other.
Thus, we might come to the aid of our over-worked teachers, undervalued students, and heartsick parents, enable them to help their children and students to navigate the best of our knowledge, to produce astonishing works of art, literature, music, film or any of increasingly many possible research and development projects, to self-test themselves and record their scores into a beautiful color representation of their educational path, and the ability to gather their diverse works on an ongoing basis into a permanent online portfolio, that will allow them to keep a lifetime of educational accomplishments in one beautifully complex and concise form, both in cyberspace, and out, a form that could easily be used for college entrance, for further research on, say, one's dissertation, or simply to pass on of oneself to ones children and grandchildren, who can learn many generations from now the work we took seriously in our lives.
*color chart?
We might use this to supplement to organized education, rather than as an alternative. Indeed, some things are best taught in groups, which requires some organization, to run smoothly. So we might attempt to compliment institutionalized education with other more autonomous ways of learning. Indeed, in the process, we might alleviate the pressures on schools to be all things to all students (as if they should be able to work even more miracles than they already do), in order that they can better serve those who do benefit from the methods employed there, and in order that those who do not benefit sufficiently from instruction in an institutional setting can be freed to find their better minds -- while there is still time!
Well done, such a tool as we've developed could help revitalize our schools by reinspiring students to see them as resources for lifelong learning and the fuller development of their fast growing personal portfolio, which are sure to become a source of great pride, even to those who were once discouraged about their ability to learn, compete, and excel. People with self-respect, or at least a means to improve their self-concept, can find better things to do than to get into trouble. Kids who are bored and discouraged by education, such as it is, might find they are enchanted and exhilarated by math, science and other potentially dull subjects when allowed to approach them through tech projects, such as filmmaking or web design, or architecture, or music or any of many learned skills that integrate all sciences and arts together, scanning into portfolio, product orientation learning, books, films, music, art, etc..
We teach by example, and so it is only our own best selves as students and teachers with whom we compete. And if you've ever watched a youngster playing video games try to beat his top score, you'll get a sense of how much more motivated we all can become. Our key strength is our faith in the ideals of good education we share, or at any rate, explore the meaning of together. With the state of the art of computer technology being such it is, we have a unique opportunity at this rare moment in time to finally answer to a longstanding market need, and help resolve a growing social problem in the process. The internet has the potential to allow someone in our position to actually recruit and broker teachers, to give them a chance to do what they love best, and to get paid better than they would in their full-time jobs, even those of them who are 'in the system', to make contact easier and communication better between teacher and student, as well as between parent and teacher.
According to Bill Gates (who, as it turns out, might have too optimistic about the support his programs would garner from educators), teachers "have a great love of learning, and they'll get excited about anything that will help kids learn."[Gates, p.388] "Technology makes it easy for teachers to scale classes to age and ability and individualize learning."[Gates, p.393] "What teachers don't want is to be thrown into something they have not had the opportunity to learn about and become comfortable with."(Gates, p.388) "Educators want a sustainable model that will not fall by the wayside after the initial enthusiasm wanes. They want to raise educational performance standards and motivate lifelong learning."(Gates, p.392)
We might aim to offer aid to kids who feel the need for both structure and freedom in their education, (See article on Neill, Bantock and Dewey) made possible -- unbeknownst to most parents -- in the right to "homeschool" one's children. When I was a homeschooling parent, I would have given anything to be able to turn to someone with experience who would take my daughter by the hand and backtrack through her education, assess what she had missed, or covered insufficiently, and how it all fits into the rest.
The right to self-school is as old as Socrates, and is properly asserted at this threshold into a new millennium of human development. The law in Wisconsin reads: ***. Thus, Wisconsin, among * other states, allows essentially the restructuring and even the deregulation of one's children's education.
At any rate, if its true that at least some subjects are learned easier and better through intelligent use of technology, then we can enhance this process by allowing more individualized learning time on computer, on task, which would allow them more time (or at any rate, more confidence and more self-respect) with which to carry on healthier practices in their other social activities than high school tends to promote.
Sugata Mitra*
Khan Academy*
If computers can teach them better and faster, then we certainly shouldn't force kids to endure the politics of the classroom for any longer than they absolutely must in order to learn those subjects they deem best for them to learn in a group. In fact, given the choice, most kids would probably choose a little of both -- private and public learning. Indeed, some might in fact choose to learn everything this way -- its for the sake of those who would not that it matters that alternatives exist and be made readily available to the growing young mind.
Through the challenge of homeschooling my own teenage daughter, our family has learned from experience that it is sometimes enough to simply coach, through ongoing feedback and dialogue, and then to put the tools and resources at childrens' disposal. With some modeling and guidance, they will inevitably begin to explore. With nothing pushing them, they have no resistance to learning whatsoever -- it is in fact their natural disposition. The key to this enthusiasm eludes many parents and teachers though, because to unlock that curiosity and love of discovery with which all kids are born, we have to be able to get through the defenses many kids have put up at a very early age, most especially to their parents and their teachers. The key is to help them find truly 'free time' -- which means, peace of mind, without which there is little ability to concentrate. Therefore, the job of a learning coach is not merely to provide a plethora of tools, but to act through dialogue and feedback to help open the blocks that some children have developed which constitute their resistance to learning -- sometimes simply the abominable belief, come of so many grades, judgments and labels, that they are 'dumb' -- which can so easily become self-fulfilling prophesy.
What we need instead from our mentors, Gatto argues, is categorical trust for the natural genius inside every child, not the kind conditional on performance, or merely theoretical. But the kind earned over time by trustworthy concern for the child's best interest.
Gatto's purpose in writing is to promote the understanding that as teachers we must "get out of kids' way...give them space and time and respect." "People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes and try again, or they will never master themselves."[Gatto, p.x-xiv, Dumbing Us Down] "Right now we are taking from our children all the time that they need to develop self-knowledge."[p.34] What we need is to "give that time back. We need to trust children from a very early age with independent study, perhaps arranged in school, but which takes place away from the institutional setting. We need to invent curricula where each kid has a chance to develop private uniqueness and self-reliance."[pp. 34-35] For "only self-teaching has any lasting value."[p.35]
As a veteran teacher of 26 years, Gatto admits that, "I never lie outright, but I've come to see that truth and school teaching are, at bottom, incompatible, just as Socrates said thousands of years ago,"[p.5] when he rightly affirmed that "self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge."[p.34] Gatto may be overstating the case against schools, as far as most of us can see, but it’s hard to find a parent who has not seen the tragic butterfly effects of errors in the education of our young. And he is certainly right to wonder whether we owe our young better.
For those who are not familiar with the so-called 'butterfly effect', it comes to us from an insight shared almost simultaneously by scholars across disciplines, often called chaos theory or fractal geometry, and sometimes simply systems theory. As James Gleick recounted in his 1987 book, Chaos, that through the spontaneous development of a nacient paradigm shift, an awareness has gradually come upon us in our culture, in both scientific and popular cultures, that was perhaps inevitably brought about by widespread use of computers. This new (or is it old?) insight would, before long, reform and reconstruct our very conception of reality in all our disciplines. It began with the creeping realization of the dynamics of change through time, and most especially, over infinity. We began to realized that "tiny differences in input could quickly become overwhelming differences in output -- a phenomenon given the name 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions.' In weather, for example, this translates into what only half-jokingly became known as the Butterfly Effect -- "the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York."(James Gleick, Chaos, p.8)
Given its proliferation in the sciences, it is indeed surprising that the insight of 'sensitive dependence on conditions' has yet to be brought to shed light on human psychology and the learning process. For it has the potential to reform our notion of the nature of the mind, and how, in its nestedness, it does -- or does not -- work. Brought to bare on the dynamics of human relationships and learning, chaos theory and what it tells us about the nature of change and growth, could help us to answer many perennial questions asked repeatedly throughout the ages by thinkers from east to west -- including, are human beings free, or determined? Are we destined by genetics, by environment, or by will? How do we learn? What does it mean to be intelligent? Wise? Who are the good teachers? And what does it even mean to be a good 'teacher'?
The answer to these queries might be taken by analogy from the development of snowflakes. As Gleick argues, thanks to those new insight allowed us by chaos theory, it is now fair to ask the physicist, Why are all snowflakes different? The answer, of course, is that "As a growing snowflake falls to earth, typically floating in the wind for an hour or more, the choices made by the branching tips at any instant depend sensitively on such things as temperature, the humidity, and the presence of impurities in the atmosphere. The six tips of a single snowflake, spreading within a millimeter space, feel the same temperatures, and because the laws of growth are purely deterministic, they maintain a nearly perfect symmetry. But the nature of turbulent air is such that any pair of snowflakes will experience very different paths. The final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite."(James Gleick, Chaos, p.311)
Likewise, we might also ask -- 'Why are all human beings different? -- and the answer would reveal itself to be because the choices made by a growing human being at any given moment depend sensitively on many things, and because the laws of growth are purely deterministic, any of us, in the same state of growth in the same conditions, would probably make the same choices. But the nature of turbulent social relations is such that any pair of human beings, even those with similar genetics and initial conditions, will experience very different paths through life. And so the final person (whatever that means) will record the history of all the changing conditions he or she has experienced, the combinations of which may well be infinite.
We ought to let the insight of sensitive dependence on conditions sink in and shed light on human psychology and the learning process, for it helps us to see how and why each individual student needs and deserves individual attention, and more self-control and direction over their educational path.
This is why we ought to take seriously the lessons of the butterfly effect in education -- for we know that -- in all other phenomena -- very small differences in environment can result in very large long term effects. Hence the reason John Dewey worries about the degree that modern educational methods tend toward 'mal-educative experience', because it turns them off, rather than on, to learning. Socrates too worried (more than twentyfour hundred years ago) about such teaching methods as have the effect of discouraging, rather than encouraging, the pursuit of understanding. Taken on the level of our institutions, such single mistakes in methods of instruction can ruin whole generations.
Thus, as teachers, we must recognize each student as an individual, because only one-on-one dialogue between people who listen as well as they wish to be heard actually delivers what is needed from a true mentor -- upon whom each student is sensitively dependent. I believe these great thinkers would have approved of our method, but would have us remember that there is a fine line over which we ought never step in our feedback, that which distinguishes between encouragement and discouragement of the love of learning and the development of the genius in each of us.
This is why we might hope to be able to uplift academically discouraged kids, to engage them in activities more constructive than the trouble that seems to wait around every corner, help them find their better selves, who want to learn but have forgotten why, who want to be happy but have never learned how, who want self-respect but can't seem to hold on to it, to guide children toward fuller development of their higher potentials by coordinating resources, tools and teachers specific to each child's needs, to help uncover the hidden genius in every child by exploring overt and hidden talents, building on strengths to enhance weaknesses, to help develop/recall curiosity and confidence about their intelligence, to help discover or recover perspective on purpose and fun of learning, channel frustration, alleviate anger, and reduce cynicism and resentment about education and schools, and restore faith and build optimism about their futures, confidence in the power of their minds to take with them into other social, educational, vocational and professional settings, to help them to ultimately find work that satisfies and fulfills their higher potentials, realizes their dreams and actualizes their intrinsic ambitions and destinations...in the form or more self-directed, self-navigated educational guidance. Because, here and now, for the very first time in history, teachers have the almost miraculous technical ability to answer to the truly individuated needs of the young. With our knowledge, technology, legislation, and economic mores being what they are, there is the open invitation for teachers of all sorts to earn a very good supplemental or even alternative living by rising to the challenge of uplifting and inspiring disenchanted youth to the challenge of their own unique genius.
It seems clear that this discouraged and oft' misguided and misspent genius is behind so much that seems destructive, and especially self-destructive, in the attitudes and behavior of young people today. And few feel the pinch of this worse than parents, who -- despite popular rhetoric that it's somehow their own fault -- are often the only ones who can still see the innocent child inside, and yet have little alternative but to watch as their once-curious and still-smart children grow ever more discouraged, cynical and self-destructive as competition intensifies, GPAs fall, and opportunities begin to pass them by.
One indicator is made evident in a recent GLEF "blast" about the resurgence of interest in emotional intelligence since mention of it on a recent talk show in regard to the Columbine tragedy, in which two angry kids did so much damage, and scared the bejeebers out of parents from coast to coast who see a similar glint of anger in their own children's' eyes. It is too much to say that anger is a ubiquitous sentiment among the young, for many cope with amazing humor and grace with impossible circumstances of being young in today's world. But it is fair to say that many of our youth have much good reason for their extreme discontent -- and few outlets to voice or constructively channel that anger. Recent articles giving an ear to the voices of high-school dropouts (see Silenced Voices) offers insight into some of the causal reasons for this phenomena of rage. We are fond of blaming parents when kids can't handle the conflict in their lives with good humor, but if you ask kids themselves who they are mad at, it is less often their parents than the tormenting pressures and failures of school and the politics of popularity and belonging. There is a growing school of thought, often called 'resistance theory', that makes the case that resistance to learning grows when conflicts in the classroom are resolved in ways that children consider unfair, and that rather than encouraging kids to try harder, authoritarian methods of education often turn kids off to school learning altogether -- which is not to say it turns them off to learning, for kids are learning all the time. It merely turns them away from schools and too often toward other 'teachers' -- such as gangs, hate groups, and television -- few of which have the child's best interest at heart.
What choices do parents have? As their children's primary teachers, parents feel responsible (even without political finger-pointing) for failing in the task of awakening their children's sleeping genius and inspiring their will to learn. However, many parents feel that where they failed most is in their choice of other teachers to share their responsibility with, or at any rate, in trusting the schools themselves and taxpayers in general to give teachers what they need to teach well. With too many students, too little time, and too few resources, even a good teachers' best work is far from good education. Thus, most teachers who struggle to live up to what individual kids need from them take a student's failure personally as well (especially since their job and school's funding now depends on this). And to make matters worse, as student to teacher ratios continue to rise, and laws are passed to promote teachers as they are measured by their students' success on standardized tests, so rise the expectations that teachers should be able to be all things to all students -- an already impossible job becomes even more difficult!
The Potential for Web-based Education
Here and now, for the very first time in human history, we have the almost miraculous technical ability to answer to the truly individuated educational needs of our young. We have the tools to guide children toward fuller development of their higher potentials by offering them resources, technology, and teachers specific to each child's individual needs, to help uncover the hidden genius in every child by exploring overt and hidden talents, building on strengths to enhance weaknesses, to help develop/recall curiosity and confidence about their intelligence, to help discover or recover perspective on purpose and fun of learning, channel frustration, alleviate anger, and reduce cynicism and resentment about education and schools, and restore faith and build optimism about their futures, confidence in the power of their minds to take with them into other social, educational, vocational and professional settings, to help them to ultimately find work that satisfies and fulfills their higher potentials, realizes their dreams and actualizes their intrinsic ambitions and destinations...by way of more self-directed, self-navigated educational paths. This may be our only hope of uplifting and inspiring, especially academically discouraged youth, to the challenge of developing their own unique genius.
On Deregulating Our Children (repeat?)
Why would one want to deregulate one’s children? Perhaps for the same reason so many in our conservative age are so fond of the principle of deregulation toward their own 'governmental' authorities and regulators. People resist being told what to do -- and believe they would do the right thing better if left to their own reasonings. Whether this is true or not in such realms as government regulation of big business is debatable. But it is certainly true with regard to learning. We literally cannot stop kids from learning -- except, as Gatto would argue, by standing in their way. If we believe as strongly as we lately seem to that government must keep its nose out of our business, then the argument has to hold in all cases where extrinsic forces stand in the way of the natural self direction of living beings. (Of course, this rhetoric turns out to be a ruse designed to promote freedom, not for people, but for corporations…but that subterfuge escapes the notice of those who never learned to look for contradictions in the reasoning of those who, say, get themselves elected appealing to people love of freedom, when what they really mean is some people freedom to impose their views on others, which is not freedom, but license…but more on that later). Anyway, one might be able to defend extrinsic incentives which allows a choice in the end, but mandatory compulsive authority, especially over something like learning, has the potential to ruin the love of it, and thus requires more justification than we bother giving our kids for the shameless over-authority exercised in institutionalized schools over what they learn and when they learn it.
The principle of deregulation, if it properly applies at the level of government and citizens, also properly applies at the level of teacher and student, for we have natural rights in either case, economic, political and educational relations. Such relations deserve further examination, because they are not properly hierarchical relations in which one group assumes the right of authority over another, that is, the right to author the other's actions, and given this, it is ironic indeed that the importance of this freedom was given such a strong defense by '90s Republicans, who really only meant to assert the rights of business to operate unhindered, but managed to give a boost to the rights of individual freedom from wrongful judgment and authority, which advanced (albeit inadvertently) the rights of individuals from institutional constraints across the board -- not an end they would have promoted had they seen it coming. So while they historically hold the most Calvinist of philosophies dear, being among the worst offenders of the moral law that limits unjust authority, modern libertarians have nonetheless shot themselves in the foot with their push for deregulation of business practices, for its opened the door for arguments against all those who would abuse power in all other realms of institutional activity -- including, and most especially, in education.
So we might discuss 'free market education' further, and to hold faith that we are growing out of this age of cynicism, of rampant disregard of individual differences and disrespect for how different peoples lives have different challenges, underappreciated for how significantly difficult certain challenges, such as poverty and racism, really are to overcome, and failure of empathy for the true beauty and depth of every living thing, in short, a failure of the golden rule -- for too little do we remember the imperative to do onto others as we would have them do onto us, perhaps because we do not even know ourselves. or what we would have done to us, given the choice.
It is important to understand how Socrates and Aristotle would have advised us to remedy the state we find ourselves in regarding education; contemporary theorists, as well as more recent thinkers (like Dewey, Mead and Meiklejohn) would add to the dialogue that the true purpose of teachers and schools is to help individual children toward their own truest purpose, meaning, to help them discover and actualize their unique intrinsic potential, i.e. their best work, indeed, their best self. The insight drawn from these great thinkers gives us perspective and puts us in a good position to make a convincing case for a better, or at least more inclusive, method of education than we currently have in place in this country.
As we have said, we must begin with the question -- what is the nature of the educational relationship? The justice is in the consent, they would say, and this is the heart of Socrates', Plato's' and Aristotle's philosophy, and it is this lesson I want to draw from the Socratic dialogue. That being the case, the challenge, to those who would rule over others, is to change the authoritative structure of educational relationships into respectful teaching relationships -- i.e. to guide instead of force, command or coerce. This is wherein it is fair to argue that politics and education are one, at least when they are functioning properly. As * put it, “Education is the function of government closest to the people.”
Our goal ought to be to provide a felt education, meaning, for the child to be the proper judge of when he has learned something, has understood. Difficult as it may sound, given our well-conditioned educational habits, it's up to us to follow their interests, not grade them on how well they follow ours! It's our job as teachers to empathize with flexible mind, with each child with whom we work, and to help guide by listening and aiding the child/person from where he is at to whatever the next level or step might be.
That's the job of a Socratic teacher, and it means absolutely individuating each child, like we would a friend. Are we ever able to accomplish this completely? probably not, but it is an ideal to aim at, a target, a standard by which to compare ourselves in order to better our teaching. Our purpose must be to be clear enough about our purpose to be able to be true to what it is...to keep the process of education honest...to aim continually at our ideal goals...to constantly realign ourselves to be living up to our pledge, and thus, to do our best, which is never perfect, but always perfecting.
And toward that end, we must think like revolutionaries, as Steve Jobs put it, and use business methods to our noblest ends. If it can be done well, we will do our best to see that it is. For if it is going to be an entity in its own right, then it is going to be a good one, well-motivated and true to its purpose -- of which the bottom line has to be, are we doing right by kids? What’s actually good for them, not merely what we perceive to be good for our economy, or for their economic good, at the cost of their character or spiritual interests.. Only then can and should we profit. Because only with honorable motivation can true success be achieved. So we must ask ourselves, are we being a true teacher, a true friend, to this child? Are we giving what we would have liked to have received from our teachers? Meaning, are we being fair? Being honest? Being true to our own best selves, that they might learn to be theirs?
Our job should be to get to know each child, through ongoing dialogue, as an individual, as well as in group interaction, and, as a team, with the parents and family, with the purpose of helping them find their hidden potentials, and recover the love of learning they were born with. This is not an easy task, especially with some already resistant kids, if only because we are only one influence in a life of many influences, but we can promise to do our best, imperfect as that is, to take each child seriously as a thinker, and a doer, and the person he or she would like to be. Every child has hidden potentials, and usually they're not hidden very deeply, and it is our goal to help them see around the doubts and fears they have internalized, and to take themselves seriously as intelligent human beings, capable of working with their environment to actualize the lives they desire, and make their best and happiest self become real.
Again, we are but one influence among many, so we cannot eliminate all barriers to success in a given child's life. But we can help them see that what is and what is not in their control, and help eliminate those blocks that are inside them. After all, pre-requisite to doing anything is believing that you can. In other words, you cannot do anything you don't try to do, and you cannot try to do anything you don't believe in your heart to be possible. The forces that discourage that belief, call it confidence, or self-respect, are many -- including some that are harder than others to overcome, such as poverty. Many such powerful extrinsic forces can be overcome only by an indomitable will to succeed, for which permission to dream might be necessary.
And eventually, adults who'd like access to tools and teachers to help them uncover unexplored potentials will come and ask for help as well, help them fill in the potholes along the highway of their education...all of us who 'missed that day of class', for one reason or another. Those who learn the hard way that the target we take aim at may not take us where we really wanted to go, but if we keep asking ourselves anew, which way to go, it will take us to what is best. Learning is a cumulative process, and going back to fill in the holes is part of the fun, to finally come to understand something that has long eluded us feels wonderful, restores confidence, mental exercise strengthens the mind, and the resolution to become one's better self inspires one's children and students.
Teaching must evolve to involve helping each child to believe in what's possible, and we do this best by aiding in the history of their successes. Learning can seem like a slow process (especially to those in doubt, who often need constant reassurance), but we take heart at progress, and urge parents to do the same, for not only is it better than regress (as I felt was my daughter's direction when she was registered in high school), but the very presence of doubt can be the cause of the underconfidence which is halting progress. Learning is a matter of feedback loops. Our job is to imaginatively search out those tools that each child might best use in any given learning challenge, whatever they might be (eventually including computers and internet technology), and in the meantime, to help them grow the self-concept they'll need to continue the learning that will move them toward their dreams. Some might worry that we could set them up for let down in this way, but to that I would respond in the words of Socrates, "that we will be better, braver, and happier people if we believe it right and wise to look for what we don't know, than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don't know we can never discover." Dreams, like knowledge, are actualized, not merely in the realization, but in the progress that moves toward them -- which is to say, in the wisdom to believe.
So we might be on the verge of a true adventure in education, for we have, given the potential of our technology and the condition of our schools, the unique, and unprecedented opportunity, indeed responsibility, to reinvent the wheel of education. As with anything worth doing, timing is critical. Learning is among the most fundamental of human functions, knowledge the most fundamental of human needs, and gone wrong, it can ruin lives. Left to malfunction, without challenge, it can ruin entire generations of young people who would otherwise live constructive lives, if only we would help them do so, instead of engaging them in patterns of political competition among themselves over quantities of zero sum rewards. We know better. As teachers we can do better by them that we are allowed to in the education system such as it is. Dedicated and gifted teachers are often wasted on countless hours of grading and internal politics. Hard as we try, there is hardly time for notice, let alone individuation, of the gifts and challenges of particular individual students. With too many students and too little time, we are reduced to delivering lectures, and testing a few days later to see if they remember what was said a few days before.
This is, arguably, the best we could do, until now, at least, and the result is that we've become very good at sorting the young in this way, according to how well and quickly they do what they're told, good at judging with praise and blame those behaviors we like and dislike, which too often comes down to the art of guessing who will succeed and who will 'flunk' (a dastardly word, known, strangely enough, only in the vocabulary of schools) according as we know others judge. Yet many of us teachers, and I suspect, many of us parents, many of whom are teachers ourselves in one realm or another, share with us a sense that we can do better by our kids. Given all the many challenges of our 'new world' we can finally do education as well as we -- most of us -- once dreamed we could.
So come with us into this new world of learning, where children can find and enjoy teachers who have time for them, and can qualify that time with the rich availability of truly magical resources, the tools that engage the young in the world of knowledge by their already well-developed love of technology, and transfixed them in the fascination of all there is -- for each and every one of us -- to learn.
No longer constrained by proximity or availability or even by literacy, through the internet we have the world at our finger tips, quite literally, and if nothing else, this power of instantaneous access gives us the potential to cover so much more territory in the course of our education, and if not to finish it sooner, then to learn to continue our education well into the pattern of our lives. Not that online interaction will replace human contact or even traditional methods of education, it will only make it richer and more adventurous, and it will begin simply and humbly by offering aid, tutoring for lack of a better work, though 'coaching' is more like it, to young people who are entitled to the best we have to offer them. So we must attempt to answer to the need for better, personalized, education…especially since the time is so ripe.
The Potential for Web-based Education
Here and now, for the very first time in human history, we have the almost miraculous technical ability to answer to the truly individuated educational needs of our young. We have the tools to guide children toward fuller development of their higher potentials by offering them resources, technology, and teachers specific to each child's individual needs, to help uncover the hidden genius in every child by exploring overt and hidden talents, building on strengths to enhance weaknesses, to help develop/recall curiosity and confidence about their intelligence, to help discover or recover perspective on purpose and fun of learning, channel frustration, alleviate anger, and reduce cynicism and resentment about education and schools, and restore faith and build optimism about their futures, confidence in the power of their minds to take with them into other social, educational, vocational and professional settings, to help them to ultimately find work that satisfies and fulfills their higher potentials, realizes their dreams and actualizes their intrinsic ambitions and destinations...by way of more self-directed, self-navigated educational paths. This may be our only hope of uplifting and inspiring, especially academically discouraged youth, to the challenge of developing their own unique genius.
In the film Learn and Live, hosted by Robin Williams and produced by George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars trilogy, we see that and how our schools, the system in which we've grown, was developed to suit the needs of another age, when schools were expected to produce workers more than thinkers. Schools have become antiquated by their inability to keep up with the needs and tools of the individual learner, they make clear, tools which are widely available commercially, that can serve the unique educational needs of individual students, at the speed of light.
Schools have become expert in serving those subjects and areas of study best taught in groups (and these are many), but they have taken the liberty of organizing the body of human knowledge into a useful linear arrangement, which may or may not be the best order for any given child. We teach as if only one proper order, and judge, and flunk and label those who don't follow the prescribed order of understanding...(put Gatto*) Unfortunately, for all their good intentions, such methods can ruin kids lives before they've even begun, and send smart kids who somehow step off the prescribed path spiraling down slippery-slopes to defeat and failure. Many kids are moved along without opportunity to revisit or review the materials which went by too quickly, too slowly, or simply at the wrong time. While this same child might have been ready for a study of the stars or rocket science at 12, but has lost interest by 15, when his genius is busy coordinating muscle memory and mind for skateboarding. Meanwhile, the skateboarding 15 year old might be ready for calculus and trigonometry, better than the 18 year old college freshman who couldn't care less. If we were cognizant of the true nature of learning, we would make sure the kids who blew it early on, would be free when the time is right to come back around full circle to the educational paths they rejected at an earlier age.
It is the readiness needs of every idiosyncratic individual learner that are inevitably neglected in group learning, and which computer and advancing technology make possible -- even easier and more effective – than our antiquated educational methods, which may well use technology, although probably not in ways that actually respond to individual student learning needs. While technology had inevitably bled into the classroom, and does help alleviate this problem, even the most progressive school districts predict it will be years, if ever, before we have sufficient freedom in classrooms for this technology to serve individuality of learning.
Thus, there is a very real, if largely unfelt, need for a service that will aid individual kids and adults alike in the pursuit of their unique learning paths, the revisiting and review of what, for whatever reason one missed along the way in one's formal education ("I was sick that day!").
The proliferation of standardized testing makes this exercise just what the doctor ordered for many, since statistic after statistic indicates that the biggest problem with our educational methods is that kids don't remember what they learn beyond the test that measures what they recall only a few days after it was presented to them, usually by outside-in instruction.
The importance of intrinsic motivation and personalized timing in the success of new learning methods cannot be over-stated, and this need for individuation reminds us to reiterate here that not all kids are ready for or in need of technological innovation, and that the principle of individuation brings us to recall as we go that technological aids are only one kind of tool, among many, and that the principle of first things first will keep us from promoting technology for it's own sake.
Rather, our focus ought to be on the individual student, and computer tools are but one (albeit especially effective) means to that end. But computers, for all their value, ought not be allowed to distract the young student from first hand experience of the world, which is found only second hand, once removed, as mere copies (as Plato noted) of the world. There is much to be discovered from such means, but they are means, and the end is understanding which is first and foremost person to person.
So perhaps we ought to hold with Socrates, who argued that people need interactive dialogue. What does this mean, exactly? Not that we aim to practice the 'Socratic method' as it is so erroneously portrayed by some (*put cartoon from History of Universe, Karl Popper, and the Plato in 90 min book), but the Socratic method, in the sense for which Socrates argued -- that of meeting each student, face to face, one on one, in trust and respect, and by agreement and consent, wherein lies justice, treating one as friends ought.
Yes, if we had to sum it up concisely, our job would be to be their friend, their advocate, and their personal coach. And it is because this task is so individuated that we must reserve the right to limit ourselves to those who actually choose and want this aid. For we wish we could, but we cannot do for our students what they must do for themselves. We can, however, and ought simply do our best to help them do their best.
We ought aim to serve the need in kids to talk out their problems, take seriously their potentials, with qualified, albeit humble, mentors. We try to listen and respond with our best heart and mind, and we have every reason to be sincere in this effort, since it follows from the principles we are founded on that only such sincerity can succeed in earning trust. We give kids credit for being able to discern who they can trust, and the freedom to change teachers until they find them. And so this principle also prescribes that hiring practices and internal conflict resolution, for the ability to give sincere and unconditional positive regard is an art too few of us are really good at, but one that many of us would greatly benefit from the better practice of,.
As Confucius, Socrates, and Aristotle would have us remember, in teaching, as in anything else, we are always changing, always either getting better or getting worse, and having an ideal at which to aim is the critical 'golden mean', or light house, toward which the sincere teacher will continually navigate. Promise to keep to this ideal regulates many potentially problematic situations between learning partners, for it helps to illuminate unfairness wherever it arises, usually without words or reprimand. For only by being ourselves sincerely fair in our efforts with regard to each individual learner can we expect as much from them. And I think we have a better chance of honoring this ideal only if we dialogue amongst ourselves about the meaning of the ideal of 'good teaching'...of Socratic dialogue...of hard cases...
Every child faces a unique challenge, and our job would be to get to know every child, on their own terms, as an individual with idiosyncratic needs and interests. We might wonder whether helping them to build strengths overcomes weaknesses, and helping them find their best work involves helping them discover what they're good at, what they like doing, and helping them overcome their weaknesses, by fuller development of their strengths, in other words, use their strengths to make their weaknesses make sense in a context.
One on one dialogue and first hand experience of the physical world is essential to making anything useful of what is found in cyberspace, which is, in a sense, only inside us. It connects human beings in ways they have barely dreamed possible, and in this way, given way to a flood of human communication never before seen on this planet. It is clear that -- baring any tragic collective forgetting which interrupts the maintenance and development of technology -- the world will never be the same. And yet, some things will never change. Human interaction is a great good that computers are able to improve, and thus ought not serve merely to interrupt.
On the other hand, many throughout the ages have lived for many unfortunate reasons with no physical interaction with others at all. So for some, the internet and related technology makes possible a kind of connection such lives would never otherwise experience. We are all individual, but what we have in common is the need to know one another, to learn from one another, and to love one another as well as we possibly can. Computers make many things possible, even love where there otherwise may be none.
Through ongoing questioning and answering, together, we will learn from one another what we can. Putting a premium on spontaneity and flexibility, all are encouraged toward self-direction and intrinsic development, which is the goal. To be all we can, realize our higher potentials, as measured by our own internal standards about our own best work, thus making constant use of our ability to weigh the good and bad of our choice. And soon we'll find, students become teachers, teams become learning partners, and eventually, learning communities, wherein each and all learn from one other.
Thus, we might come to the aid of our over-worked teachers, undervalued students, and heartsick parents, enable them to help their children and students to navigate the best of our knowledge, to produce astonishing works of art, literature, music, film or any of increasingly many possible research and development projects, to self-test themselves and record their scores into a beautiful color representation of their educational path, and the ability to gather their diverse works on an ongoing basis into a permanent online portfolio, that will allow them to keep a lifetime of educational accomplishments in one beautifully complex and concise form, both in cyberspace, and out, a form that could easily be used for college entrance, for further research on, say, one's dissertation, or simply to pass on of oneself to ones children and grandchildren, who can learn many generations from now the work we took seriously in our lives.
*color chart?
We might use this to supplement to organized education, rather than as an alternative. Indeed, some things are best taught in groups, which requires some organization, to run smoothly. So we might attempt to compliment institutionalized education with other more autonomous ways of learning. Indeed, in the process, we might alleviate the pressures on schools to be all things to all students (as if they should be able to work even more miracles than they already do), in order that they can better serve those who do benefit from the methods employed there, and in order that those who do not benefit sufficiently from instruction in an institutional setting can be freed to find their better minds -- while there is still time!
Well done, such a tool as we've developed could help revitalize our schools by reinspiring students to see them as resources for lifelong learning and the fuller development of their fast growing personal portfolio, which are sure to become a source of great pride, even to those who were once discouraged about their ability to learn, compete, and excel. People with self-respect, or at least a means to improve their self-concept, can find better things to do than to get into trouble. Kids who are bored and discouraged by education, such as it is, might find they are enchanted and exhilarated by math, science and other potentially dull subjects when allowed to approach them through tech projects, such as filmmaking or web design, or architecture, or music or any of many learned skills that integrate all sciences and arts together, scanning into portfolio, product orientation learning, books, films, music, art, etc..
We teach by example, and so it is only our own best selves as students and teachers with whom we compete. And if you've ever watched a youngster playing video games try to beat his top score, you'll get a sense of how much more motivated we all can become. Our key strength is our faith in the ideals of good education we share, or at any rate, explore the meaning of together. With the state of the art of computer technology being such it is, we have a unique opportunity at this rare moment in time to finally answer to a longstanding market need, and help resolve a growing social problem in the process. The internet has the potential to allow someone in our position to actually recruit and broker teachers, to give them a chance to do what they love best, and to get paid better than they would in their full-time jobs, even those of them who are 'in the system', to make contact easier and communication better between teacher and student, as well as between parent and teacher.
According to Bill Gates (who, as it turns out, might have too optimistic about the support his programs would garner from educators), teachers "have a great love of learning, and they'll get excited about anything that will help kids learn."[Gates, p.388] "Technology makes it easy for teachers to scale classes to age and ability and individualize learning."[Gates, p.393] "What teachers don't want is to be thrown into something they have not had the opportunity to learn about and become comfortable with."(Gates, p.388) "Educators want a sustainable model that will not fall by the wayside after the initial enthusiasm wanes. They want to raise educational performance standards and motivate lifelong learning."(Gates, p.392)
We might aim to offer aid to kids who feel the need for both structure and freedom in their education, (See article on Neill, Bantock and Dewey) made possible -- unbeknownst to most parents -- in the right to "homeschool" one's children. When I was a homeschooling parent, I would have given anything to be able to turn to someone with experience who would take my daughter by the hand and backtrack through her education, assess what she had missed, or covered insufficiently, and how it all fits into the rest.
The right to self-school is as old as Socrates, and is properly asserted at this threshold into a new millennium of human development. The law in Wisconsin reads: ***. Thus, Wisconsin, among * other states, allows essentially the restructuring and even the deregulation of one's children's education.
At any rate, if its true that at least some subjects are learned easier and better through intelligent use of technology, then we can enhance this process by allowing more individualized learning time on computer, on task, which would allow them more time (or at any rate, more confidence and more self-respect) with which to carry on healthier practices in their other social activities than high school tends to promote.
Sugata Mitra*
Khan Academy*
If computers can teach them better and faster, then we certainly shouldn't force kids to endure the politics of the classroom for any longer than they absolutely must in order to learn those subjects they deem best for them to learn in a group. In fact, given the choice, most kids would probably choose a little of both -- private and public learning. Indeed, some might in fact choose to learn everything this way -- its for the sake of those who would not that it matters that alternatives exist and be made readily available to the growing young mind.
Through the challenge of homeschooling my own teenage daughter, our family has learned from experience that it is sometimes enough to simply coach, through ongoing feedback and dialogue, and then to put the tools and resources at childrens' disposal. With some modeling and guidance, they will inevitably begin to explore. With nothing pushing them, they have no resistance to learning whatsoever -- it is in fact their natural disposition. The key to this enthusiasm eludes many parents and teachers though, because to unlock that curiosity and love of discovery with which all kids are born, we have to be able to get through the defenses many kids have put up at a very early age, most especially to their parents and their teachers. The key is to help them find truly 'free time' -- which means, peace of mind, without which there is little ability to concentrate. Therefore, the job of a learning coach is not merely to provide a plethora of tools, but to act through dialogue and feedback to help open the blocks that some children have developed which constitute their resistance to learning -- sometimes simply the abominable belief, come of so many grades, judgments and labels, that they are 'dumb' -- which can so easily become self-fulfilling prophesy.
What we need instead from our mentors, Gatto argues, is categorical trust for the natural genius inside every child, not the kind conditional on performance, or merely theoretical. But the kind earned over time by trustworthy concern for the child's best interest.
Gatto's purpose in writing is to promote the understanding that as teachers we must "get out of kids' way...give them space and time and respect." "People have to be allowed to make their own mistakes and try again, or they will never master themselves."[Gatto, p.x-xiv, Dumbing Us Down] "Right now we are taking from our children all the time that they need to develop self-knowledge."[p.34] What we need is to "give that time back. We need to trust children from a very early age with independent study, perhaps arranged in school, but which takes place away from the institutional setting. We need to invent curricula where each kid has a chance to develop private uniqueness and self-reliance."[pp. 34-35] For "only self-teaching has any lasting value."[p.35]
As a veteran teacher of 26 years, Gatto admits that, "I never lie outright, but I've come to see that truth and school teaching are, at bottom, incompatible, just as Socrates said thousands of years ago,"[p.5] when he rightly affirmed that "self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge."[p.34] Gatto may be overstating the case against schools, as far as most of us can see, but it’s hard to find a parent who has not seen the tragic butterfly effects of errors in the education of our young. And he is certainly right to wonder whether we owe our young better.
For those who are not familiar with the so-called 'butterfly effect', it comes to us from an insight shared almost simultaneously by scholars across disciplines, often called chaos theory or fractal geometry, and sometimes simply systems theory. As James Gleick recounted in his 1987 book, Chaos, that through the spontaneous development of a nacient paradigm shift, an awareness has gradually come upon us in our culture, in both scientific and popular cultures, that was perhaps inevitably brought about by widespread use of computers. This new (or is it old?) insight would, before long, reform and reconstruct our very conception of reality in all our disciplines. It began with the creeping realization of the dynamics of change through time, and most especially, over infinity. We began to realized that "tiny differences in input could quickly become overwhelming differences in output -- a phenomenon given the name 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions.' In weather, for example, this translates into what only half-jokingly became known as the Butterfly Effect -- "the notion that a butterfly stirring the air today in Peking can transform storm systems next month in New York."(James Gleick, Chaos, p.8)
Given its proliferation in the sciences, it is indeed surprising that the insight of 'sensitive dependence on conditions' has yet to be brought to shed light on human psychology and the learning process. For it has the potential to reform our notion of the nature of the mind, and how, in its nestedness, it does -- or does not -- work. Brought to bare on the dynamics of human relationships and learning, chaos theory and what it tells us about the nature of change and growth, could help us to answer many perennial questions asked repeatedly throughout the ages by thinkers from east to west -- including, are human beings free, or determined? Are we destined by genetics, by environment, or by will? How do we learn? What does it mean to be intelligent? Wise? Who are the good teachers? And what does it even mean to be a good 'teacher'?
The answer to these queries might be taken by analogy from the development of snowflakes. As Gleick argues, thanks to those new insight allowed us by chaos theory, it is now fair to ask the physicist, Why are all snowflakes different? The answer, of course, is that "As a growing snowflake falls to earth, typically floating in the wind for an hour or more, the choices made by the branching tips at any instant depend sensitively on such things as temperature, the humidity, and the presence of impurities in the atmosphere. The six tips of a single snowflake, spreading within a millimeter space, feel the same temperatures, and because the laws of growth are purely deterministic, they maintain a nearly perfect symmetry. But the nature of turbulent air is such that any pair of snowflakes will experience very different paths. The final flake records the history of all the changing weather conditions it has experienced, and the combinations may well be infinite."(James Gleick, Chaos, p.311)
Likewise, we might also ask -- 'Why are all human beings different? -- and the answer would reveal itself to be because the choices made by a growing human being at any given moment depend sensitively on many things, and because the laws of growth are purely deterministic, any of us, in the same state of growth in the same conditions, would probably make the same choices. But the nature of turbulent social relations is such that any pair of human beings, even those with similar genetics and initial conditions, will experience very different paths through life. And so the final person (whatever that means) will record the history of all the changing conditions he or she has experienced, the combinations of which may well be infinite.
We ought to let the insight of sensitive dependence on conditions sink in and shed light on human psychology and the learning process, for it helps us to see how and why each individual student needs and deserves individual attention, and more self-control and direction over their educational path.
This is why we ought to take seriously the lessons of the butterfly effect in education -- for we know that -- in all other phenomena -- very small differences in environment can result in very large long term effects. Hence the reason John Dewey worries about the degree that modern educational methods tend toward 'mal-educative experience', because it turns them off, rather than on, to learning. Socrates too worried (more than twentyfour hundred years ago) about such teaching methods as have the effect of discouraging, rather than encouraging, the pursuit of understanding. Taken on the level of our institutions, such single mistakes in methods of instruction can ruin whole generations.
Thus, as teachers, we must recognize each student as an individual, because only one-on-one dialogue between people who listen as well as they wish to be heard actually delivers what is needed from a true mentor -- upon whom each student is sensitively dependent. I believe these great thinkers would have approved of our method, but would have us remember that there is a fine line over which we ought never step in our feedback, that which distinguishes between encouragement and discouragement of the love of learning and the development of the genius in each of us.
This is why we might hope to be able to uplift academically discouraged kids, to engage them in activities more constructive than the trouble that seems to wait around every corner, help them find their better selves, who want to learn but have forgotten why, who want to be happy but have never learned how, who want self-respect but can't seem to hold on to it, to guide children toward fuller development of their higher potentials by coordinating resources, tools and teachers specific to each child's needs, to help uncover the hidden genius in every child by exploring overt and hidden talents, building on strengths to enhance weaknesses, to help develop/recall curiosity and confidence about their intelligence, to help discover or recover perspective on purpose and fun of learning, channel frustration, alleviate anger, and reduce cynicism and resentment about education and schools, and restore faith and build optimism about their futures, confidence in the power of their minds to take with them into other social, educational, vocational and professional settings, to help them to ultimately find work that satisfies and fulfills their higher potentials, realizes their dreams and actualizes their intrinsic ambitions and destinations...in the form or more self-directed, self-navigated educational guidance. Because, here and now, for the very first time in history, teachers have the almost miraculous technical ability to answer to the truly individuated needs of the young. With our knowledge, technology, legislation, and economic mores being what they are, there is the open invitation for teachers of all sorts to earn a very good supplemental or even alternative living by rising to the challenge of uplifting and inspiring disenchanted youth to the challenge of their own unique genius.
It seems clear that this discouraged and oft' misguided and misspent genius is behind so much that seems destructive, and especially self-destructive, in the attitudes and behavior of young people today. And few feel the pinch of this worse than parents, who -- despite popular rhetoric that it's somehow their own fault -- are often the only ones who can still see the innocent child inside, and yet have little alternative but to watch as their once-curious and still-smart children grow ever more discouraged, cynical and self-destructive as competition intensifies, GPAs fall, and opportunities begin to pass them by.
One indicator is made evident in a recent GLEF "blast" about the resurgence of interest in emotional intelligence since mention of it on a recent talk show in regard to the Columbine tragedy, in which two angry kids did so much damage, and scared the bejeebers out of parents from coast to coast who see a similar glint of anger in their own children's' eyes. It is too much to say that anger is a ubiquitous sentiment among the young, for many cope with amazing humor and grace with impossible circumstances of being young in today's world. But it is fair to say that many of our youth have much good reason for their extreme discontent -- and few outlets to voice or constructively channel that anger. Recent articles giving an ear to the voices of high-school dropouts (see Silenced Voices) offers insight into some of the causal reasons for this phenomena of rage. We are fond of blaming parents when kids can't handle the conflict in their lives with good humor, but if you ask kids themselves who they are mad at, it is less often their parents than the tormenting pressures and failures of school and the politics of popularity and belonging. There is a growing school of thought, often called 'resistance theory', that makes the case that resistance to learning grows when conflicts in the classroom are resolved in ways that children consider unfair, and that rather than encouraging kids to try harder, authoritarian methods of education often turn kids off to school learning altogether -- which is not to say it turns them off to learning, for kids are learning all the time. It merely turns them away from schools and too often toward other 'teachers' -- such as gangs, hate groups, and television -- few of which have the child's best interest at heart.
What choices do parents have? As their children's primary teachers, parents feel responsible (even without political finger-pointing) for failing in the task of awakening their children's sleeping genius and inspiring their will to learn. However, many parents feel that where they failed most is in their choice of other teachers to share their responsibility with, or at any rate, in trusting the schools themselves and taxpayers in general to give teachers what they need to teach well. With too many students, too little time, and too few resources, even a good teachers' best work is far from good education. Thus, most teachers who struggle to live up to what individual kids need from them take a student's failure personally as well (especially since their job and school's funding now depends on this). And to make matters worse, as student to teacher ratios continue to rise, and laws are passed to promote teachers as they are measured by their students' success on standardized tests, so rise the expectations that teachers should be able to be all things to all students -- an already impossible job becomes even more difficult!
The Potential for Web-based Education
Here and now, for the very first time in human history, we have the almost miraculous technical ability to answer to the truly individuated educational needs of our young. We have the tools to guide children toward fuller development of their higher potentials by offering them resources, technology, and teachers specific to each child's individual needs, to help uncover the hidden genius in every child by exploring overt and hidden talents, building on strengths to enhance weaknesses, to help develop/recall curiosity and confidence about their intelligence, to help discover or recover perspective on purpose and fun of learning, channel frustration, alleviate anger, and reduce cynicism and resentment about education and schools, and restore faith and build optimism about their futures, confidence in the power of their minds to take with them into other social, educational, vocational and professional settings, to help them to ultimately find work that satisfies and fulfills their higher potentials, realizes their dreams and actualizes their intrinsic ambitions and destinations...by way of more self-directed, self-navigated educational paths. This may be our only hope of uplifting and inspiring, especially academically discouraged youth, to the challenge of developing their own unique genius.
On Deregulating Our Children (repeat?)
Why would one want to deregulate one’s children? Perhaps for the same reason so many in our conservative age are so fond of the principle of deregulation toward their own 'governmental' authorities and regulators. People resist being told what to do -- and believe they would do the right thing better if left to their own reasonings. Whether this is true or not in such realms as government regulation of big business is debatable. But it is certainly true with regard to learning. We literally cannot stop kids from learning -- except, as Gatto would argue, by standing in their way. If we believe as strongly as we lately seem to that government must keep its nose out of our business, then the argument has to hold in all cases where extrinsic forces stand in the way of the natural self direction of living beings. (Of course, this rhetoric turns out to be a ruse designed to promote freedom, not for people, but for corporations…but that subterfuge escapes the notice of those who never learned to look for contradictions in the reasoning of those who, say, get themselves elected appealing to people love of freedom, when what they really mean is some people freedom to impose their views on others, which is not freedom, but license…but more on that later). Anyway, one might be able to defend extrinsic incentives which allows a choice in the end, but mandatory compulsive authority, especially over something like learning, has the potential to ruin the love of it, and thus requires more justification than we bother giving our kids for the shameless over-authority exercised in institutionalized schools over what they learn and when they learn it.
The principle of deregulation, if it properly applies at the level of government and citizens, also properly applies at the level of teacher and student, for we have natural rights in either case, economic, political and educational relations. Such relations deserve further examination, because they are not properly hierarchical relations in which one group assumes the right of authority over another, that is, the right to author the other's actions, and given this, it is ironic indeed that the importance of this freedom was given such a strong defense by '90s Republicans, who really only meant to assert the rights of business to operate unhindered, but managed to give a boost to the rights of individual freedom from wrongful judgment and authority, which advanced (albeit inadvertently) the rights of individuals from institutional constraints across the board -- not an end they would have promoted had they seen it coming. So while they historically hold the most Calvinist of philosophies dear, being among the worst offenders of the moral law that limits unjust authority, modern libertarians have nonetheless shot themselves in the foot with their push for deregulation of business practices, for its opened the door for arguments against all those who would abuse power in all other realms of institutional activity -- including, and most especially, in education.
So we might discuss 'free market education' further, and to hold faith that we are growing out of this age of cynicism, of rampant disregard of individual differences and disrespect for how different peoples lives have different challenges, underappreciated for how significantly difficult certain challenges, such as poverty and racism, really are to overcome, and failure of empathy for the true beauty and depth of every living thing, in short, a failure of the golden rule -- for too little do we remember the imperative to do onto others as we would have them do onto us, perhaps because we do not even know ourselves. or what we would have done to us, given the choice.
It is important to understand how Socrates and Aristotle would have advised us to remedy the state we find ourselves in regarding education; contemporary theorists, as well as more recent thinkers (like Dewey, Mead and Meiklejohn) would add to the dialogue that the true purpose of teachers and schools is to help individual children toward their own truest purpose, meaning, to help them discover and actualize their unique intrinsic potential, i.e. their best work, indeed, their best self. The insight drawn from these great thinkers gives us perspective and puts us in a good position to make a convincing case for a better, or at least more inclusive, method of education than we currently have in place in this country.
As we have said, we must begin with the question -- what is the nature of the educational relationship? The justice is in the consent, they would say, and this is the heart of Socrates', Plato's' and Aristotle's philosophy, and it is this lesson I want to draw from the Socratic dialogue. That being the case, the challenge, to those who would rule over others, is to change the authoritative structure of educational relationships into respectful teaching relationships -- i.e. to guide instead of force, command or coerce. This is wherein it is fair to argue that politics and education are one, at least when they are functioning properly. As * put it, “Education is the function of government closest to the people.”
Our goal ought to be to provide a felt education, meaning, for the child to be the proper judge of when he has learned something, has understood. Difficult as it may sound, given our well-conditioned educational habits, it's up to us to follow their interests, not grade them on how well they follow ours! It's our job as teachers to empathize with flexible mind, with each child with whom we work, and to help guide by listening and aiding the child/person from where he is at to whatever the next level or step might be.
That's the job of a Socratic teacher, and it means absolutely individuating each child, like we would a friend. Are we ever able to accomplish this completely? probably not, but it is an ideal to aim at, a target, a standard by which to compare ourselves in order to better our teaching. Our purpose must be to be clear enough about our purpose to be able to be true to what it is...to keep the process of education honest...to aim continually at our ideal goals...to constantly realign ourselves to be living up to our pledge, and thus, to do our best, which is never perfect, but always perfecting.
And toward that end, we must think like revolutionaries, as Steve Jobs put it, and use business methods to our noblest ends. If it can be done well, we will do our best to see that it is. For if it is going to be an entity in its own right, then it is going to be a good one, well-motivated and true to its purpose -- of which the bottom line has to be, are we doing right by kids? What’s actually good for them, not merely what we perceive to be good for our economy, or for their economic good, at the cost of their character or spiritual interests.. Only then can and should we profit. Because only with honorable motivation can true success be achieved. So we must ask ourselves, are we being a true teacher, a true friend, to this child? Are we giving what we would have liked to have received from our teachers? Meaning, are we being fair? Being honest? Being true to our own best selves, that they might learn to be theirs?
Our job should be to get to know each child, through ongoing dialogue, as an individual, as well as in group interaction, and, as a team, with the parents and family, with the purpose of helping them find their hidden potentials, and recover the love of learning they were born with. This is not an easy task, especially with some already resistant kids, if only because we are only one influence in a life of many influences, but we can promise to do our best, imperfect as that is, to take each child seriously as a thinker, and a doer, and the person he or she would like to be. Every child has hidden potentials, and usually they're not hidden very deeply, and it is our goal to help them see around the doubts and fears they have internalized, and to take themselves seriously as intelligent human beings, capable of working with their environment to actualize the lives they desire, and make their best and happiest self become real.
Again, we are but one influence among many, so we cannot eliminate all barriers to success in a given child's life. But we can help them see that what is and what is not in their control, and help eliminate those blocks that are inside them. After all, pre-requisite to doing anything is believing that you can. In other words, you cannot do anything you don't try to do, and you cannot try to do anything you don't believe in your heart to be possible. The forces that discourage that belief, call it confidence, or self-respect, are many -- including some that are harder than others to overcome, such as poverty. Many such powerful extrinsic forces can be overcome only by an indomitable will to succeed, for which permission to dream might be necessary.
And eventually, adults who'd like access to tools and teachers to help them uncover unexplored potentials will come and ask for help as well, help them fill in the potholes along the highway of their education...all of us who 'missed that day of class', for one reason or another. Those who learn the hard way that the target we take aim at may not take us where we really wanted to go, but if we keep asking ourselves anew, which way to go, it will take us to what is best. Learning is a cumulative process, and going back to fill in the holes is part of the fun, to finally come to understand something that has long eluded us feels wonderful, restores confidence, mental exercise strengthens the mind, and the resolution to become one's better self inspires one's children and students.
Teaching must evolve to involve helping each child to believe in what's possible, and we do this best by aiding in the history of their successes. Learning can seem like a slow process (especially to those in doubt, who often need constant reassurance), but we take heart at progress, and urge parents to do the same, for not only is it better than regress (as I felt was my daughter's direction when she was registered in high school), but the very presence of doubt can be the cause of the underconfidence which is halting progress. Learning is a matter of feedback loops. Our job is to imaginatively search out those tools that each child might best use in any given learning challenge, whatever they might be (eventually including computers and internet technology), and in the meantime, to help them grow the self-concept they'll need to continue the learning that will move them toward their dreams. Some might worry that we could set them up for let down in this way, but to that I would respond in the words of Socrates, "that we will be better, braver, and happier people if we believe it right and wise to look for what we don't know, than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don't know we can never discover." Dreams, like knowledge, are actualized, not merely in the realization, but in the progress that moves toward them -- which is to say, in the wisdom to believe.
So we might be on the verge of a true adventure in education, for we have, given the potential of our technology and the condition of our schools, the unique, and unprecedented opportunity, indeed responsibility, to reinvent the wheel of education. As with anything worth doing, timing is critical. Learning is among the most fundamental of human functions, knowledge the most fundamental of human needs, and gone wrong, it can ruin lives. Left to malfunction, without challenge, it can ruin entire generations of young people who would otherwise live constructive lives, if only we would help them do so, instead of engaging them in patterns of political competition among themselves over quantities of zero sum rewards. We know better. As teachers we can do better by them that we are allowed to in the education system such as it is. Dedicated and gifted teachers are often wasted on countless hours of grading and internal politics. Hard as we try, there is hardly time for notice, let alone individuation, of the gifts and challenges of particular individual students. With too many students and too little time, we are reduced to delivering lectures, and testing a few days later to see if they remember what was said a few days before.
This is, arguably, the best we could do, until now, at least, and the result is that we've become very good at sorting the young in this way, according to how well and quickly they do what they're told, good at judging with praise and blame those behaviors we like and dislike, which too often comes down to the art of guessing who will succeed and who will 'flunk' (a dastardly word, known, strangely enough, only in the vocabulary of schools) according as we know others judge. Yet many of us teachers, and I suspect, many of us parents, many of whom are teachers ourselves in one realm or another, share with us a sense that we can do better by our kids. Given all the many challenges of our 'new world' we can finally do education as well as we -- most of us -- once dreamed we could.
So come with us into this new world of learning, where children can find and enjoy teachers who have time for them, and can qualify that time with the rich availability of truly magical resources, the tools that engage the young in the world of knowledge by their already well-developed love of technology, and transfixed them in the fascination of all there is -- for each and every one of us -- to learn.
No longer constrained by proximity or availability or even by literacy, through the internet we have the world at our finger tips, quite literally, and if nothing else, this power of instantaneous access gives us the potential to cover so much more territory in the course of our education, and if not to finish it sooner, then to learn to continue our education well into the pattern of our lives. Not that online interaction will replace human contact or even traditional methods of education, it will only make it richer and more adventurous, and it will begin simply and humbly by offering aid, tutoring for lack of a better work, though 'coaching' is more like it, to young people who are entitled to the best we have to offer them. So we must attempt to answer to the need for better, personalized, education…especially since the time is so ripe.
The Potential for Web-based Education
Here and now, for the very first time in human history, we have the almost miraculous technical ability to answer to the truly individuated educational needs of our young. We have the tools to guide children toward fuller development of their higher potentials by offering them resources, technology, and teachers specific to each child's individual needs, to help uncover the hidden genius in every child by exploring overt and hidden talents, building on strengths to enhance weaknesses, to help develop/recall curiosity and confidence about their intelligence, to help discover or recover perspective on purpose and fun of learning, channel frustration, alleviate anger, and reduce cynicism and resentment about education and schools, and restore faith and build optimism about their futures, confidence in the power of their minds to take with them into other social, educational, vocational and professional settings, to help them to ultimately find work that satisfies and fulfills their higher potentials, realizes their dreams and actualizes their intrinsic ambitions and destinations...by way of more self-directed, self-navigated educational paths. This may be our only hope of uplifting and inspiring, especially academically discouraged youth, to the challenge of developing their own unique genius.