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1, No. 6 > Open Articles |
Sep 2001 | |
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by Xenia Stanford, Editor-in-Chief, KnowMap
and President, Stanford Solutions Inc.
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| Comments (1st Voice) - <quotation from original article> - 2nd Voice - 3rd Voice - 4th Voice - 5th Voice |
Comments from John Hibbs, Founder and Director, The Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education
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This is a great article - some thoughts
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Comments by Dr. Steve Eskow, President, The Pangaea Network
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Xenia Stanford might like an example of traditional thinking to play off. Here, then, is an example of such thinking as it thinks about her questions, and her answers.
The short answer to these questions is No, the long answer is either Yes and No, or It Depends. In order to get a platform from which we might look at these questions, we might match them with others:
One possibility is that the traditional church will wither and disappear now that folks can be at home and listen to hymns and sermons. Another possibility is that distance religion will help the traditional church sharpen its sense of its unique missions--those that cannot be duplicated by distance religion. The college as a community of scholars has taken on a large array of functions, and has taken responsibility for educating and training large chunks of our population that are not equipped for nor interested in serious study. One possibility is that traditional higher education can divest itself of these roles and these populations, turn them over distance education, grow smaller, do its work better without the encumbrances of those who want something other than serious study.
Harvard scholar and researcher Shoshana Zuboff published her findings on the kind of education the new economy and the new technologies need in her book In The Age Of The Smart Machine. Her conclusion: as work becomes increasingly symbolic as a result of digitalization and the computer, what she calls "the intellective skills"--reading, writing, numeracy, the kind of critical thinking developed by schools and colleges-become more rather than less important. Harvard's Daniel Bell wrote The Coming Of The Post Industrial Society in 1973. Again, he points to the kind of work that disappears in a knowledge based society, and what he believes is the critical role of the university in generating knowledge, and men and women who can generate knowledge.
It means, among other things, that we must watch out for the agendas hidden in such terms as leading-edge knowledge. The leading edge knowledge has to include that knowledge developed by those in our major universities, transmitted by them to their students, and disseminated by them to business, industry, and the general citizenry through books, monographs, periodicals, conferences, workshops, consultancies, radio and television... and the Internet.
Yes indeed: the traditional mission of the universities.
This seems a bit muddled. First, accreditation does not retard the development of courses: indeed, it is not primarily about courses at all, but about institutions and their quality of teachers and researchers and curricula. Our universities are not slowed down by accreditation in their modification or addition of courses and curricula: a college that wants to modify or add a course or research center on stem cell biology can do so tomorrow: when next it is accredited that course or curriculum or center will be reviewed for its quality. Second, it seems to conflate learning and courses. And this, I think, is a serious error, that fails to distinguish the role of education from the role of the other agencies and institutions of society that disseminate and diffuse knowledge. What slows the diffusion of knowledge is not at all the "evolutionary development of courses." If a laboratory or a research center learns tomorrow something new and profoundly important about AIDS, or cancer, or global warming, it is not courses at all that prevents that knowledge from moving from the place of discovery to every home and village and city in the world--tomorrow, or the next day. It is not courses that prevent the healing medications developed for combating AIDS from reaching every HIV-positive person in the world. When there are no personal or institutional restraints on the diffusion of knowledge, a new discovery is sent around the world immediately, via radio, and newspapers, and television, and the Internet, and professional meetings, and all of the other forms of knowledge transmission we have developed. If Ms. Stanford wants faster dissemination she needs to look at copyright law, and to public television, and other forms of knowledge transmission. Courses are something else again, and confusing courses and curricula and accreditation and dissemination is part of the contemporary derangement of discussion about education, and perhaps Ms. Stanford can help by making some distinctions. Perhaps courses do indeed need time to evolve.
Perhaps one problem is illustrated by this example: the Davis and Botkin book is 7 years old, and perhaps it is already out of date if our society is really as changeable as is suggested here. And watching our leading edge and innovative business organizations self-destruct as they try to understand teaching and learning does not give much hope that they will learn enough themselves to survive, much less to transform education.
It would be useful to have some examples here of businesses that have been "forced to take the lead in education." And what are the new forms that are better suited to today's society than the old ways? If by new forms we mean distance education, our colleges and universities have been perhaps to prone to embrace each new medium as it emerges-from correspondence, to radio, to television courses, to online learning.
US business and industry Davis and Botkin are clearly out of date: more and more businesses are cutting back or eliminating their training departments, and partnering with colleges and universities in order to get more and better learning and less cost to the firm.
Yes and no. My own hunch is that the future will find business and industry turning to the colleges even more in the future than in the past. Perhaps this is enough powder for Ms. Stanford to put a match to. I'd like to comment later on the confusion in her position, and that of John Hibbs, about the role of radio in education in the so-called developing countries and in the richer nations, as well as the role of radio for literate populations and for illiterate populations. Sufficient unto the day ... Stanford's reply: Wow - thanks so much Steve! What food for thought - exactly what I was hoping to receive! If we all thought alike and agreed with one another, I doubt we would make much progress in this world. Eskow's response: Right! The coin needs tails as well as heads to ring true. The old and traditional dialectics is often described as the thesis -- your point of view; the antithesis -- the challenge to that point of view; and the synthesis --a bringing of the heads and tails together. Hibbs response: One possibility is that "traditional" higher education can divest itself of these roles and these populations, turn them over distance education, grow smaller, do its work better without the encumbrances of those who want something other than serious study. Now, finally, Steve and I get to a place of agreement. That the residential university is a place where one can learn to play the piano, sing in the choir, contemplate a painting, read carefully and deeply "stuff" of a kind unlikely to be found in a nanosecond world. Let's leave the training (Chemistry 101, Physics 202 in the "distance" world. If university is to be worth tens of thousands, let that environment be a place where deep thinking and serious scholarship can take place. Right now, is it auto shop with ashtrays?
Hibbs: Oh come on! Accreditation is not about whether students have learned, or learned how to learn. It's about keeping the choir, robes, alter boys and congregation within the Church.
Steve, cite the evidence to support this.
Eskow again:
Of course leaving people behind is an option! Botkin and Davis assumed that the "new economy" would be the engine that would raise all boats: how sad to look back to those hopes of 1994! Every day we read of corporate "downsizing," which is corporate language for leaving people behind. Company A is cutting 3000 jobs today, Company B 30,000 jobs, Company C closing a plant here and opening one in a third world country where it can hire cheap labor... every day, every week, globalized corporatism leaving people behind. The overwhelming majority of those five billion do not have the money to take any part at all in the cash economy, much less pay for-profit organizations for distance education. Seven years after Monster Under the Bed, we're still talking about the University of Phoenix and a handful of for-profit learning businesses, while most of our formal education continues to be provided by massively under-funded public institutions. Perhaps history has not been kind to Botkin and Davis?
The free market, left alone to do its work, will widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. The dynamics of free enterprise have to be controlled by the people through local, national, and international bodies to insure that present tendencies to enrich the few and impoverish the billions are reversed. The evidence of the last 5 years suggest that Davis and Botkin were wrong: we can not leave the fate of the 5 billion to business as usual.
A strange solution, using radio to get them to the keyboard. The power of radio for the millions who are functionally illiterate is not to get people to the keyboard but to get them the information they need to improve their lives: information on prices their coffee or potatoes should bring, information on birth control and AIDS prevention to men and women, information on nutrition and health. And: there is substantial research on group listening to radio-programs on safe sex, for example, or fertilizers, or local culture--followed by group discussion. For illiterates, or marginal readers, or where learning materials are not widely available, radio can be the heart of powerful learning opportunities. If people can read and write, and their villages are electrified or have access via satellite and solar to the Internet, and somehow computers are made available to them through their schools, or they can afford to rent computer time at Internet cafes--many "ifs" there--radio can indeed tell them there are computers in their schools or cafes. And their newspapers can tell them about these opportunities, and their priests and ministers can tell them about them from the pulpit.
The range of answers is vast. There are those looking to AI and new forms of student-software-machine interaction to bring instructorless learning to the billions. There are those who look to the mass media--radio and television, for examples--to bring common learning to thousands. And there are those who see the great need as freeing schooling from the costs of brick and mortar so that good teachers can be made widely available. In short--we do not have the answers to the questions, and we are unlikely to have them in the near future.
There is no evidence yet that distance learning has dispensed with past paradigms: dispensed with buildings and books, yes, but the pedagogy of distance learning is for the most part not only traditional, but often the poorest parts of the tradition.
Right now anyone with a computer, a modem, a copy of Google can take charge of his or her learning: there is no need to involve the university in my decision to take charge of my own learning. Right now all of us can choose to learn on the Internet, or watch football. So we have reached that ideal state you are hoping for. The results to date do not seem promising. More are opting for football than for calculus.
But I don't know the most convenient, cost-effective way for me to learn C programming, or calulized physics, or cell biology, or medicine.
Ah, Xenia, what Global Brain? Where is it? In Africa, where I work? In the poverty communities in my own backyard? In listservs and discussion groups such as these? Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of our dreams of education for the millions that television would provide... television that would bring the world of learning into every home with a small box. We have that box in almost every home, and the dreams of an educated America seem as far away as ever.
And mom may go down the drain with the baby if we can't get to her in time. Cheers, Xenia Stanford: I don't want to contradict anything, as this is a great multi-view debate. However, you ask for
One in the Davis and Botkin book is Saturn (the car company). There are many others but I loaned my copy of the book out and this is the only one I recall. As for being out-of-date, that may be so but some are not even there yet - as you so rightly point out!
Isn't this contradictory? If Google is all empowering why do we need someone to tell us the "most convenient, cost-effective way to learn C programming"? The theory is everything is on the Internet and everything is free. If this were so, there would be no implicit or tacit knowledge. Heuristics would count for nothing and hands-on would mean little except in terms of hands-on keyboard, mouse and remote control. Do you really believe Google and traditional academia have all the answers? Let the conversation continue - more wine Steve? Hibbs: Steve Eskow continues to talk as if there was some relation to the one to many capabilities of radio and television to the many to one, one to one, and one to many capabilities of the Internet. |
Comments by Dr. Steve Eskow:
John,
with all of its failings, some of us think the priests and the
cardinals and the popes of the Church are more to be trusted
to run the Church than those who see religion as a market and
would like to get their hands on the collection plate.
9/6/2001 Hibbs Now, finally, Steve and I get to a place of agreement. That the residential university is a place where one can learn to play the piano, sing in the choir, contemplate a painting, read carefully and deeply stuff of a kind unlikely to be found in a nano second world. Let's leave the training (Chemistry 101, Physics 202 in the distance world. If university is to be worth tens of thousands, let that environment be a place where deep thinking and serious scholarship can take place. Right now, is it auto shop with ashtrays?
Need I remind long time readers of this list that 70 years after Columbus reached the New World and after 100 other voyagers had made the same trek, that mapmakers will still producing that which had been popular for 1500 years. Do not judge the future by what has happened in the last few years. Who says a paradigm shift happens "overnight". And, do not be swayed by mapmakers who are promoting that which they also know to be in error; but which is in THEIR best interest to see that you buy same. 9/7/2001 Eskow
I still have copy, Xenia. I blew the dust off it for this response. As for being out-of-date, that may be so but some are not even there yet - as you so rightly point out! Sad to note how quickly a leading edge book like Monster becomes obsolete. The Saturn story is not, however, about a company forced to invest in employee learning because of the failure of the schools and colleges. It is about a company that was at that time wise enough to realize that it must invest in learning and training if it is to remain competitive. What Monster does is contrast Saturn's willingness to embrace lifelong learning and new technology with what it then saw (1994) as academe's unwillingness to do so. The Saturn story is followed by a section headed "Business Schools Hardly Change." "Education has not embraced the revolution in information technology the way that business has - Managers can come to an executive program from anywhere in the world, for example, but the program will not come to them, electronically, wherever they are; learners still have to sit in the same room to hear the lecture." And so on. That critique was not wholly true in 1994; it certainly does not describe the situation now. Indeed, we are now hearing that there are too many MBA's online.
Perhaps we can't easily straighten out our confusion on this matter. You were repeating, I thought, notions of empowered students with the tools they needed for learning what they decided they needed to know when they needed to know it, and so on. I thought you were suggesting that when such a situation would be made available to learners they would no longer want or need the pre-packaged instructor organized and led courses that characterize formal learning. And I thought I was responding. That situation exists now, I said. With Google and the millions of pages of information on line any student with modest search skills can organize just-in-time customized learning for him or herself, without all the encumbrances and formalities of the traditional college. And I was suggesting that despite the fact that we are already there as far as tools and self-empowerment are concerned, students by the millions are still not choosing to organize their own learning in this way, but are wanting to learn Word XP or cell biology or existential philosophy in the very old paradigm of "courses," courses structured by an "expert" and delivered in that expert's style and time and place. But, as I say, we may be unable to sort this out easily.
The simple house Merlot, thanks. Steve Hibbs 9/7/2001
Steve, we know *you* think the Robes are the only ones to be
trusted. Eskow 9/8/2001
I guess that means I won't be included in your Basket of Winners, or your Karton of Killer Apps. Shucks. Well, you can't win them all. For the record, I don't think the Robes are the only ones to be trusted. I trust my Banker, and my Butcher, and my Baker. It's when my Banker starts pontificating about Baking or Butchering that I get uneasy. That is, when you talk about world trade I trust you completely: you've been there, you've had hands on experience. When you start your regular routines of changing all of higher, lower, and in between education, and how it is designed, and regulated, and quality controlled that I get uneasy. I do think there is something to asking those wanting to drive a car to demonstrate some time behind the wheel, or those who want to pull teeth or doctor to get some training--or those with ideas for the transformation of higher education to have a bit of background and experience in a college or university classroom and boardroom and accreditation commission--if only to learn how the system works now before they change it closer to their heart's desire. Training and experience are no guarantees, of course: there are bad lawyers, bankers, doctors ... and robes. And drivers with licenses get drunk and have accidents. But I am indeed inclined to ask retired military or retired businesspeople to get some first hand experience before they set up shop as experts. So: I won't be part of your Winners basket case. But I can read your criticisms of the university, accreditation, and all those things you're wanting to change--read them closely-- and do the best I can to support what makes sense and make as clear as I can what doesn't. Unfortunately, all too often there's a real Monster Under the Bed. Criticizing WGU and applauding Newport U instead of the other way around Hibbs 9/8/2001
I didn't know you had a course(s) to offer? Where can I point my browser to find out about it/them? Or perhaps an online seminar? In Defense of the Robes? :)
Maybe "we" just haven't had time to figure it all out? Try The Clock of the Long Now for a good definition of time. Or return to the mapmakers in 1550 who ignored Columbus and subsequent voyages. Or wait ten years when my grandson's generation will come of age comfortable with all of this web stuff and less impressed by physical Robes than those who appear virtually. In time, structured courses, like sails, will, methinks, give way to other kinds of delivery systems (engines?). This doesn't mean the end of residential colleges, it (or sailing) but it does mean that future generations will ask why they should pay tens of thousands for "regular" *courses* available on the Web, and accepted by employers as the same way they accept a credit report from D&B. i.e. If you are going to spend big bucks for a residential college experience then residential colleges must do things VERY differently...like teach more piano? memory sharing? the art of the double play? skulling? touch football? mentoring with the retired? parenting? poetry reading? in Greek? To THAT kind of college is where I want to send my grandson. Let him learn Chemistry 101 on the net. Eskow
How, John, does one become a Basket Case? Who picks the Winners? A Robe, or someone else with some background in Education? ISO? The Franklin Institute? The Champions? Or, is it possible that John Hibbs is all of the above, and is the judge and jury? In which case I'd ask for a new trial with a new judge and a new jury: possibly with a Robe or two on it. Hibbs 9/9/01 Steve, why can't you just answer a simple question? And refrain from a lecture? Or an attack? Do you have a course on line? If so, I would be happy to engage in "process" discussions. If not, let's not have another roundy-go-roundy, like the stop(?) in Ghana, where so far we haven't had from you a mention in months, nor a single completed Oasis Speaker Form, nor even one URL, nor a Summary, nor a Message Board post, nor even a listing of the names of folks in Ghana? Why not, for once, concentrate on something *real*? GLD5 is four Sundays from now. For once, can't you please put down the sword? |
Comments by Nancy White, Full Circle Associates (www.fullcirc.com)
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The debate I read seems to be about duality when in fact, a duality is insufficient. What is the whole systems approach to education? To distance education? To learning? It is not either or. And the systems are not static. This reminds me of the debate we are hearing from the media about the US response to the 9-11 attack. Is it war or peace. Bombs or bread. The media simplifies a very complex issues. I fear some of our leaders do the same. It is time for systems thinking. Looking at the way each piece affects the whole and how the whole affects each piece. Distance learning clearly has a role in our global, dispersed world. Offline academic institutions do too. But there is more. There are learning circles, the stuff we learn off of bulletin boards at the grocery store, the things we learn at the water cooler. The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we assure everyone has access to quality learning? How can they truely be lifelong learners in this complex world? How can we nurture both deep intellectual endeavors, short, just-in-time learning and the range in between? Not which is better. Nancy |
Comments from Ken Merwin, Wisconsin
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Xenia, etc.: I'm trying to do major catch-up on the GLD list; I fell into the good fortune of being tapped at an area High School here in Wisconsin to be a long-term substitute English and Literature teacher and, never having taught the subjects and many years away from any English or Lit courses, I have had to do major scrambling to establish my own lesson plans, etc. Just now I have pushed a reading by Columbus and am moving on to the John Smith article in our text. I decided to also introduce "snippets" out of a lengthy document I found on an Internet site that discusses the entire Columbus debate. Here in Wisconsin we are close to a small city named "Columbus" and back in the early '90's our local Assemblyperson pushed to re-name a highway running between Madison, WI and the small city Columbus as the "Columbus Highway". One very big challenge is to get high school students to even take the lead to evaluate the readings but I had one student who spoke up that she was part Native American and I think I kindled some curiosity in her and hope to have her stimulate some of others. Trying to even introduce any "critical thinking" skills into a typical high school Lit course seems to be akin to pulling our molars. I appreciate the thread; I'm just now beginning a tour of your website. Best, Ken Merwin |
Comments from Dr. Guy Bensusan, Senior Faculty Associate for NAUNet, Online Learning and Interactive Television; Professor, Department of Humanities, Arts & Religion
(Without picking on Ken, I want to draw attention to use of the word 'introduce' --- which I take to mean that the lesson is coming from the teacher rather than an activity being evoked by and from the learners...) Professors and experts are MOST intimidating to learners... and students in High School seem to be the most buffaloed by the traditional deliver methods... This also happened to me in college during all the time that I was PRESENTING ideas from the rostrum. When we went interactive on television to many sites, an alternative began to appear. That occurred on day in 1990 by accident when the "professor camera" was not working right, and rather than mess with the distortions I chose to sit IN the class with the other learners.... discussion was fabulous... the best ever... and when several of us looked at the tapes and compared them with the usual pulpit delivery --------- wow... it was obvious... The old way had students with heads down taking notes... the new way had students with heads up and engaged in talking and listening... We worked on the latter and developed methods for discussion where a student would choose a question from a list of Qs for the week that I had developed from the reading... I would ask at the beginning of the class... which one ? someone choose... and someone would, and then would read the Q and someone else needed to offer the first response, and then we would talk.. AND THAT worked better when I sat IN the classroom at the tables with the learners... When I was in front of the classroom, students were continually reminded of Doctor Guy by the camera flipflop to me... rather than the constant view of the learners... The more THEY are on the screen the MORE IT BECAME THEIR LEARNING OPPORTUNITY and the more chatter and developed-extended concepts we got. THEN... in the mid 90s, when we went to CAUCUS software (thank you Tom Abeles) and later WebCT ----------- DR GUY could get out of the way entirely... The real point here, is that when THEY do it, they are not intimidated by US... and learning is hard enough to do without the added "needs" (shall we say) of the professor.... It is always too tempting to be the expert... which so often gets in the way of the learning flow... Let the learners practice; let THEM work with each other... YES, it takes a while to get that started, but it sure pays off. What has amazed me most about the current courses is that I do not need to direct the chorale... they are very able to work with each other and build their categories, criteria, and critical thinking-looking-listening..... and it gets better much faster when Dr Guy is out of sight, just reading their outpouring of postings .... not aimed at me, even in a veiled manner....but to each other. I will occasionally ask a question.... or comment...... "interesting assertion, Mary.... and does the evidence for that come more from psychology or archaeology... ?" and that leads to an extended discussion among the learners themselves.... and they will continue to gnaw on it for weeks in different ways. It is a building program... The methods have taken me from the pre-prepared script for lectern delivery, to "scripting for spontaneity" --- getting some useful responses, and then letting the learners practice rather than me directing the discussion... The trick is to find those brief questions that will point to what will extend the conversation among the learners, who then build on each other. Guy Xenia Stanford writes: I was saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Dr. Guy Bensusan, at his home in Kingman, Arizona on October 02, 2001. He will be remembered as a "friend, mentor and colleague" to those in the learning community. Dr. Guy felt he had met me on one of his trips to Calgary. Perhaps he had, I don't recall. His memory was probably better in his own words: "as I begin my fifty-second year of teaching" than mine. He certainly proved to me "virtually" that he was a learner as well as friend, mentor and colleague. He told me how well he liked my article and my thoughts. He then added the Eric Hoffer statement I use in The Education Scare: The Monster is Out There! to his own list of signatory quotes while thanking me for the inspiration. His favourite quotes were as follows: "We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them
discover it within themselves." "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Thus,
all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." "In times of change, learners inherit the earth while
the learned find themselves beautifully equipped for a world
that no longer exists." Then he added his own: "Yesterday's world was built by Middlemen. Today's world
is junked up with overly-powerful intermediaries. We must DIS-Intermediate
now to be able to keep pace with Tomorrow's accelerating changes."
"The vast majority of human beings dislike and even dread
all notions with which they are not familiar. Hence, it comes
about that at their first appearance innovators have always
been divided as fools and madmen." In memory of Dr. Guy Bensusan, one extraordinary human being, we lift a glass in toast before we carry on our journey all the better for having known him. |
GLD V is on Sunday, October 7, 2001. Be there to hear the debate continue and to participate in the Virtual Dinner Party!
For the article that sparked this debate see: 
The
Education Scare: The Monster is Out There!
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