[iDC] A Modest Proposal: Let's get rid of the teachers

Fri Feb 27 17:06:16 UTC 2009

(At risk of spoiling the irony of the original post...)

Thank you all for this discussion.

The generosity of your exchange has lead me to a few reflections.

Chilean (exile) poet Roberto Leni has recently pointed my to the
education reform writings of Carlos Calvo, a fellow Chilean and
educational reformer.  He has written, "Del mapa escolar al territorio
educativo: disoñando la escuela desde la educación," which has not yet
been translated into English.

On Calvo's blog, you'll find an intro to his book (in Spanish) here:
http://calvomcarlosm.blogspot.com/2007/11/del-mapa-escolar-al-territorio.html

One of the more memorable passages is:
The school has lost its educational vocation...

School’s narrative and power of persuasion is so potent the
educational community becomes unable to estimate the value and the
quality of relationships students create and re-create in their
precious instances of informal educative relationships, that are
non-schooled, non-formal, just as they learned their mother tongues,
learned as well as it is spoken in their communities, with all its
turns, silences,
nuances, implications, rhythms and more.

[trans. Roberto Leni]

In our discussions above about our relationships with our students,
about our encounters in the class, about the questionable
institutionalization of education into semesters and sessions,
lectures and labs, I see us reaching for and searching for another
notion of education, one in which the roles of student and teacher and
the divisions of in-class and out-of-class, give way to the process of
learning that flows through (and sometimes in spite of) these
traditional institutional structures.  So whether we are just
maintaining a ritual, a habit, a dance or are actually creating
productive learning environments, we can take the occasional glance
through the window at the process of education that will use us
however it can.

One another note, I have recently witnessed the firing of a colleague
from an online University.  She had the rough equivalent of tenure and
is very prominent in the field.  While this sort of thing no doubt
happens in face-to-face, brick and ivy institutions, I wonder how much
easier it is to let someone go when they only fill online seats, when
you don't have to pass them in hallways on the way to the dining hall.
 Perhaps it speaks more to the hybrid private-public university that
she was a part of.  Perhaps they read my original post and took it
literally.  In any event, it's a shame and a loss to higher education
particularly in the realm of the electronic literature she explicates
so well.

In any case, thank you for being my teachers and classmates.
Mark

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Geoffrey Alan Rhodes
<garhodes at garhodes.com> wrote:
> Your point, and also David and Simon before, is good: education as a
> controlled encounter with the Other.  This is what I mean about issues of
> desire.  I think the 30 hour work week some students maintain (I've taught
> in a State school too, where this was the norm), the pressure of loans, and
> the constant Taylorist push of US society to be efficient and ambitious, all
> set up this neurosis of the contemporary student.  I just joined the faculty
> of a private arts university that has its roots (and retains much of its
> faculty) from the Woodstock generation.  Many of them complain of student's
> desire for relationships with the teacher and institution that can be
> controlled... rubrics, pragmatic curriculum, job placement...  What I notice
> is that these same students, of course, also desire in-class stimulation,
> inspiration, that which comes from the lack of control of the Other.  The
> neurotic contradictions of the institution manifest in their own feelings.
>  This isn't new, I think... school systems have always combined
> socialization with deviance, sometimes hysterically (and doesn't this
> describe youth itself?), but maybe this has ramped up with the practical
> pressures of $.  It is hard at the state university to see academia as a
> reward, or place for reflection... instead it commonly seems a struggle for
> the students just to be there.
>
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 12:11 PM, John Hopkins <jhopkins at tech-no-mad.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> Lovely views coming up, Davin, Simon, others -- it's always a marvelous
>> pleasure to hear from other teachers, as this kind of dialogue seldom
>> happens within the systems where it is most needed!
>>
>> While the offerings of IP_based networks seem unlimited, and in rhetoric,
>> the superlative of "unlimited" is often applied, I think it is important to
>> keep firmly in mind that it is not a space of unlimited knowledge nor is it
>> a space of neutral knowledge. And, also, in this time, it is not a space of
>> embodied experience aside from eyes absorbing statically-framed EM
>> radiation, ears hearing sounds disconnected from their source, and fingers
>> twitching across a very limited place.  Not to mention underlying ideologies
>> which accompany each form of mediated connection (largely invisible but very
>> much real) -- among others, that of consumption (extractive resources,
>> electricity, and thus, the globe-spanning world that we exert irresponsible
>> dominion over).
>>
>> In this regard, the (limited)vastness of that knowledge-space seems a bit
>> tainted and out-of-touch perhaps.  Expensive and consumptive.  Exclusive,
>> reductive, and reified.
>>
>> A teacher is a catalyst, and is one who, simply by being an Other we
>> encounter in life, presents us with the unknown.  If we trust that Other, a
>> world opens up that was previously unknown, and (if) we (trust enough to)
>> apprehend and engage it, it changes us, we learn.  This unknown world is
>> sourced in the entire comprehensible universe, and is available through that
>> Other.  These encounters may take place anywhere, anytime, and can be had
>> 'for free.'  We need only 'pay' the Other with our attention, our life-time,
>> and life-energy.
>>
>> It seems that in our formal techno-social educational systems, these
>> potential encounters with the Other are (being) replaced by more and more
>> socially-standardized systems-of-relation (protocols, curricula, government
>> mandates, abstracted monetary instruments) which seem ever more intrusive to
>> and even suppressive of potential open encounters.  This limits the creative
>> potential of the outcome.  The cumulative effect of this social
>> hyper-formalization-of-encounter -- because learning occurs precisely at the
>> edge of knowing, not within the known -- is that we look elsewhere for the
>> dynamic of coming-to-be (learning) that keeps us alive and growing.  To me
>> this is the ultimate source of the loss of vitality that affects the
>> Education World, a vitality that ultimately does not rest on technological
>> mediation but on human encounter.  Yes, human encounter is always mediated
>> by the vast range of social protocols and tools, and learning encounters may
>> happen within highly mediated ('virtual') spaces, but when we allow those
>> encounters to slide continuously into more and more mediated spaces, the
>> life-time available for less mediated human encounter shrinks.  I think that
>> this represents a wide loss to learning, education, community, and creative
>> potential as it moves to extremes and forgets what it is predicated upon --
>> the originary encounter between the Self and the Other.
>>
>> jh
>> --
>> -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> John Hopkins :: neoscenes - a bridge between eye and soul
>> empowered facilitation well underway in translocal situations
>> presently on the fringe of the Sonoran Desert
>> cell (.us) +1 928 308 6466
>> mobile (.de): +49 (0)151 5365 2497
>> travelog: http://neoscenes.net/travelog/weblog.php
>> email: jhopkins at neoscenes.net or chazhop at gmail.com
>> skype: chazhopkins    iChat: jchopkins at mac.com
>> irc: jaceee / irc.freenode.net #neoscenes
>> -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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