[iDC] Discussion: The Edupunks' Guide

Tue Aug 9 08:45:03 UTC 2011

There has been a tendency to generalise in this discussion. I am a high school dropout. Left school disillusioned at 16, without sitting exams, to go surfing and live on communes (in early 70's Australia you could do that). I've never had what I consider a job (nine to five, a boss, etc). Nevertheless, I'm a professor, without qualifications. That didn't require faking anything. It was DIY and informal, but only to a certain extent. I was able to get places because other's opened doors (or allowed me to push them open). That depended on mutual trust, not deception.

My experience is that the academy is enabling. It is one of the most generous and liberal sections of society, that values sharing as a central tenet in creating knowledge. For students it should be, and usually is, a safe space where they can experiment and take risks that would be difficult elsewhere in society. It should, and can, be this for staff as well. Taking risks is how you learn - not by being passively fed information. That's why those who consider education a product and students to be consumers are wrong. Education is a culture, a social space dedicated to experimental interactions, where social norms are not only questioned but can be suspended. Due to their often fluid power-dynamics universities can be like communes, if you want to use them like that.

It is true that some in education see their job as being gate keepers. But there are many who see their role as keeping the gates open - who regard education as a public good with the potential to transform people's lives and our social spaces. Given the evidence for this it would seem that those who do see it as their job to restrict access are doing so through prejudice. Prejudice is a function of ignorance and feeds off the tendency to simplify and generalise. To have a discussion about who is or isn't "punk" is similar. Such terms might be useful for indicating certain historical social tropes but to appropriate them as shorthand for contemporary social mindsets seems simplistic and imprecise.

best

Simon

On 9 Aug 2011, at 00:14, Anya Kamenetz wrote:

> Hi John,
> I think that book would be a lot of fun to write and to read. The ideal writer would of course be a college dropout, or maybe someone who faked their way to a PhD. As you suggest, I was more interested in being immediately useful with this guide, and maybe that means I played things safer than I should have. 
> I definitely agree with you that punk /= academic. 
> The point I was making originally: that the people who did coin and popularize the term "edupunk" are in fact academics; because of the inherent contradictions in that pose, they tend to get their dander up about the parts of my work that do, however tamely, detract from the academic status quo; thus accuse me of misappropriating the word. While I might indeed violate the statutes of Original 1970s Punk Rock I just disagree that I'm committing a crime against Edupunk (c. 2008). Disputes about who's punk and who's not do get very boring though. I probably should have stuck with the term DIY which is broader and better encapsulates the practical, hands-on nature of the approach. 
> a
> 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 4:36 PM, john sobol <john at johnsobol.com> wrote:
> Anya, I think your book looks quite useful and I genuinely hope people use it. But I don't think anything in it positions you to criticize academia for not being 'punk rock'. Academia is not - of course - punk rock in any way. For not only does it not embody the values or behaviours or style of punk but it actually represents their antithesis. But then again academia never said it was punk rock. Whereas your book does claim that heritage. 
> 
> I haven't been part of the Edupunk discourse in any way so I don't know how seriously anyone who uses it takes the punk thing, but in the context of the many radical DIY pedagogical possibilities enabled by the web I think it deserves to be taken quite seriously. Or at least as seriously (and not) as it took itself. Which isn't the case with your book.
> 
> For example, DIY training in order to gain certification from existing learning authorities can hardly be considered to reflect the DIY spirit of punk culture, yet that seems to be a very significant focus of your book. Again, I have no real problem with this. If people want to do it they should go for it. But the deeper possibilities are to explore how knowledge can be usefully located, generated and shared *outside* of existing knowledge-certification academies. Which also includes the possibility - indeed the likelihood - of being in direct conflict with those institutions, or of trying to achieve goals that are not supported by those institutions. In fact, punk rock went out of its way to constantly provoke those conflicts, and to both implicitly and explicitly highlight subversive epistemologies and non-conformist social values. So where is your chapter on hacking? Stealing degrees? Making plagiarism pay? Somehow I think Malcolm McLaren would have approached the Edupunk's guide with a little more panache. I mean, the Gates Foundation, really?
> 
> A more radical and authentic punk pedagogy in the age of the web would I think focus on radical personal creativity, explicit defiance of educational norms, the power of collective action, networked subversion, etc. A mashup of John Dewey, Kathy Acker and Julian Assange maybe. Whereas your book - useful as it may be - is a whole lot safer than a book with its title should be. Or could be. 
> 
> js 
> 
> --
> www.johnsobol.com
> bluesology • printopolis • digitopia
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Simon Biggs | simon at littlepig.org.uk | www.littlepig.org.uk

s.biggs at ed.ac.uk | Edinburgh College of Art | University of Edinburgh
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