Fluid Knowledge: Education and Philosophy

#philofounded Me: In Community @seecantrill

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I've had this experience a few times, where I read a story and have a hard time reacting/responding to it, in front of others, for awhile afterwards. Instead I want to just let the stories of the characters I've just met mix into me and run around in my head/heart a bit. A time to sit in the dark theater and just process the feelings that surface for me, the threads of my own life that these new colors and textures get tangled into.

Finishing Song of Solomon is a time like that for me. So I'm sitting with it, trying to take some time with it amongst a list of things I also need to do.

But for the sake of posting here, I thought I'd share some things that I notice about the stories and some of what it is connecting to for me. I notice what gets passed on and/or carries on and I notice that one person's break from that history does not necessarily translate into a break for others ... and I notice my personal connections and anxieties related to this. I notice the cries of Mercy and the acts of mercy and the repetitive retelling of stories as songs. And I wonder about justice and if there is any. I notice the flying and the letting go, the falling into. I notice the stepping up and taking control and the voices and rhythms that lead the way.

I notice different but surprisingly similar reading I'm doing about curriculum and the role of biography/autobiography in self-reflection and social reconstruction. And I wonder about the role that these stories and Morrison's narrative in the philosophy of education and in thinking about race and the impact of white supremacy on the world around, and within, us. And how does this relate to using social media and watching the world -- terrorism of course standing out to me this week. And I don't just mean the attack in Boston (see this speech by Marc Lamont Hill on incarceration).

I ended up at Mr. Roger's "Helping Kids with Scary News" tonight. I think that's were things are at for me at the moment. Crazy jump from Ms. Morrison to Mr. Hill to Mr. Rogers, I realize. But something about the focus on asking and then listening stands out for me here.

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Ways of knowing, Song of Solomon

In the Song of Solomon, the characters learn through their relationships, their experiences, hardships, compassion, and memories. Sometimes also joy. Knowledge is shared through storytelling -- and new knowledge is made through the interpretation of these stories in the naming of times, people, places and things, actions taken, paths opened and closed, as well as the gaps between and the questions that linger.

"You're a big man now, but that ain't nearly enough.  You have to be a whole man.  And if you want to be a whole man, you have to deal with the whole truth." says Macon Dead to his son Milkman. This pronouncement by his father comes after Milkman attacked his father after Macon had punched Milkman’s mother, Macon’s wife Ruth, across the kitchen table. “He had won something and lost something in the same instant. Infinite possibilities and enormous responsibilities stretched out before him, but he was not prepared to take advantage of the former, or accept the burden of the latter.” Morrison writes of Milkman immediately after as he tries to take in the enormity of the moment.

Upon retreating to his room, Milkman’s father follows him and makes this pronouncement about knowing the truth. He proceeds to tell Milkman a story of himself and Ruth and their relationship. “Nothing I’m about to say is by way of apology or excuse. It’s just information.”

This “information” that is given to Milkman from his father Macon is a story that shows how he understands Ruth, his relationship to Ruth, her relationship to her own father, and what he believes is his role in it all. In a later chapter of the book, Ruth gets to tell her own version. “... I know, as well as I know my own name, that [your father] told you only what was flattering to him” she tells Milkman. Milkman is left to work through (or not) the details, the questions, and the gaps that he finds among and between their stories.

The most self-reflective in her learning process is Pilate. On page 149, Morrison recalls Pilate’s story, writing “Finally Pilate began to take offense. Although she was hampered by huge ignorances, but not in any way unintelligent, when she realized what her situation in the world was and would probably always be, she threw away every assumption she had learned and began at zero."

When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay alive? What is true in the world? 

"Throughout this fresh, if common, pursuit of knowledge," Morrison writes, "... and the consequence of the knowledge she had made up or acquired ... She acquired a deep concern for and about human relationships.”

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In my philosophy of ed class we are moving into talking about race in education. We had a few short articles to read this week to begin this conversation: “Critical Race Theory” by Ladson-Billings and Tate; “Dysconscious Racism” by King and, “How White People Became White” by Barrett and Roediger. We also started the first chapter of Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.

In the context of this particular conversation, our professor has so far identified herself as an historian, a critical race theorist, and an African-American from Philadelphia ... a Central graduate, in fact! (sorry, random geek out ... I went to Girls High.) The majority of the rest of us are "white," from what I can tell, hailing from various places in Pennsylvania, a few from Philly. Two classmates are Chinese, studying here from China. On Friday when I was reading them I noticed Marc Lamont Hill tweet out this episode called "Let’s Talk about Race" the blurb of which reads “Philadelphia Magazine ran a piece on why white people are afraid to talk about race--and it was called racist. How should white people talk about race, if at all?” Marc Lamont Hill moderates this well, I think, and seems to know what he's getting into and be comfortable in doing so. And this is both painful for me to watch and also telling in many ways. My reactions remind me of a response that Daniel Devier wrote in the City Paper after the “Being White in Philly” article came out, ie.

“If this is "what's not being said" about race by whites then white people like Huber might indeed need to keep theirs mouths shut." (Philly Mag cover: Whites must criticize blacks more)

Hill is much more politic.

In watching this though, it occurred to me that I never did read that article “Being White in Philly” ... I’ve read articles about it like Devier’s response but not the article itself. And diving into the articles that we read this week made me notice that and realize that it is, in many ways, my privilege to avoid it, isn't it? In this episode, Hill references an article that King’s essay also reminded me of, ie. Peggy McIntosh’s "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." In this article, McIntosh writes,

“As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege which puts me at an advantage.”

Gloria Ladson-Billings and Tate's article was the most interesting to me as they look at the relationships between race and property, using critical race theory from legal scholarship as a tool for studying inequity overall and in education. A powerful framework I think and helpful tool/set of tools that I think I will need to return to again.

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"This article is now considered a ‘classic’ by anti-racist educators. It has been used in workshops and classes throughout the United States and Canada for many years. While people of color have described for years how whites benefit from unearned privileges, this is one of the first articles written by a white person on the topics."

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Philadelphia Magazine ran a piece on why white people are afraid to talk about race--and it was called racist. How should white people talk about race, if at all? with @marclamonthill

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http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3076

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For all I appreciate Ravitch’s coming out stance on testing and accountability, I do not embrace her recommendations at the end of her 2010 book. Although I agree with this statement in many ways, ie “the way to improve schools is to improve curriculum and instruction and improve the conditions in which teachers work and children learn ...” (225), her approach to curriculum here still focuses essentially on delivery of "core" content -- and I would push back both on this idea of delivery as well as this idea of "core." Within this vision too she imagines a truce in the "culture wars" which I would say is also highly questionable, especially within a frame of delivery/consumption. Michael Apple writes that within the dynamics of knowledge, power and teaching in education "is a very real set of relationships among those who have economic, political, and cultural power in society on the one hand and the ways in which education is thought about, organized, and evaluated on the other" in his preface to his book Ideology and Curriculum (2004).

I also think her conceptualization of a standardized curriculum narrows what is possible as well as what I believe is actually urgently necessary. At least at the time of writing of this book, she doesn’t seem take into account the digital meditated and networked world of knowledge within/among which we now need to think about education and schooling. However the environment in which we think about school and knowledge has fundamentally shifted and changed since the beginning of her story. Mimi Ito, author of Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Youth Living and Learning with New Media, in a speech at the American Association for School Library Conference in October 2011 says,

… the world around the classroom has also changed dramatically. Established cultural institutions like the textbook, the teacher, or the encyclopedia aren’t the critical passage points for knowledge anymore. Kids are immersed in a networked knowledge economy of free flowing information and constant social connectivity.

Again, I am influenced in my thinking by my work in the field of digital media and learning. Most recently reading the Connected Learning Research report, the authors write that “Today’s American youth are entering a labor market strikingly different from earlier generations.” 

Regardless of which job forecasts win out, we anticipate a future of heightened competition for good jobs, and a reduction in the wage premium gained by education. In this context, a neo-liberal vision of a market-driven education system is far more likely to yield a permanent two-track system than an environment in which opportunity and outcomes are widely shared across the citizenry. In order to pursue an educational reform agenda that is oriented towards equity, we need to confront these market realities as well as take into account the highly unequal educational playing field dominant and non-dominant youth encounter. Our educational system will fail those young people who it most needs to serve without solutions that look to education as a way of building capacity and meaningful participation rather than as a pipeline to a shrinking sets of opportunities.

I am also influenced by sophisticated curriculum development work that I have seen teachers I work with created and iterate over time. Curriculum is a "complicated conversation" (Ellsworth) and always reflects larger trends and influences in the society at larger (both explicit and hidden) ... so I don't agree with Ravitch that is is the domain of educational professionals versus teachers (note: I'm not sure I even understand this distinction btw, so that's a question) or "the what" versus "the how," (as she puts it on 226) and I'd be interested in discussing that more.

To support a conversation around curriculum, I found this post by former principal Frank Murphy in the Philadelphia School Notebook, which takes a historical view and shows the circular nature of the impact of “reforms” on curriculum and instructional control over the last decade in Philadelphia. And comments here by educators like Christina Puntel and others, make suggestions about directions to go that reach back historically to a time when teachers were in charge of their own curriculum and instruction decisions. These strike me as key pieces to hold onto as we move forward.

What did we know in the field from before NCLB about this curriculum and instruction? And what do we need to keep learning in order to move forward, in the name of equity and democracy, within radically changed and changing social, economic and educational environments?

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Key questions in the field of digital media and learning ...

In looking at the principles of Connected Learning, Justin Reich from the Berkman Center asks key and important questions about the road from the design principles of Connected Learning pedagogy to greater equity in society. See, “Building a More Inclusive Digital Media and Learning Environment.” 

At the NWP right now, we are asking related questions, ie.

What does connected learning look like with schools in the mix and in what ways does this support an equity agenda?

There are many ways to be connected, so what is the role of digital in these learning and design frameworks?

How do we foster healthy self-directed learning?

How does a critical pedagogical/literacies approach fit in?

And, like Justin Reich, how do we support a connected vision of learning that is truly equitable?

At the Digital Media and Learning Conference this past week too, questions about Democratic Futures were being explored, such as:

To what extent do digital media and participatory culture enable or hinder civic identity and engagement?

What types of policy interventions best support the development of resources—educational, local, and organizational—that engender greater youth involvement in the issues that impact their communities and the world?

How are local and global initiatives challenging the civic opportunity gap and building civic participation along the social and economic margins? What forms of social innovation help make participation in civic life more open, diverse, and democratic?

Audrey Watters from Hack Education is looking at the larger field of Ed Technology in general and asks equally important questions about community support for learning. She questions how social justice and care will happen if we were to (intentionally or unintentionally) dismantle public institutions like school. In this same article, she questions the promises of a liberation via a “child-driven education” which brings up challenges that she characterizes as “neo-liberalism, techno-humanitarianism, and techno-individualism.” Her column is important to follow for these reasons as she tracks what is happening at the intersections of education, technology, industry and society.

Ben Williamson, who I have quoted in this way before, tells us in an article called Wikicurriculum: Curriculum in the Digital Age, about the exciting potentials of a decentralized knowledge economy, as it potentially "position[s] teachers and learners as authors and editors of curricular content based on their own authentic cultures and patterns of participation." At the same time he reminds us that it is important to consider the potentially unintended consequences of the decentralized logic of what he calls "centrifugal schooling."

This death of the centre imagery applies not just to participation in the digital age, though.  Ideas about centrifugality are beginning to transform the media industries and are exerting influence on politics. Decentralization has broader social and educational significance too.

In a Freirian framework of reading the word and the world, these new digital media tools and networked environments give us increasingly robust and decentralized means of reading (ie. experiencing and understanding) and writing (ie. composing and communicating) in increasingly authentic and connected ways. I really am excited that teacher students could be creating their own curriculum together as Williamson suggests! However, if we come to learning or the use of new tools as if it is primarily about the delivery of pre-determined content, ie. Freire's concept of a banking model of education, then we run the risk of simply being controlled.

The death of the center, in other words, is not neutral, and we see already how interests focus on delivery of content and control of students are moving into the gaps that a changing educational landscape opens up. New digital tools can also be exciting and connect us, but we have to remember that often also are used to track, perform surveillance, collect data and "deliver" for a price (see Who Owns Your Education Data and NY Daily News article on InBloom). And they can be used to support austerity measures the remove humans and replace them with machines (think CVS auto-check out).

Of course, moving away from banking into more interest-driven and self-directed learning I think poses many exciting potentials too and is something that digital media and networked environments can support. However I believe bell hooks would remind us that we need community to learn how to be a community. We need to learn how to be a democracy by living within and figuring out democracy. So Watters warning about the "techno-individualism" rings true to me too as a risk and I am interested in what we know from our democratic notions of schooling that can help us with that.

Speaking of democratic schools, have you see this series? A Year at Mission Hill.

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Exploring Blended and Connected Learning

At the NWP, as well as in many other places across the globe (see most recent: #dml2013, #engchat, #etmooc, #literacies chat, connectedlearning.tv, EdWeek) educators are learning, thinking and unpacking, together, the principles of Connected Learning. . “ConnectedLearning” describes a set of design and learning principles meant to support a new approach to learning anchored in a rich history of teaching and learning research and theory. The principles emerged from the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative and are described in a newly released report, Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design.

For my mid-year presentation, my interest in this topic emerges from my work over time in the field of digital media and learning. And I was prompted to explore, and attempt to articulate, the differences between blended and connected learning through my experience at this year's Digital Learning Day, summarized in this blog post. In particular I would like to highlight this section:

Although "Connected Learning" includes a frame around making learning opportunities available in a range of places and not just in the four walls and timeframe dictated by schools, the rhetoric of Digital Learning Day included a focus on "Any Place Any Time" learning. As my colleague Troy Hicks points out, in this  Open Letter to Educators: (Re)Defining Digital Learning Day, this phrase is used over and over again with no reference to teachers or teaching. And it gets tied to the idea of “personalization” which another colleague, Chris Lehmann, describes very well in his blog post. Personalization in the case of Digital Learning Day, and clearly articulated during a mid-Town Hall "chat" with inBloom technologies, is exactly what Chris says, ie. “personalization of pace while still maintaining standardization of content.” From what I understand, these are literally systems that serve pre-determined content to students, “assess” their progress, and return to them what the computer believes they are ready for next.

I created this Prezi document in order to start to explore these ideas next to each other and share them with my classmates. I think the basic difference begins with the key questions that drove the underlying ideas and theory of action in the first place, ie. what is the experience of learners in digitally mediated and networked environments vs. how can we improve education (schooling/teaching, etc.) with digital media and networked tools.

I am attempting to not create a dichotomy here ... teaching and learning as two sides of the same sheet of paper. But I think choosing to start on one side over the other - one question or the other - does have implications for the ultimate vision of what is possible. And that's what I would like to explore together.

References:

Reich, Justin, "Summarizing EdTech in One Slide: Market, Open and Dewey" EdWeek, April 30, 2012.

Educause Blended Learning Implementation Guide, February 3, 2013

Connected Learning Infographic, March 2012

(Images referenced within presentation)

Research Initiatives:

Connected Learning Research Network

Youth & Participatory Politics

Resources to learn more:

NWP Digital Is

Edutopia

Hack Education

Connected Learning

DML Central

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In this class we are reading Ravich’s Death and Life of the Great American School System and to accompany the reading Dr. Royal gave us a couple optional texts to consider: DuBois's "The Talented Tenth" and Delpit's "Skills and Other Dilemmas" from her book, Other People's Children. I always enjoy reading DuBois because I am a bit of a history geek myself and I have found everything I’ve read by Delpit over time to be so important and provoking.


In the DuBois article, Dr. Royal wrote that we will see him discuss the purpose of education. Very relevant to Ravitch’s history and also an interesting choice of readings among readings given that it's DuBois and written in 1903. And ... I really need to reread it again to actually dig in. In sending us the Delpit article she said that we could read about the racial and cultural issues Delpit brought out from her experience teaching phonics and whole language in Philly in the 80s. This one, of course, is of most immediate interest to me since the writing project is talked about and critiqued directly within this essay. It sent me on a little historic hunt of my own! I joined the writing project in the early 90s. and I remember “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children” by Delpit was a standard reading in the annual institutes in Philadelphia. That article, along with “Skills and Other Dilemmas” was also apparently used at other writing projects from which I can confirm via a quick search (see Tateishi and Peitzman, Molta-Altman and Carter). The article was then also published in her 1995 book and I can see Joe Check’s review from the then NWP Quarterly magazine. It also shows up as an important focus of research on writing over time (see: Sperling, M., & Freedman, S.W. (2001). Research on writing. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching, pp. 370-389, AERA; Teachers and Researchers: Roles and Relationships by Courtney Cazden, Judy Diamondstone, and Paul Naso; and, Seeing Students, Seeing Culture, Seeing Ourselves by Zeni and Krater, Voices from the Middle, September 1996.) Moving into this century, her writing is still mentioned as key to writing project work (seen talked about in Laura Stokes's research on the NWP, OSUWP's summer readings, etc). She continues to be an important voice for many writing project teachers and scholars who lead writing projects today (see "Is This English?": Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom by Bob Fecho) and is cited as an important article in the context of diversifying leadership within writing project communities of practice as this 2008 monograph from the New York City Writing Project describes:

As the teacher population of New York City’s public schools became more diverse, we realized that we had to address the issue of diversity not only in our inservice seminars but also within our own organization. As always we began with reading and writing. Discussions built around “Teaching in Our Underwear: The Liabilities of Whiteness in the Multiracial Classroom,” a provocative article written by Maryann Dickar (2000), one of our inservice participants, and Lisa Delpit’s “Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator” (1986), led to hard talk about privilege and the realization that writing project workshops and inservice series had to make room for voices that were diverse and even dissenting. By doing so, we would be able to look at the texts we read and the situations we encountered in schools from a multitude of perspectives, some of which had been underrepresented in our work. This would challenge some of our long-held beliefs and practices but also open up possibilities for new approaches to our work with teachers and students. -- Ed Osterman, Supporting On-Site Teacher-Consultants: New York City Writing Project’s Community of Learners (2008)

I also found this tweet by my colleague Cliff Lee from just last year:

Rereading Delpit... I still see this debate between process vs. skills approach to teaching writing in classrooms today! How bout u? #NWP

March 20, 2012

What I love about the writing project is that, at it's best, it really is action through conversation -- we learn and grow the network and our perspectives on learning, literacy and teaching together by taking an inquiry stance to what we do. And, as Cliff's tweet implies, all is not solved and there is more to say about the conversation in the writing community itself. However, Delpit isn't just talking about the teaching of writing in her essay, she is also talking about the quality of the conversation about teaching and who is, and is not, at the table. And that is as real today as when she wrote it. Which, ultimately, puts that fire under my butt to refocus around who is at the table in important conversations I am participating in and fostering about digital media, learning and literacy today. In my little journey here, I ran into Bob Fecho’s description of Gloria Ladson-Billings AERA speech from 2006. Both, also having worked as educators in Philadelphia like Delpit, Bob writes about Gloria’s speech:

Fixing her gaze on everyone in the hall, Dr. Ladson-Billings held us all accountable and suggested we each figure out our role in paying back what is owed. It didn't make the rock any smaller or the mountain less steep and long, but it did remind the educators in that room that helping all children to embrace learning is a priority and concern for all Americans and that those who come too easily to their privilege need to consider what they can do to level the playing field in U.S. classrooms. No victim-blaming was to go on here.

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This is muckraking at its finest by the great @audreywatters at Hack Education.

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Engaging the Nonsense

“When teachers are asked to implement standards that they feel “do not make sense” it is not that teachers are simply ignorant and require professional development, it is in my opinion, the initial reaction of a person engaged in a craft/practice that is highly dependent and responsive to local conditions.” Ravich

Digging back into Death and Life this week, I found myself picking up from the history to get a view into where we are today with the Common Core. I spent some time reading Ravitch’s blog posts that are tagged “Common Core” and found, seemingly consistent with her approach overall, that she says that she is "agnostic" about the Common Core and wishes to "see how they work in reality before supporting or opposing them. I know the case for both views."

She seems to be keeping a close eye on the situation, however, and posts and cross-posts various writing and questioning by others around the Common Core as well as engages in her own research. Issues range from who is behind the writing and promotion of these standards, what research are they based on, what are the implications of them for different populations -- young children and special education -- etc. An approach she has is to often ask “What do you think?” to which she gets engaged response.

One post that I thought that caught my attention was written out of Ravich’s own research. Posted on January 27 and titled Exploring the Origins of the Common Core she engages here in the question around the purpose of schooling:

“The Common Core standards are derived, in part, from an abstraction (the patchwork quilt of research) and are being pushed on to practitioners. The research strands that I examined tended toward the notion that knowledge acquisition is the endgame of school-based learning. ...

Knowledge acquisition learning is about remembering and being able to manipulate abstract knowledge. We determine that a student has acquired knowledge by testing or providing a task that can only be completed if the individual has the requisite skill or knowledge. The Common Core is intended to set the standard for this type of learning and so there must be tests. ... If we believe in an educational system that prioritizes knowledge acquisition in the service of a national security agenda (economic competitiveness, technology dominance, etc.) then testing is necessary.

We experience the consequences of this priority in classrooms every day. I don’t have to detail them here.

If we believe that education is about more than knowledge acquisition, and that national security can be achieved through other concepts such as healthy communities, sustainable resource uses, national unity, world peace, or the elimination of hunger and poverty. Then we need to take responsibility for our practices, assert our own understandings of those practices, expose those practices to peer-review and challenge “what does not make sense” collectively.

I am finding that engaging the ‘nonsense’ has been a good learning experience.”

I love that last sentence. What do you think we can learn about learning, democracy and eduction by engaging the "nonsense"?

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In class last week I said, during our discussion, that I didn’t have a good answer – or more specifically, I don’t have my words well organized enough – to clearly address the “accountability” question in education. These days, I find it very difficult to engage with this question well at all...

[seecantrill]

I was the person behind the twitter handle @NWPDigital_Is when I tweeted:

#NWP is celebrating #DLDay w a focus on #ConnectedLearning. Join us! digitalis.nwp.org

February 6, 2013

That was sent sometime in the morning as a sipped coffee at my home in Philadelphia. Half...

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[seecantrill]

I want to share something. In August of 2012, after 20 years of working in the field of education, I decided to take the GRE. It was a decision I made despite the fact that the GRE is against everything that I believe about education and learning. Because of this it also pained me to pay ETS to...