Discuss: Unplugged Schools

GRRRR!

I WONdered where the legions of Luddites were hiding! Apparently it is in “unplugged schools.”

Such arrogance! “WE will define the Gods of education and society! WE will show your children how to worship them! Shut up, you miserable parents, you know NOTHING!

“Nemmind that there are lasers in the jungles, WE’ll teach your kids to return to the use flintlocks in the face of those threats, just as we taught millions of Frenchmen and Germans to attack Maxim machineguns with 19th century bolt-action popguns ....”

Asimov’s most successful model of educational excellence is Arkady Darell, who in Second Foundation uses her computer subversively to alter bad stuff in the universe. Gibson’s Chia McKenzie is the same type of heroine. Her Sandcaster computer is the only tool she needs to successfully navigate the world. Both hardly go to ‘school’ as such, but learn in the organic way Daniel Quinn recommends.

Burn Monke’s schools! Burn them down to the ground! They’ll only stamp out cookie-cutter little PC pseudo-greenies, searching for sterile ‘spirituality’, hopelessly unable to cope with the speed or the complexity of an endgame world. Ya want that?

As I have said forever, “Technology is not the problem.”

verily,
tom

While reading Monke’s excellent and well-thought-out article, I was very puzzled that he only mentioned Waldorf schools in one instance: commenting favorably on their awareness of the spiritual damage electronic media does to children.  Waldorf schools actually address most if not all of the concerns he puts forward in his article, and has done so for the last 75+ years!  And it addresses them most effectively.  Is it possible that such a well-informed and astute educator hasn’t looked deeply enough into Waldorf Education to be aware of this?

Waldorf Schools clearly and effectively address the needs of our ailing educational system the world over.  Anyone interested in an enlightened approach to education children for this age should research the Waldorf curriculum
-Jim

I don’t think one should blame technology itself for society’s ills, it’s how it’s used that has led the such disconnections (and in my reading of the article, this was somewhat inline with what Monke was saying, he didn’t appear to be a luddite, having taught computers for 15 years and arguing in the article for an understanding of technology). 

I work with a program that uses technology to help foster these connections of students with their communities and their environment, while at the same time preparing them for the technology that IS out there, and providing them with important tools for future careers that are desparately needed in the rural areas where they’re located.  So far it’s been successful on both counts, including increased interactions with a wide cross section of community members, and getting them outside in nature.

I agree with Mr. Monke in suggesting we need to balance use of technology with real experiences that involve physical interactions and thoughtful analysis. He isn’t proposing we eliminate technology in the classroom and in fact clearly states, “Compensation for an overheated technological culture should not be mistaken for rejection of it.” More and more the curriculum seems to be emphasizing slick, technology-based projects while sacrificing class discussions and time for synthesis and evaluation. The biggest danger I see in allowing technology to dominate classrooms is that we will fail to build the relationships that encourage and inspire students to explore and exhibit their gifts.

In his comments, Tom Warren states we should burn the schools of which Lowell Monke speaks because they will purportedly serve only to “stamp out cookie-cutter little PC pseudo-greenies...” It should be obvious, however, that the legacy of mass production is due to the technocracy Warren seems to defend, rather than Monke’s schools or even “Luddites” for that matter.

Warren’s remarks are symptomatic of the fanaticism that arise often in humanist technocrats who, far from allowing free debate, attempt to shut down critical assessment of unimpeded technological growth through means such as Warren’s unwarranted ad hom comment. For these technocrats, any perceived negative effects of such growth are only apparitions in the minds of misanthropes and madmen. The “benefits” of technocracy should be self-evident and speak for themselves born as they are from what technocrats seem to see as man’s greatest capacity: instrumental reasoning.

Polarizing verbiage such as Warren’s shouldn’t surprise us given that the instrumentalist language of today’s ubiquitous computer technology is based in the dualism of 1’s and 0’s. Such instrumentalism can’t see beyond the “all” and “nothing” of this language and as such cannot enter, or allow for, a critical debate that admits at least the possibility of a multitude of perspectives. 

While the last two sentences were made with (minute) jest, my point is there are more types of reasoning than instrumental reasoning, one of which is communicative reason otherwise known as informal logic and/or critical thinking. Far from being cold and distant, this latter type of reasoning welcomes dialog and as such, takes the opposite approach of instrumental reasoning in that it welcomes others from the outset. While it certainly isn’t a free-for-all, communicative reason acts as a conduit or bridge between a plurality of experiences and perspectives rather than the working-upon-the-world that is instrumentental reason.

Contrasted to Warren’s (and others) conclusion that “technology is not the problem”, I will assert that technology is a big problem (though not necessarily the problem). It forms the near constant environment most of us in the West now are now enveloped within. From the Internet to television, to radio and newspapers, we are subjected to a constant apologetic for the religion of technology and its so-called “progress”. The old adage to “look before you leap” seems lost on the adherents of this religion, given they tend to only present the benefits of technology as evidence to move “forward” rather than evenly presenting its hidden costs environmentally, socially, politically and so on. Aside from this, they seem somehow blind to the fact that much of today’s technology is based in warding off the negative effects of prior technologies! Rather than “progress” it appears much technology takes the form of an ouroboros.  Perhaps, if there had been some critical (and public) dialog beforehand, these negative effects would have been lessened greatly, if not avoided altogether, and much of today’s gadgetry would have been needless.

The schools of which Monke speaks hardly seem like the Luddite enclaves Warren charges them with being. They do, however, seem to provide far more fertile ground for which our human experience can emerge in its technological, communicative, imaginative, creative and ethical (...) wholeness. The wholeness of human being-ness is an antidote to the drab “cookie-cutter” technocracy that is “stamped out” daily in our public schools for the sake of efficient production driven by a vague utopian vision of “progress.”

I am entirely in agreement with the over-all sentiment of this article, but there is a fundamental contradiction in the presentation. There are one sentence that creates a serious contradiction in Mr. Monke’s approach: “Of course, symbol manipulation—reading, writing, mathematics—is the unavoidable nuts and bolts of schooling.”

The contradiction occurs on two levels; the surface imagery and the deeper concept. If there are “unavoidable nuts and bolts,” as he claims, then he envisions a machine that is constructed from those fundamental parts and is inherently mechanical. But, he is thus contradicting his argument against having schools that reflect mechanical thinking. We can give Mr. Monke the benefit of the doubt by calling this a metaphoric faux pas but, of even greater concern is the deeper conceptual foundation for schooling that he simply assumes as a given.

Whatever you create will, in some way, reflect the most basic materials you use to create it. In creating an education system, if you take symbol manipulation as the most basic element, then you will generate a system that is entirely limited by the nature of symbol manipulation. By invoking the image of “unavoidable nuts and bolts” Mr. Monke gives the impression that symbol manipulation is the most fundamental part of the machine, the basic part from which everything else in the machine is made. I argue that symbol manipulation is not basic and that a system of schooling that makes this mistake is (and will always be) incapable of consistently producing the kinds of good results Mr. Monke desires. I propose that the true foundation of good education is optimal states of mind and, therefore, a good school system must use this as it’s conceptual foundation in order to consistently produce good results.

Here is the URL to the Blog Post in which I developed this idea further:
http://blog.attitutor.com/2007/10/response-to-unplugged-schools-by-lowell.html

In response to other comments:

re Mr. Page & Mr. Warren;

Accusing Monke of being a Luddite is over reacting. The whole point of his bringing in the Waldorf example is that they are approaching the challenge openly, not by excluding it entirely but by carefully examining what it’s consequences are going to be. They are considering changes to their approach, not merely accepting the knee jerk response.

re: Waldorf

I would also caution against accepting Waldorf as a unified approach. In my limited experience the schools vary widely in their actual practices. The teachers may all share some training experiences via their certification process, but once they are out in the world then reality intrudes on idealism. This is, of course, true for all school systems. Waldorf is worth looking into, but has to be put in perspective, too.

Here’s a link to the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) which is an excellent place to find alternative schooling ideas in abundance:
http://educationrevolution.org/

You can find books by John Taylor Gatto and many others.