Rather than teachers delivering an information product to be ‘consumed’ and fed back by the student, co-creating value would see the teacher and student mutually involved in assembling and dissembling cultural products. As co-creators, both would add value to the capacity building work being done through the invitation to ‘meddle’ and to make errors. The teacher is in there experimenting and learning from the instructive complications of her errors alongside her students, rather than moving from desk to desk or chat room to chat room, watching over her flock.
I love this vision of teaching from Erica McWilliam, articulated in her 2007 piece “Unlearning How to Teach” (via my Diigo network). I know the idea isn’t new in these parts, but the way she frames it really resonates. And it speaks to some important aspects of network literacy and the teacher’s role in the formation of and the participation in those student networks. At the end of the day, as she suggests in the quote above, we have to add value to the process, not simply facilitate it. Here’s another snip that gets to that:
A further point here – if we consider the student’s learning network as a type of value network, then, we must also accept that such a network allows quick disconnection from nodes where value is not added, and quick connections with new nodes that promise added value – networks allow individuals to ‘go round’ or elude a point of exchange where supply chains do not. In blunt terms, this means that the teacher who does not add value to a learning network can – and will – be by-passed.
I think that’s one of the hardest shifts in thinking for teachers to make, the idea that they are no longer central to student learning simply because they are in the room. When learning value can be found in a billion different places, the teacher has to see herself as one of many nodes of learning, and she has to be willing to help students find, vet, and interact with those other nodes in ways that place value at the center of the interaction, meaning both ways. It’s not just enough to add those who bring value; we must create value in our networks as well.
Another interesting point in the essay suggests that because of our emphasis on knowledge in the schooling process, we are actually creating a more ignorant society. I greatly admire Charles Leadbetter‘s work (If you haven’t read “Learning from the Extremes” (pdf) you need to), and this somewhat extended quote really got me thinking:
In a script-less and fluid social world, ‘being knowledgeable’ in some discipline or area of enterprise is much less useful than it was in times gone by. In The Weightless Society (2000), Charles Leadbeater explains the reason for this by exploding the myth that we are becoming a more and more knowledgeable society with each new generation. Leadbeater’s view is that we have never been more ignorant. He reminds us that we have a much less intimate knowledge of the technologies that we use every day than our forebears had, and will continue to experience a growing gap between what we know and what knowledge is embedded in our manufactured environment. In simple terms, we are much more ignorant in relative terms than our predecessors.
But Leadbeater makes a further point about our increasing relative ignorance that is highly significant for teaching and learning. It is that we can and must put this ignorance to work – to make it useful – to provide opportunities for ourselves and others to live innovative and creative lives. “What holds people back from taking risksâ€, he asserts, “is often as not …their knowledge, not their ignorance†(p.4). Useful ignorance, then, becomes a space of pedagogical possibility rather than a base that needs to be covered. ‘Not knowing’ needs to be put to work without shame or bluster… Our highest educational achievers may well be aligned with their teachers in knowing what to do if and when they have the script. But as indicated earlier, this sort of certain and tidy knowing is out of alignment with a script-less and fluid social world. Out best learners will be those who can make ‘not knowing’ useful, who do not need the blueprint, the template, the map, to make a new kind of sense. This is one new disposition that academics as teachers need to acquire fast – the disposition to be usefully ignorant.
As a parent, and I know I keep coming back to this lens more and more these days, I want my kids and their teachers to be “usefully ignorant.” It’s the basis of inquiry, and that type of learning can’t happen unless we give up this notion that we can “know” the answer and that it can be tested in a neat little short answer package. The world truly is “script-less”, and the more my kids are able to flourish with “not knowing” the more successful they will be. Just that concept will require a lot of “unlearning” when it comes to teaching and schools in general.
So how are you unlearning teaching?
WOW!!! This is an awesome blog post. I plan to share it with all of my colleagues on my staff. While this blog post is a real challenge to teachers to totally upend their classroom practices, I agree with everything it says.
If teachers can do what you are describing in this blog post school will be a much better place for both students and teachers.
Thanks for continuing to challenge me as a teacher to change and do what is right for ALL students.
On “useful ignorance” – – I think the classic statement is Donald Barthelme’s essay, Not Knowing” (re-published in his 1997 anthology of the same name). “Writing,” Barthelme says, “is a process of dealing with not-knowing . . without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention.”
@profhanley
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Will, know that 2 pull-quotes from Leadbetter’s piece (and your underlying questions) will be used tomorrow with a school district client of mine. And quite a few after.
Truly appreciated, both as a educator and parent. Powerful provocation, as all the good ideas need to be!
And — as I mentioned on your FB post of this, too — I want the “Be Usefully Ignorant” t-shirt. Tell me when you’ll begin selling them!
I’ve been teaching for six years in an elementary school. I have my Master’s degree in educational technology. I’ve always known something just isn’t right with the system in which I’m learning and teaching.
Thank you for illuminating me, through these two articles, exactly what I have been thinking is wrong with current “best practices”.
Where do I go to find examples of this kind of teaching approach so that I may sow the seeds of useful ignorance to the knowledgeable masses who are my colleagues?
One of my favorite quotes of all time:
“It should be the chief aim of a teacher to exhibit himself in his own true character — that is, as an ignorant man thinking, actively utilizing his small share of knowledge.”
~Alfred North Whitehead
That one resides as a “sticky” in my nifty little OSX widget all by itself. It has been there as long as I’ve owned a Mac. That phrase is constantly in my face. That’s really not an accident. To this day I can say that I use this as a check against any pedagogical moves I make in the classroom. (btw- years ago, I took the liberty of substituting the word “university professor” for “teacher.”)
Will,
Another great post. I am working with my new teachers and we discussed how we are working on this type of thinking in our system at Van Meter. They left today with hurting heads, but your thinking here is spot on. I will be sure to share this post with the rest of our staff this week. Scott McLeod speaks to them on Monday and I will follow up with this article. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Deron
I know that this kind of discussion often leads to heads nodding but usually fails to lead to systemic action. In working with students and teachers especially for technology its amazing what roadblocks are self-induced by the learners. We should be first in the knowledge discovery and creation business as a profession. Thanks again for the great post and also for the comments, the words continue to push my thinking and validate that a shared vision for education is possible
A major way that I am unlearning former teaching skills is by continuing to read this blog, paperless teaching, and other innovative views of good teaching. Rather than merely reading the ideas, I spend some time planning how (specifically, not in general) my class sessions or course structures can be changed as a result of this new information. Please keep writing, Will! I will keep reading…
On the surface, I can’t fully agree that the “world truly is ‘script-less'” because many human behavioral patterns are scripted in our species.
I think the concept of the world being script-less which implies ignorance is an integral part of teaching/learning, but setting up the context of education in such a dichotomous framework rushes us toward what I would call avoidable ignorance.
Adding value to acting on our ignorance by researching and collaborating to create new meaning would improve the educational experience of our students which is often mired in the standardized test mindset of placing the most value on knowing rather than inquiring.
Thanks for the reading recommendations.
Great provocative post Will, for me the thinking of McWilliam with her ‘meddling in the middle’ and Leadbeater’s call for ‘learning as productive activity’ pulls us to Dewey’s notion that learning needs to be an engaging and valid experience in and of itself. As I heard Michael Caine say recently, ‘life is not a rehearsal’, yet so much of what gets told to children is about their future, their potential and for me in doing so we so often sully thoughtful learning projects by focusing on the projected rather than the intrinsic value of the experience. Too often students are reduced to actors following a script written for them by their teachers. Have your students solve real, difficult problems that they care about in the present and they will take care of the future all on their own. Thanks for a great post.
Colin Campbell
It would be a great mistake to reduce education to information access, either for the teacher as dispenser of “knowledge” (re: information) or as consumer of information (learner).
The real question for any learner is, “What can they do?”
This enormous constructionist shift is made even more important, and perhaps easier by the ease with which information is accessible. However, information access represents the tiniest least powerful aspect of what learning is.
As for your major question, “So how are you unlearning teaching?” I’ll give the same advice I share with most of the schools where I have the privilege of working – “Less Us, More Them.”
I can’t help wondering during discussions like this if I’m the only person to have ever received a good teacher education?
I’m sure your not the ONLY one Gary, but I can tell you I didn’t. Your mentor Seymour Papert, in a link you Tweeted out a couple of weeks ago, referred to teaching as it is currently practiced as being a “technical” act, so it’s taught that way in most ed schools. Not as an act of human kindness and support…I think that’s assumed…but as an act of management, management of the curriculum, the classroom, the assessments, etc. I wonder what the percentage of teachers is that have been prepared NOT to be the focal point of the classroom.
It’s a very good question. I learned to be a teacher at state schools. There was lots of theory AND we learned how to make puppets out of PopTart boxes. I wish more kids had teachers who had STUDIED how to make PopTart box puppets. The world might be a better place for it.
-=Gary
A few months ago, I told an audience of teachers that “We know what to do.” I increasingly think of teaching in theological terms of right and wrong.
A teacher in the audience asked, “Do we?”
That question stumped me a bit and I’m beginning to have an answer.
Some teachers DO know what to do. If you are a teacher who remembers classrooms with Cuisenaire Rods, gerbils, books, a dress-up corner, high-interest reading books, painting easels, craft supplies, microscopes, plants, blocks, etc… then you have a special obligation to bring all of this BACK INTO YOUR CLASSROOM. That serves the children you teach and serves the generation of teachers you work with who may not know that this is an option.
A huge issue is that we are continually directed to do just the opposite. We are given programs and frameworks that assume dispensing knowledge until they get it is THE way. So to NOT be the center of attention, and teach students to be learners, you not only have to be aware to make that shift … that that is where we should be going, you have to make that happen … go against the grain even though you are not supported in doing that. So it is not just a matter of knowing to change, Too often we are not supported in doing so and in fact do so at our own peril. You have to develop the pedagogy and materials 85% on your own (thank God for my PLN!) because the school district is not going to offer training or time for that. But they’ll offer it for the teacher as dispenser model.
Early on in NCLB my administrators overtly told us in at risk schools to narrow our curriculum. That has not been a good PR position for them. So now they never tell us we have to narrow the curriculum, they just make conditions such that you are pretty much forced into doing so yourself to make AYP. Its a good trick, it mostly works and they can claim to support a broad and rich curriculum for all (“Its the teachers that narrow things – we didn’t direct them to do that.”).
You make a great point, Brian. Teachers by and large have to make this shift on their own, and they don’t have a roadmap to do it, for the most part. And you can see it in the faces of those folks who are challenged to do it, that look of “how?”
But the piece before that is this: how many are being asked to change in the first place?
Will,
Thanks for this important post. The money concept really is “useful ignorance;” that is indeed a tough concept for our educators to wrap their brains around. (Nod here to the hurting heads noted by Deron.) These following sentences are now posted for constant “remembering”, and I think Sean’s quote is definitely worthy of its sticky note status.
“Out best learners will be those who can make ‘not knowing’ useful, who do not need the blueprint, the template, the map, to make a new kind of sense . This is one new disposition that academics as teachers need to acquire fast – the disposition to be usefully ignorant.”
And, Gary, you’ve got a very important point of differentiation here. Though I agree with Will on the networked learning piece, there are other things that kids can do with these technologies beyond communicate and access information. I’m seeing some pretty awesome engagement right now as students explore the FabLab ModelMaker software and begin fabricating, and then constructing and deconstructing, their designs. I am with you Gary when you write, “The real question for any learner is, “What can they do?— Amen.
Will be sharing this post, and likely causing some brain cramps in the process. Thanks, Will/all.
Thanks for stopping by, Laura.
The system enables all of this by making the blueprint, the template, the map at the center of the process both for students and for teachers. We’re doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing because the map makes it all easy on the system. Same route for everyone.
Sure, that software is a step in the right direction, but only in a context that understands the value of knowledge construction and active learning. Otherwise, teachers will make kids print boxes (the example on the software web site) and invariably grade them on box making with some kids succeeding and others failing.
I can’t emphasize loudly enough that information access is the low-hanging fruit and the simplest part of the learning process.
@Gary,
Yes, I agree that the appropriate pedagogy must be applied in order to make this a valuable learning experience. That’s why our partnership with Glen Bull and Willy Kjellstrom @UVA emphasizes teacher professional development and problem/project-based learning. I’ve written about that part here: http://thenetwork.typepad.com/architectureofideas/2010/08/play-and-the-engineering-design-process-.html
As to your comment about info access being low-hanging fruit and “simplest part”: I am not sure that I agree. Once again, it is what you do with the tools, how the tools are contextualized within a learning experience, that is important. (And, forget the technologies–building the relationships/connections with information and people is a complex process.) There is a lot to learn if our teachers are going to effectively leverage the access and make it meaningful to the learning process.
Years ago I had the opportunity to meet Erica when she guest taught during a summer seminar at Teachers College that Ruth Vinz was teaching. Erica’s book, In Broken Images: Feminist Tales for a Different Teacher Education inspired all of us that summer and influenced a text I wrote that was later published in English Education about unfixing beliefs as an English teacher. Unlearning is a critical stance we need to take especially in these days when certainty continues to triumph.
Hi Will,
I was lucky enough to attend a PD session run by Erica McWilliam two weeks ago. I wrote about it here:
http://jennylu.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/erica-mcwilliam-pd-to-savour/
Link in there to an earlier paper she wrote that is well worth reading.
Jenny : )
Gary, I’m with you but when will we see high school classrooms and university seminar rooms become similar places of wonder and experimentation? Not any time soon I predict which is why I agree with Leadbeater’ when he calls not for “alternative kinds of school but alternatives to school†p19 in the piece Will linked to above.
As long as we still have content heavy, high stakes exams hanging over schools we will continue to see the experimentation squeezed out of the system as our students progress towards high school and university. Even within the relatively enlightened educational environment of international schools, where I have worked for the past decade as a teacher and curriculum coordinator, I have seen the confidence in teachers, students and especially parents wilt towards the ‘experimental and error welcoming’ and push towards the scripted and restrictive the closer the students get towards high school. Just when the students are reaching the developmental stage where they can assert their intellectual individuality within projects that lead them to “assemble and dissemble cultural products†we stop doing them and instead bombard them with knowledge and test them on it.
This situation has led me to take Leadbeater’s advice and look for alternative models and I agree with him that this is the way we might find the transformational innovation I think many of us are looking for.
Colin Campbell
Put simply, perhaps too simply, it’s an emphasis on process rather than content.
The current college classes I am taking definitely do not embrace wonder and experimentation. One more powerpoint and shoot me with the “click” of the mouse.
Reading Curriculum 21 for my current class also makes me reflect not only on pedagogy but also content.
What is the essential curriculum? What changes need to be made in each area of the curriculum?
This is as daunting a task and as exciting as the pedagogy piece.
Learning to undo any habits and beliefs we have been socialized in for 18 plus years will be difficult.
Pleased that ideas from my papers are resonating with teachers who want to unlearn some of the unhelpful orthodoxies of 20th century pedagogy.
Thought I might draw your attention to one problem for the meddling disposition – that it cuts across expectations of instant and easy success. A useful read on this issue is Michael Foley’s recent book, The Age of Absurdity (2010), which draws attention to the widespread retreat from challenge as a disturbing meta-trend of our times. In his chapter, “The Rejection of Difficulty and Understandingâ€, he says that “Difficulty has become repugnant because it denies entitlement, disenchants potential, limits mobility and flexibility, delays gratification, distracts from distraction and demands responsibility, commitment, attention and thought”.
Foley argues that investing in children’s self-esteem for its own sake, divorced from achievement, has been a tactic through which we have let kids off the hook of intellectual challenge.
It matters that kids avoid relying on ‘easy success’ to get them the future they want. Trying to avoid or step around complexity and challenge is not the answer. We need to ensure that our schools are providing the sort of “low threat, high challenge’’ environment that will allow young people to fly high in complex and turbulent times. Less failsafe – more safefail. Our challenge as teachers is to provide all our young people with a deep and lasting experience of the pleasure and rigour of complex thinking. To do less is to be patronising. If we make easy success an easy option, we are helping those who are most in need to be more exposed and more vulnerable.