Seven swans-a-swimming

On the seventh day of Christmas, we should take a rest
from struggling and striving, remember we're blessed,
for blessings enrich us when handled with care
and with those who don't have them always be shared.

I shiver at the thought, not because of the weather. The winters in these parts are getting milder, but the cold, hard cash that drives too much of our thinking these days is more than enough reason to seek more warmth. But where can we find it?

It's hard to talk about money without talking about success. For too many people, the measure of success is a person's net value, and when it's about money, it soon ends up being about "me". Like spoiled children, we hear the cries of "Mine! That's mine! You can't have it. No, mine!" Spoiled children are sad enough. Spoiled adults are even worse.

We also like to think, and we're told often enough, that what we have are the rewards of our own efforts. I didn't realize that inheritance was such hard work, but I don't know everything, yet most of the super-rich these days didn't earn their fortunes themselves. There are folks who did "earn" theirs, say Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, but does anyone think that Bill Gates worked harder than they did, especially those aspiring to get into the rich club? I doubt it, and so there is an apparent discrepancy between working hard and getting ahead. What about luck? What about being at the right place at the right time? These aren't things you can plan for and they have a strong influence on the difference between success and failure. But, worst of all, we are led to believe that they did it all on their own. And this is one of the biggest untruths in the history of propaganda.

You don't have to believe me. Try Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers for a behind-the-scenes look at what is really happening: being in the right place at the right time is more important than anything, and practice is more important than talent. These individuals then tend to get more than their share of support from everyone else, making success more of a collective than solitary effort. This is borne out in biology and evolution. David Sloan Wilson argues quite convincingly in his 3 August 2011, New Scientist article on selfless evolution that cooperation, not competition, is the strategic, that is, long-term evolutionary mechanism. Humans survive best and longest if they cooperate. Competition is destructive, and this is certainly the effects that we are seeing from the latest economic catastrophe.

Put more succinctly, "we" is much more important than "me", at least when thought about in the long-run. Nature knows this, but we seem to have forgotten. Our forebears, though, were also forced by nature to come together, to huddle together in search of warmth and hope for the year to come. It was a part of their experience. We haven't outgrown the experience nor have we found a worthy substitute for it, but the Twelve Days of Christmas give us the chance to regain that experience once more.

Six geese-a-laying

On the sixth day of Christmas, we should stop and reflect
on those who get lost or ignored through neglect
by well-meaning people, like you and like me
but they're there nonetheless, if we choose but to see.

If you've taken the time to give yesterday's question any serious thought, you will most likely have noticed something. It's hard to find a "why" in what you have or want to have ... more often than not we start thinking about what we want to be. This is a existentially fundamental distinction and it makes all the difference in the world. Erich Fromm, the émigré German psychoanalyst, wrote a book in 1942 which should be on everyone's reading list: To Have or To Be. It's not an academic volume of technobabble and overweening erudition, rather it is a simply written, human book that asks you to ask yourself the meaning question, too.

The question whether to have or to be has taken on renewed significance this year in particular as we have seen one country after another fall into extreme financial difficulties, as we witness the epidemic level of foreclosures being exercised by banks, as we struggle to escape the largest economic crisis in our lifetimes and which may be even worse – at least in certain regards – as the one that led to the Great Depression. Let's face it: we're not in very good shape and promising solutions are as good as nowhere to be found.

The result? A air of barbarism, I would say, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. If you want to know what someone thinks, just listen to their choice of words. It will tell you everything you need to know? Has it occurred to anyone besides me that the tenor of public dialogue has become harsher, crueler, more cynical, brash, aggressive and violent. Oh sure, we all know the effects of a good pepper-spraying or clubbing, but what about a well-executed tongue-lashing? You can wash the pepper spray out of your eyes and the cut on your head will heal, but the psychological wounds that are inflicted with words are some of the hardest to heal, and some never, ever heal properly.

Let's be honest, our entire public dialogue, be it in the public square or the presidential debates, is about one subject and one subject only: money. We only ever talk about money. The schools are collapsing because they have no money, and most people don't have money to send their children to other schools. Public services don't function without money and so the fire department watches a house burn down in Kentucky because the owner hadn't paid the subscription fee. Americans don't want to pay taxes because they don't know how the money is spent ... well, maybe building bridges to nowhere but certainly not fixing the ones that are in need of repair. If you step back and listen, I would be willing to bet that within the first 30 seconds of any conversation, debate or argument about any public issue, the money argument will arise: how are we going to pay for it ... or even better, who is going to pay for it.

Unfortunately, it is all only about the money anymore.

Five gold rings

On the fifth day of Christmas, the time just got away.
Instead of deep reflection it was dash and rush and pay.
But, with a bit of effort and help from all around
we made it back quite safely where peace and love abound.

Let's pick up on the theme we started on the Third Day of Christmas, meaning? The question we asked then is an important one, much more important than we like to think: what gives meaning to our lives? This is not a trivial question, regardless of how simply it is phrased. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) wrote once that knowing why one lived allowed on to endure almost any how. This rather simply stated insight led the Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), a survivor of the Nazi death camps, to use this as the basis for his highly successful logotherapy.

Meaning matters. What Nietzsche intuited, Frankl experience, and this under the extremist of circumstances. Meaning made the difference in untold number of instances between life and death, and while it may not be as existentially stark now as it was in Frankl's life, the rules of the life game haven't changed that much. So, the question that springs to my mind is how many of us have actually sat down and thought seriously about what gives meaning to our lives. If you never had, it's long overdue. If you have, is it the same as it once was? And keeping in tune with the Spirit of the Season, it is precisely this time of year ... the time between the years as it is ... that we should find a few quiet moments to reflect on just that. What gives meaning to our lives?

This isn't about New Year's resolutions that we never keep. Why should we? We make them because we think they'll help us become a better or healthier or happier person, but do we really know that that means? Of course we don't keep them because they are little more than add-on rules that simply get in the way, another set of obligations that are imposed upon much like the perceived unreasonable demands we get from our bosses or spouses or children or ... . Yes, I believe that most of us are so wrapped up in the details of our lives that we are not as clear on what is meaningful in our lives as we should be.

Meaning's a big deal. It's the answer to the "why" question. And "why" is always a big deal. So, do we work to live or do we live to work? Do we live for our children or merely through them? Do we live for the things that we have and own? Do we live for what we learn? It should be clear that I'm not asking why we get up and go to work everyday (or not, if we don't have a job), I'm asking if you know why you are even alive to begin with? It's a much more serious question.

The answer to that question is the gold – not brass – ring on the carousel of life.

Four colly birds

On the fourth day of Christmas, we should take the time
to think of those others whose lives aren't as fine
as ours, in their fullness, their richness and glee,
for much suffering results from unintentional greed.

Before pursuing the thread of meaning which was introduced yesterday, I'd like to stop for a moment and reflect upon the relationship between light and spirituality that was mentioned as well. For as long as I can remember, and I'm pretty sure for as long as anyone can remember, there has been an intimate connection between Light and Spirit, between Light and whatever it is we conceive a God-like entity to be. Prior to monotheism, the sun literally played the light role. Within the monotheistic traditions, God was associated with light. What is more, even in the non-theistic religions, such as Buddhism, candles and light play no insignificant role. Why might that be?

Regardless of any other associations we may be carrying around in our heads, anyone who has ever taken a closer look at light itself cannot help but be amazed. OK, a bit of stretch. We can't see light. If you look into a container full of only light, all you will see is darkness. What we see, literally, are those objects from which light is being reflected. We don't see light, we can only perceive its reflection. And for those of you that are now having thoughts of mirrors forming in your heads ... yes, we have to ask ourselves perhaps which side of the looking glass we're on.

Seriously, however, light may be the most fascinating thing in our universe. Nothing can accelerate faster (for you neutrino buffs ... Einstein only spoke of acceleration, not velocity), but even more amazing, it is the one thing that can apparently be two things at once. When speaking of light, we most often hear words like "ray" or "wave", for light does in fact behave like a wave, under certain circumstances. Strangely enough, though, light can also be found in particle form, as photons, as they are called. In other words, sometimes light is a wave, sometimes a particle. When is it one, and when is it the other? The answer, as is so often the case in life, is "it depends".

The situation plays a big part in it, of course, but at the "moment of truth", it appears that the light "knows" what it needs to be and expresses itself appropriately. As strange as that may sound, there is a strong case to be made for light "making the decision" itself. Expressed in simplest terms, light apparently shares certain properties of consciousness. I certainly don't expect you to take my word for it. A well-argued and well-documented presentation can be found in Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe. (For those of you who don't know of him, Young is the person who figured out how to make helicopters fly.) Could it be that light itself is the link between the physical and metaphysical? It's hard to say, but it certainly gives us something to think about at this reflective time of year.

Three French hens

The third day of Christmas takes on a new air.
We're tempted to work but we must be aware
that this is the season to look deep inside
for hope and for peace in which we may abide.

The modern individual "knows" that myth is a dirty word. We use the word to describe anything, particularly statements and stories that we believe to be unabashedly made up, pure fictions. One of the goals of 19th century science was to demythologize everything, and we have to admit that if they have got us to use the term "myth" as a derogatory term, they did a pretty good job.

Nevertheless, we have seen over the past week that there is more to myth than just silly made up stories. The whole reason for having Christmas now, the reason that there has been some kind of celebration at this time of year for almost as long as their have been humans in northern climes is that something occurs that can only happen now. The sun "dies" and is "reborn" and through its "sacrifice" the rest of us can live. Overstated? Well, yes and no.

On the one hand, we have a very nice metaphorical description of what is happening cosmologically. (And for those of you interested in just how widespread this kind of mythological description of reality may be, I would suggest Santillana & Dechend's Hamlet's Mill.) Scientists and non-scientists, materialists and non-materialists alike agree that the days get shorter until 21 December, and afterward they start getting longer again (until they reach their longest point around 21 June and then they start getting shorter again). This is the yearly cycle and this cycle is such an intimate part of our lives that we give it absolutely no thought at all. What is more, because we never think about it, we don't really care about it. And, as we all know, what we don't care about, doesn't matter, and what doesn't matter is meaningless. In other words, what was once a central (or at least more prominent) part of our lives has become meaningless, have our lives in general become more meaningless?

This brings us to a very important question: what gives meaning to our lives? I know it is one we don’t think about very often, but that was also something that contributed to this special time of year. The sun is at its weakest, and we were, traditionally at least, weaker as well and in the, literally, least physical time of year. The long, cold, dark nights of winter were an excellent opportunity to reflect. The festival of light was an opportunity to strengthen ourselves innerly for the challenges which were soon coming again "out there" in the world. In other words, for a variety of reasons, physical, cosmological, and mythical, this was a spiritual (or at least, metaphysical) time of year. To paraphrase the late, great John Lennon, all we are saying, is give myth a chance.

Two turtle doves

The second day of Christmas falls
here without stores and without malls.
Just family, friends, those we hold dear
especially close this time of year.

Today is a holiday in Europe, a real holiday, with closed stores and festive programs. It's called Boxing Day in the UK, but if you're interesting in why, you can either ask a Brit or just google it. I would prefer to pick up where I left off yesterday, and the day numbered two seems to be a good place to start. After all, we were talking about two theories weren't we?

Science is a fascinating way of looking at the world. It uncovers bizarre creatures at the bottom of the oceans, identifies viruses and bacteria that are harmful, it has provided us with great boons, like penicillin, and great banes, like nuclear energy (just think of the waste). But, we should keep in mind it is only one way of looking at the world. It does well with facts, but there is more to the world than facts.

What about art? That is also a valid way of seeing the world around us. The realism of a Rembrandt, the irrealism of a Picasso or Dali, the emotion of a sculpture by Michelangelo are all valid expressions of feelings, of something deeper within us that can be moved (either positively or negatively). Art can be enraging or inspiring or any range of feelings in-between. Aren't feelings a legitimate part of our make-up as human beings? I think they are.

And what about things that we simply have difficulty dealing with, such as psychic phenomena like telepathy or remote viewing, or even the existence of God? Science is not in a position to make a statement because it is beyond the realm of the five senses to which they have restricted itself. Art cannot address it because these phenomena have something almost physical and something non-physical about them, something that goes beyond feelings themselves.

In other words, the simple dichotomy we have made for ourselves – it's real or it's not – is not really adequate to the task. We have to allow ourselves to explore other realms with other methods if we are to truly understand who we are, why we are here, and what we should be doing with ourselves.

Our forebears, among other things, attempted to encapsulate this "more" of which I am speaking in their own expression of knowledge, in myths. We should be grateful to them for what they have bequeathed to us, even if we don't understand it anymore. We need to give myth (and metaphysics) another, a fair, chance. Who knows, maybe all of us will be the better for it. It presupposes, however, that we talk with one another, not just to – or worse, at – one another.

A partridge in a pear tree

Best wishes for all at this time of year,
days of peace and full of cheer.
Some simple hope, a kindly smile
can make dark days the more worthwhile.

For those of you who are celebrating: Merry Christmas. Today is not only Christmas Day, it is the first day of Christmas as well.

Why today? If you recall from the time-before-last on the 21st, the sun reaches its lowest point (nadir) in the Ecliptic on it's yearly journey (from a geocentric perspective, of course). It will be recalled that it stays there for three days. In other words, on the third day (that is, the 24th) it starts its ascent, it is, if you'll excuse the metaphor, "born again" for the coming year. Births are beginnings, so it seems fitting that the festival of renewed light and life begin now.

Regardless of our reasoning, though, we would all agree that without the sun, there is no life on earth. Granted, there's a finely tuned relationship involved, but it is easy to understand why the sun has been celebrated as the Giver of Life through the ages. Yet there is another paradox involved. At this time, the Earth and Sun are closer to each other than at any other time during the year, but still, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is as cold as gets. This is because the earth's axis is titled about 23 deg. from upright, so at this time, the sun's rays only obliquely hit the Northern Hemisphere. In other words, the effect of the sun is qualitatively different – it's the weakest – than, say, at Midsummer when its effects are the strongest.

It is here that I start to feel a bit sorry for the materialists amongst us. Differences are differences, be they material or otherwise, but they only have one kind. Given that 75% of the mass of the universe is unaccounted for, even our strongly scientific friends indicate that there is apparently more to cosmological phenomena than meets the eye. Until the rise of empiricism and its blitzkrieg on our thinking, really around the time of the Enlightenment, we had another option. We had a physical realm, but we also had a metaphysical one as well. As we know, the latter was given a pretty bad rap and relegated to untouchable status, but it hasn't gone away. We should note that it the existence of the metaphysical was not disproven, it was simply argued away. That is, if you accept the materialist argumentation, there is no metaphysical, but you don't agree, to them, you are simply displaying intellectual weakness.

Let's face it though, it's not intellectual weakness at all. One theory says there is nothing more than the physical. Another theory says there is more, at least the physical and metaphysical. I would expect there would be a discussion and debate amongst the theorists, but what I mostly see is ignorance: one side simply ignoring the other. I believe we can do better than that.

Hope in the darkness

The experience of dark and cold can call forth feeling of despair. Food was in short supply, perhaps one family or group didn't have enough to make it through these times. But those who had more, could and did share, for it was understood that life could be better if more, not fewer, survived. Fire brought warmth, but so did the huddling together around the fire, and so did the sharing. At worst, you knew you were not alone. At best, you had hope for the future.

These, too, are feelings we share even today. They express themselves perhaps in different ways, but the feelings are the same. Our forebears weren't children, they weren't child-like in their innocence and at bliss in their ignorance. It is hard to believe that there were Einsteins among the cavemen. Someone figured out how to handle and manage fire. Someone thought the wheel could be a good idea. Yet, these days I often sense just a trace of arrogance, of (unwarranted) superiority because the least among us know more than those folks could ever have dreamed of. Aren't we just grand? But are we? We may know how to download apps to our smart phone, but do we know how to share with and care for each other? We may have indoor plumbing and the latest microwave, but raise another person's spirits enough that they survive until spring? I'm not so sure.

While we moderns may think we prefer snazzy formulas and differential equations to encode our knowledge, for millennia this was done in stories, poems, and songs. The myths of the Ancients, whether we like it or not, encapsulated an extent and degree of knowledge – of nature, the universe, the movements of the planets, the cycle of the seasons, when to plant, when to harvest, when to celebrate, and how to hope. This was a knowledge meticulously collected, constructed and preserved because of it survival value. We like to think today that we don't need any of this any more, but a quick look around by a half-observant eye tells you that much of what we see is tenuous, fragile, hollow, insubstantial, and downright disgusting. Don't get me wrong, just as there were cavemen Einsteins, there were cavemen jerks and thieves and exploiters. What they bequeathed to us, however, was not the worst of themselves, but their best, that is, their myths. Why, because they are such cute stories. I doubt it. Rather perhaps that we might learn sooner what they simply learned too late: cooperation with each other and with the world around us is a sustainable strategy; competition only ever gets you short-term gains. It is simply too selfish for its own good.

Over the next couple of weeks, then, I'd like to revisit one of these mythical constructs to see if there is not something therein that we can cull out for today … and, it has more to do with each of us than it does with anything else.

The longest night

This is a special time of year … not because some are waging war on Christmas, not because some are once again trying to debunk the holiday with pagan myths, and certainly not because it's the biggest shopping season of the year. This time of year is special in a very fundamental way, and it might be worthwhile to reflect on why.

It's not a coincidence that all of those pagan holidays, as well as Christmas and Hannukah all occur right now, for in one way or another they share something very special in common, namely Light. For those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice marks the shortest day, and the longest night of the year. It is the time when the Sun – as seen from the Earth – halts over the Tropic of Capricorn (23 deg. S 26 min. longitude) for three days at the end of its journey to the South. After the solstice, it will appear to travel north again, the days will get longer and the nights shorter until it reaches its apogee on June 21 (the longest day and shortest night of the year). For those of you who are keeping track and like to be exact, the solstice will occur today at 16:19 GMT (or 10:19 am for you in NYC, and 7:19 am for our California friends).

Yes, it's dark in northern climes at this time of year. For where I live near Stuttgart, Germany, the sun rose today at 8:13 am (local time) and set at 4:27 in the afternoon. That's not much chance for much light at all, and we have it good. My friend in Bergen, Norway won't experience the sunrise until 9:44 am (local time) and it will have gone down by 3:28 pm. Blink, and you might miss it.

These, of course, are merely the facts, the pure, astronomical, verifiable facts. It is simply darker for a lot longer that it is light at this time of year. What we all experience, though, is the stillness, perhaps the sadness, the wish to maybe withdraw and to reflect throughout those long, dark hours. We feel it today, if we allow ourselves to. And our parents, grandparents, and their parents and grandparents, and theirs and ever on, further back, felt it as well. The phenomenon is the same, to be sure. How we choose to deal with it is quite different than it once was.

This is not to say that how we deal with it is better. Nor am I implying that how it used to be dealt with should be our way. Then was then and now is now, but we should be aware that our experience today is the experience our forebears had so many, many years ago. It is what binds us together over time. It is something that we share, and sharing is (or should be) a big part of this time of year.

Thinking even more about learning

If we accept that Carr may be onto something, then we must ask ourselves what behaviors, what learning the Net supports. It would appear that it is largely behavioral: the successful following of a link, the Facebook 'thumbs-up', the signal tone indicating an incoming SMS … all of these are positive reinforcements that Pavlov and, in particular, Skinner could be proud of. This point needs to be explored in more depth, but we would be remiss to dismiss this all as the jaundiced view of a luddite. Carr's point is that we are, in fact, rewiring our brains, and that this rewiring favours certain mental functions and capacities. If he is right, our understanding of education may be in need of revising … or saving, depending on how one looks at it.

Roszak, as we saw, made the case that it was our revised notion of "information" that makes the Net possible, and it is this notion that is undermining the institution of education itself. Carr is indicating that there is a body of sound, scientific, neurophysiological evidence to support Roszak's contention. It would seem worthwhile, then, to at least devote part of the time searching the literature to establish a foundation upon which a position can be taken, for if Roszak and Carr are correct, we may be in the process of undoing our understanding of the notion of education without even realizing it. We need to make a distinction, of course, between what the Net does best and what the Net can be used for. A shoe is not a hammer, but in a pinch it can be used to pound in a nail. A hammer may be better for pounding in nails, but if the window is open and it is breezy outside, it functions very well as a paperweight. In other words, it is not the tool in and of itself that determines its "best" use, rather it is the situation, the context, and the intent that best determines what is best. I believe we need to take a similar approach to the Net and technology-enhanced learning.

In terms of design, what works may be a reasonable enough approach. What is optimal may not be a matter of absolutivity but of relativity. In design, awareness of consequences and side-effects may be as important as knowledge about design itself or about the technology platform on which the learning is supposed to take place.

References
Carr, N. (2010) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, New York & London, W.W. Norton and Company.

Roszak, T. (1986) The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking, London, Paladin Graftin Books.

Thinking some more about learning

In reading Nicholas Carr recently, it became clearer to me that we need to look more closely at the relationship between learning and technology, in particular learning and the technology of the Net (hereafter used to refer to both the internet and worldwide web as we find them today).

One of the reasons for introducing technology-enhanced learning into the educational system was to take advantage of whatever it is that the Net has to offer. What is this? Carr maintains that it is not what we think it is. He believes that there is a growing body of evidence that indicates that our ability to understand is being challenged by the Net. What does this mean? Understanding is our ability to give meaning to the world around us, to our lives. It is a matter of establishing a frame of reference against which (hopefully) sound judgments can be made. These judgments may be about which smartphone to buy or about whether we invade a foreign country.

Every judgment we make has, to be sure, a factual component, but I suspect it has a moral component as well. (Which smartphone, or whether a smartphone says something about the buyer's view of the place of such technology in their lives and its potential impacts, say, on the environment. This is much closer to the moral dimension but is certainly not in the forefront of the buying decision. Where is should be is another issue that will have to be discussed elsewhere.) Understanding, hence meaning, is what makes our lives worth living, and so long as we have a why, as Nietzsche noted, we can endure almost any how. It is not a mere intellectual game, a cocktail-party sport, to consider what the world might become should we no longer have a basis for making a why-judgment.

The Net demands that we make many, quick decisions. Hyperlinking demands that we decide, at a minimum to-follow-or-not-to-follow. (That has become the question, but who cares any more about the Prince of Denmark?) This constant decision-making overloads the pre-frontal cortex to such an extent that the brain is more involved in deciding than it is in transferring material from working to long-term memory. If we do not do this, we no longer understand, for the underlying schema upon which, or against which background, long-term, life-relevant decisions are made is undermined. It atrophies. As Carr puts it, we become "mindless consumers of data" (p125). I'm not sure this is what we want going on in the classroom.

Reference
Carr, N. (2010) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, New York & London, W.W. Norton and Company.

Thinking about learning

Learning situations are especially complex. Everyone involved has his or her own predispositions, needs, wants, desires, experiential background, schooling, social environment and more, all of which impacts learning. Learning, we may say, is that process, in which the individual is changed (or is different at the end) in some way, be it in terms of knowledge, skills, competence, values, or their view of the world. In order to compensate for the variability of the individuals involved, a clearer understanding of the learning process itself can be helpful.

What is learning? How does an individual learn? What factors impact learning or influence learning? How are we able to take what we "learned" in one situation and apply it in another (transfer)? What roles does the mind or brain play in the process? These are the types of questions that a theory of learning should answer.

All theories are based upon certain assumptions that we make about the world around us. These assumptions are based on a number of factors, such as culture, language, or zeitgeist, among others. These assumptions sit deep and are, for the most part, self-evident, given, and unquestioned. For example, behaviourism, the dominant learning theory in the first half of the 20th century, postulates (assumes) that all learning manifests as observable and measurable changes in behavior. Cognitive learning theory, the most dominant theory in the second half of the 20th century, by contrast, attempts to explain learning in terms of brain-based processes, which are often compared to or measured against computers, an assumption which in turn is based upon a certain understanding of the notions of information and data processing. Constructivism, which is currently very much in fashion (in a variety of flavors), takes the view that the learner him/herself is actively involved and engaged in constructing his or her ideas and concepts, whereby language, culture, and experience all play significant roles in the learning process.

Unawareness of these underlying assumptions can lead us to conclusions that may not be as generalizable as we first thought. We cannot say that behaviorism is "wrong". There is a considerable body of evidence that documents that it works. We cannot say that cognitivism is "wrong", for here too there is much evidence that in certain situations and under certain conditions it works. The same applies to constructivism. What we can conclude from this is that there may not be one, encompassing theory of learning, or, it may be that certain theories are more applicable to specific types of situations or types of learning, whereas others apply in other contexts or situations. In other words, these may not be mutually exclusive theories, but could even be complementary. Unfortunately, we do not have enough evidence to know which might be applicable in which situations, but based upon the evidence that we have, it should be possible to make reasonable conclusions in this regard in relation to the given material, the given situation, and the goal that is intended to be reached.

Technology and education

Neil Postman draws support for his views on re-valuing education from Theodore Roszak who advances the idea that the educator's love of technology is in essence the undermining of the institution s/he wishes to strengthen. By exploring the folklore of computers, that is to say, "the images of power, the illusions of well-being, the fantasies and wishful thinking that have grown up around the machine" (Roszak, p9). His attention is directed to the fact that the Information Age has "now entered the educational curriculum in an aggressive and particularly insidious way which could distort the meaning of thought itself" (p10). He goes on to say, "The burden of my argument is to insist there is a vital distinction between what machines do when they process information and what minds do when they think' (p11). In fact, "If educators are finally swept into the cult [of information], we may see the rising of a generation of students seriously hampered in its capacity to think through the social and ethical questions that confront us as we pass through the latest stage of the ongoing industrial revolution" (p12).

Whereas the push of computers into the classroom was in the ethereal and evasive notion of "computer literacy", we have since then come to be convinced to a large extent that there now exists a generation of 'digital natives' (Prensky, 2001a, 2001b) who, having grown up with digital technology, now show a natural affinity for it, an affinity that is not shared (and sometimes implied not developable) in those born prior to 1990 or so. While there is little evidence to support Prensky's claim, there is a growing body of evidence that this generation does not exist, at least not in the form Prensky envisions it (see Kennedy, et al., 2007 among others). Nevertheless, it remains one of the most widespread and insistent notions circulating in educational circles.

It remains to be seen just what the computer in the classroom is good for. Experiments with programmed instruction, drill and repetition and the like have not brought the results originally promised by their creators. In fact, Roszak argues convincingly that the oft touted simulation, considered one of the more recent and even more powerful e-learning possibilities, may in fact do more harm than good by depriving the learner of the experience of both failure and the complexity of interaction with the real world. He is realist enough to know that the vast majority of education-leavers will not be entering the highly paid, exclusive segments of society, rather they will, like their forebears, be forced into marginal employment and socio-economic status. He insightfully points out:

"One might almost conclude from this fact that what the young most need to defend their interests in life is an education which will equip them to ask hard, critical questions about that uninviting prospect. Why is the world like that? Who made it that way? How else might it be? There are subjects that, when properly taught, help people answer those questions. They are called social science, history, philosophy. And all of these are grounded in the sort of plain, old-fashioned literacy that gives inquiring minds access to books, to ideas, to ethical insights, and social vision." (p72)

We have some serious re-thinking to do.

References
Kennedy, G., et al. (2007) "The net generation are not big users of Web 2.0 technologies: preliminary findings", ICT: Providing Choices for Learners and Learning [online], Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007, http://routes.open.ac.uk/ ixbin/ hixclient.exe?_IXDB_=routes &_IXSPFX_=g&submit-button=summary&%24+with+res_id+is+res19981 (accessed 2 February 2010).

Postman, N. (1996) The End of Education, New York, Vintage Books.

Roszak, T. (1986) The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking, London, Paladin Graftin Books.

Prensky, M. (2001) "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants", On the Horizon, MCB University Press, vol.9, no.5; also available online at http://www.marcprensky. com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants %20-%20Part1.pdf (accessed12 January 2009).

Prensky, M. (2001b) "Digital natives, digital immigrants, Part II: Do they really think differently?", On the Horizon, NCB University Press, vol.9, no.6; also available online at http://www.acpinternational-dc.org/articles/digitalnatives2.pdf (accessed 13 February 2009).

Technology in education

Neil Postman advances a passionate case for re-valuing education in America, but much of what he has to say would apply in other countries as well. For him, education, at heart, is about finding and developing shared meaning, as one finds, for example in narrative, one's story, a nation's story or any story for that matter: "Without a narrative, life has no meaning. Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without a purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention." (p7) The primary function of education, however, has been ever more directed to utilitarian aims, such as vocational qualifications or the more sinister 'employability'. The stronger such thinking becomes, the more educators are willing to take an engineering approach to education. If it is planned and designed properly, we will get the greatest value from it. Postman notes, however, that there is no one right or best way to " to know things, to feel things, to connect things" and he goes so far as to maintain that making such a claim in fact trivializes learning, reducing it to a mechanical skill. (p5) I couldn't agree with him more.

This attitude has much to do with our modern attitude toward technology, especially among educators. The zeal with which many advocate technology borders on religious, as he points out. For

"[…] at some point it becomes far from asinine to speak of the god of Technology in the sense that people believe technology works, that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence, that for most people it works in mysterious ways, that they condemn people who speak against it, and that, in the born-again mode, they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their habits and their relationships to accommodate it. If this is not a form of religious belief, what is?" (p38)

What he advocates is 'a serious form of technology education' (p43), that is, 'making technology itself an object of inquiry' (p44), hence, the role of technology in technology-enhanced learning (TEL) or education in general is worth taking seriously and looking at critically.

As I've mentioned before ("IT Envy", 2011-12-09) we should be technology-enhanced education not technology in education. I believe it is critical to put technology in its place. Technology is a helpmate, not an end in itself, and when dealing with education, it is particularly important to keep this in mind. In part, it is the technology-centred, engineering-affine approach that is so often advocated that is the motivation for pursuing this particular thesis topic. One of the primary purposes of the thesis is to place the notion of design, a function of technology, soundly in the service of teaching, learning and education, not to be their master.

Reference
Postman, N. (1996) The End of Education, New York, Vintage Books.

IT envy

The promotion of data to information and the reduction of knowledge to information have farther-reaching consequences that we may want to admit. This is particularly true when we link it to our obsessive compulsion with "having", with owning, with property. Remembering Mr. Eliot, we can say that wisdom is a priceless pearl, knowledge an expensive luxury, but information … well, that's a commodity that can be bought and sold just like any other. IPR shouldn't stand for "intellectual property rights", it should stand for "information property rights", for in so many cases that is all we're really dealing with.

Our current motto "s/he who dies with the most information wins" loses its whimsical nature. It used to be (at least in Francis Bacon's day) that knowledge was power, today information is power. Ergo, whoever has the most and can process it the fastest, turn it around and fire it back the quickest, who can generate and accumulate the most is the winner (read: the best, the smartest, the most powerful …). And what can do just that? Of course, the computer. And so we raise the machine to our ideal, we yield to its unerring accuracy, its lightening swift sifting, sorting, and filtering, we pay homage to its power. Yes, in a sense, we begin to worship it for it's godlike power.

You think I'm exaggerating? You should think again. This might be how I observe things, but I'm certainly not the only one to have noticed.

Günther Anders, the contemporary German philosopher has gone so far as to argue that we have in fact become ashamed of our humanity, of being born; we'd wish deep down, in our heart of hearts that we could be made like our computers. The first time I read this, I was taken aback, I'll admit, but if you take the thought seriously, Mr. Anders is onto something. Have you ever heard the argument that a given course of action is the best, because someone had "crunched" the numbers and that's what came out. In that moment, we don't even think of questioning the outcome: they're numbers, the computer said so, who are we to argue? Money never sleeps, electronic trading never tires nor errs, businesses are bought and sold, hundreds of millions of lives are affected, both directly and indirectly, business deals are automated all without ever being touched by human hands. One of our secret-most desires to is simply get those fickle humans out of the equation. Whenever they get involved, let's face it, they just screw things up.

We place way too much faith in digital technology, in information processing. The information-processing model of mind is the dominant theory these days, but it couldn't be farther from reality. It might seem like a mere metaphor to describe an exceedingly complex phenomenon. But we've gone beyond the metaphor and now mistake it for the reality. That's the dangerous step, but it's one we should perhaps think about taking a step back on.

Reference
Anders, G. (2009) Die Antiquiertheit der Menschen I, 3rd edn, Munich, Beck.

The man behind the curtain

The "information" gadget non plus ultra is the computer. Don't we just love our computers. It doesn't matter what size, shape, color or speed, we love them. They're everywhere, too. Our traffic is controlled by computers, they help us fly and land planes, they control much of our driving ability, they collect data against terrorists (or innocent people, it doesn't matter, as long as they are collecting data), they get us to the moon, Mars or Jupiter, they guide our missiles, they give us our passports and they send us notices from the finance authorities. They are simply everywhere. We can't work without them anymore. In fact, we can't live without them anymore: from copy machines, to (not-so) smart phones, to laptops, notebooks, and desktops, they are an intimate part of all our lives. We can't get enough of them and we have no idea what they do to us. We think we know what they do for us, but it's a lot less "for" than "to".

Still, I just love the words we use to describe them: fast, powerful, smart, and – my personal favorite – sexy. They're machines. They're things. OK, Steve Jobs and Apple tried to make them accessories and furniture, but they didn't quite succeed. Computers have receded into the nethermost corners of our lives, and these are the most nefarious, because we take them for granted. But the ones we "have to have", that we flash around, are accorded a reverence that they may not deserve. What's so special about them anyway?

They sit on our desks and stare us down workday in and workday out. They spit out reams of tables and figures that we don't have the time to double-check so we take them as correct. They give us access to others because we hardly get out at all anymore. They get us things (downloads), make our lives convenient (just ask Amazon), and control every move we make, every thought we think, and every moment we'd like to rest. That's not what I call "special". But, in spite of it all they can get more bits to more places faster and more reliable that has ever been possible before. And, it is this simple illusion that makes us think that "we are making real cultural progress – and the that the essence of that progress is information technology". (Roszak, 1986, p. 29)

So, is that progress? Is this what we understand progress to be? It is becoming ever more difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Is that what we want? Have we ever stopped to ask ourselves how substantial all this information technology is? I don't really want to believe that progress is an illusion, but when we stop to take a look, things may not be as real as we would like to believe. Simply pay not attention to the man behind the curtain.

Reference
Roszak, T. (1988) The Cult of Information: The Folklore of Computers and the True Art of Thinking, London, Paladin Graftin Books.

Roszak and Eliot

If you have never read Theodore Roszak's The Cult of Information, you don't know what you're missing. It should actually be mandatory reading for anyone who thinks they have something to say about technology or the so-called information age. Of course, to get anything out of it, you'd have to approach it with an open mind, so if you're unwary of technology or downright obsessed with it, it would be better you just let it go. I don't contend that everything the man says is right, but I would argue that what he has to say is worth thinking about. William James once remarked that what most people call thinking is simply a rearranging of their prejudices, and I can't say much has changed since he said it. But, if you are willing to earnestly consider a clearly stated position on a well-defined subject, I would say the time spent with the book would be more than worth the effort.

There was a time – and not all that long ago – when a distinction was made between some very similar things. For example, data was just whatever it was, a date, a color, a statement, a fact. Information was something "more": it was data that was used to make a decision, or at least contributed to the making of a decision. Knowledge was something "more" than information; it was something one knew, what could be used to act in an informed way, to exercise a skill or provide an argument. Finally, at the top, we had wisdom ... well, who even knows that that is any more? This isn't a new phenomenon, I'm afraid. In 1934, the poet T.S. Eliot wrote (in The Rock):

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

He knew where we were headed ... and what do you know? We're finally there. We no longer talk about data at all, and everything else ... and I mean everything else ... has been simply turned into information.

If the motto of the 80s was "whoever dies with the most toys wins", the motto today is "whoever dies with the most information wins". Though I would say that whoever dies, dies. It doesn't really matter what they have when they do.

Let's face it, we love information: from baseball statistics to football scores, to monthly rainfall measurements, to the mileage we get with our cars, to stock-market prices and indices, to interest rates, to the most common boy's name of 1913, to the number of jobs not created since the latest tax cuts. It doesn't matter what it's about, as long as it's what we think is information, we love it.

In this regard, the title of Roszak's book is not all that far off. We've made information and the acquisition of information a kind of cult. And as is the case with every cult, it needs it priests, and there is no shortage of them either. We call them "experts" these days.

Luddite?

Is it just me, or is there something wrong in calling someone a Luddite just because s/he is not obsessed with technology? I mean, is technology all that we have to say or show for ourselves? And what is technology anyway? And who decided that it's our be-all and end-all?

Recently I read an article lamenting that we were risking our children's futures because we weren't teaching them to program. If they didn't learn that, they are doomed to become unfit for the world of tomorrow, we're cheating them of opportunities. Today, three-quarters of the population of Germany, for example, has a driver's license, but how many of these almost 60 million people can fix a car? Moreover, 100 years ago when we were just getting rolling in the automobile society, how many of anybody, let alone educators, were running around claiming we would be robbing our children of their futures if they didn't learn automotive mechanics? What makes digital technology so different?

Well, nothing fundamental, at least as far as I can tell.

Cars are a kind of tool, one that helps us get from point A to point B. They were clunky, temperamental, difficult to operate at first, but over time, they got easier and more comfortable to use. What is more, they are becoming so reliable that some are speculating when we'll be able to produce cars that won't need maintenance anymore. Relatively speaking, we've come a long way in the 125 years since Herr Benz registered his patent.

Computers are also a kind of tool, one that helps us do other things. They were clunky, temperamental, difficult to operate at first, but over time, they got easier and more comfortable to use. What is more, they are becoming so reliable and so compact that some are speculating when we'll be able to produce computers that are always on and always connected ... for everyone. As things move much faster in the computer world, we've come relatively far relatively faster than we did with cars, but the developments resemble each other in important ways.

What we failed to ask ourselves then (with cars) that we are failing to ask ourselves now (with computers) is what this technology is really good for? Back in the technological ecstasy that abounded, very few were asking about the worth of the technology. Urban sprawl, environmental pollution, junkyards, the Rust Belt, resource depletion, and many, many more issues were not thought about and not of much interest. The technology was going to do it for us ... now the technology is doing it to us.

A Luddite was one who opposed technological progress not technological obsession. We don't really have a technology problem today, we have an obsession problem. Of course there are jobs and incomes and revenues and stock prices that are intimately connected to the technology, but just because we have linked them now doesn't mean we have to keep them linked forever. No matter what we decide to do with our world, jobs and incomes and revenues and stock prices will be intimately connected to it. Obsession, however, is a serious signal that something is not right, that there is something unhealthy afoot.

If we really want to do something for our children, I think it would be wiser to teach them how to remain healthy.

Occam's razor

In keeping with the last entry, I'd like to continue with the theme of simplicity. Last time we saw that the world is by nature complex, whereas most everything we humans get our hands (feet, minds, ...) on gets complicated. What is more, complicated things are difficult, but complex ones are not really.

Sure, I can hear all you scientists out there yelling that we've only begun scratching the surface of understanding of many of the world's phenomena, from the human genome to the intellectuality of one-celled organisms to parallel universes to slicing bread. But, we should not mistake the map for the territory. I fully agree that we've only begun scratching the surface because from the onset we are complicating things. Complex things - with a bit of patience and perseverance - can be grasped, but we have to get our egos out of the way and let our consciousness work its magic.

Of course, since we're such technological creatures, we need tools. We love tools. Most of us don't work well with tools, but we love them anyway. And one tool that can help us out here is Occam's Razor. Well, this isn't really a razor like the one's we use to shave with, rather the term refers to a way of thinking, a sharp way of thinking, a heuristic, and by thinking sharply and cleanly, we can avoid a lot of complication.

As a side note, the tool is named after William of Ockham (ca. 1285-1349), an English logician and Franciscan friar, to whom it is credited although he didn't come up with it. The same thought as the razor are to be found in Maimonides (1138?-1204), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), and John Duns Scotus (1266?-1308). It was Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) who first used the term itself.

The form most often used by Occam himself is numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate, or, for those of you who opted out of Latin in school, "plurality ought never be posited without necessity". This should be thought along with the principle of economy which was well known to him and his predecessors, namely frustra fit per plura quod potest fiere per pauciora, or "it is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer". One of the most common formulations today is

Explanations should never multiply causes without necessity; when two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable.

So, I think you can see where I'm going with this. The next time you listen to all those explanations on the news why gas prices must be tied to oil prices, or why it "makes economic sense" to ship tomatoes from Florida to Mexico to be packaged so that they can be shipped to New York for sale, or why there is allegedly some inalienable right for private citizens (as opposed to citizens who are part of an official militia, like the Swiss) to own guns, or that a society can afford to pay CEOs hundreds of millions but can't see to it that single mothers can make the rent, or why any one religion got it all right while all others got it all wrong (... the list goes on ...), think of William and his razor.

It's been a long time since William and longer since we took him seriously, so let's take his razor then as the goal to strive for. In the meantime, any simple, sensible explanation will do. Do we still have it in us, or have we lost it completely?