Brighouse - "On Education"

I realise that my ability as an e-learning specialist will be somewhat impoverished unless I have some sort of grip on education philosophy. It's easy to 'ground' one's application of e-learning on an assumption that technology will continue to have the same results it had when it famously introduced the world to sliced bread, and so I am acutely aware of my need to take a critical perspective.

It's easy to be critical, but it's only beneficial when you're first informed yourself.

I have been reflecting on my eFest experiences and the discomfort I felt when discussion turned toward our 'inadequate' education system (at all levels - this criticism wasn't confined to tertiary). It is very easy to rubbish things; all you need are perfect expectations, a simplistic perspective of the world, a few examples and a preferred solution that fails to consider all of the world's complexities.

I want to start this post with a firm statement that I believe in ongoing progress; no status quo should be maintained beyond its usefulness. At the same time, I favour a systematic view of status quo - in other words, an honest treatment of the entirety of something's components. Should we do away with schools and tertiary institutions because of the potential of Web 2.0, and the rise of the digital native? That is as naked a question as was enthusiastically affirmed at eFest. But things are more complicated than that. Much, much more complicated.

Firstly, let's examine the positions one might take on this issue.

1. Institutional education is not optimal. No argument. But what is?
   
2. Institutional education is not beneficial. This I have an issue with.
   

If we can affirm 2. above, then we can talk seriously about overhauling an imperfect system. It ain't broke; it's just not optimal. In a world where 'best practice' is theory and 'fitness for purpose' reality, i.e. in a world of scarce resources, 'ongoing progress', which I am advocating, seems a reasonable position to take.

1. Digital natives are disadvantaged in schools and tertiary study. Perhaps...
   
2. Digital natives have an inherent learning advantage. Again, I have an issue.
   

In a response to a recent post over at Sansblogue (the link may soon rot...) I remark that digital natives should not be idolised, and nor should the connectedness made possible in Web 2.0. Marc Prensky, the explorer who discovered the digital natives, notes that they have short attention spans ('click-speed') and need for visual stimulus; these are potentially serious disadvantages in the concept- and terminology-rich world of higher education where reflection, structured debate, deep reasoning and - horror - engagement with theorists and other perspectives matter. Consider the difference between a book and a Web site, and a peer-refereed article with a blog entry. These are different genre of information, which reward engagement differently.

1. There is power in learning networks. Yep. I don't usually agree with 1.'s, but I endorse this one. Of course, this gives rise to issues of 'power'; not all CoPs are conducive to power-sharing and not all are open to novices... but that's another post.
   
2. Learning networks can achieve everything that schools and tertiary education should be doing. Aha! This is why I read Brighouse (2006; "On Education", London: Routledge). No, no, no, no.
   

I purchased Brighouse on the last day of eFest from Unity Books. I wasn't really looking for it as I do have plenty of other books to read on educational philosophy. But, I was already thinking about earlier eFest discussions and it seemed both readable and relevant to my PhD.

Brighouse believes that students have various rights from education:

• The right to learn about a range of ways of living
• The right to become self-sufficient participants in society
• The right to be prepared for a rich and flourishing life independent of the economy
• The right to become an effective and reasonable participant in public decision making.
  

In other words, education (I'm generalising here) should expose students to multiple contexts, prepare them for life in a complex society, expose them to things they might not otherwise choose to pursue, and instil in them a sense of societal or community belonging and responsibility. Lofty goals. Imperfectly met, but lofty ideals. My bone is that Web 2.0 and networked learning are yet to convince me that they could do a better job than the 'ongoing progress' being made by the status quo. Communities of Practice are simply not as communally representative as are local schools, so are therefore impoverished as substitutes. Brighouse remarks that of the three central factors of schools, composition, curriculum, and ethos, composition (who attends) and ethos (the inherent values of the school) are the most important. How do these transfer across CoPs? I think instead that Web 2.0 will be a part of the ongoing progress. Our challenge is to see that it makes its contribution as fully as it is able to.

I would like to go just a wee bit further. There is also a constant reaction against memorisation and exams as teaching and assessment tools. I think we do overuse these, certainly; but I am not in favour of banning them or seeing them as somehow outdated. They still serve a valuable purpose in education - even higher education. Consider this from Brighouse (pp.23-24, emphasis added):

Proponents of teaching critical thinking skills and autonomy in the curriculum often sound as if they are opposing the traditional emphasis on teaching 'facts' and 'content' in the curriculum. But there is no real conflict here: an autonomous life cannot be led without the information about the world in which it is led. Furthermore, the critical thinking skills involved in autonomy can neither be developed nor exercised without the ease of access to a considerable amount of information which is provided only by having learned and internalised it. It is true that there is far more information available than any child can be expected to learn, and that it is crucial that children learn how to get access to information. However, the idea that they might develop more complex skills of reasoning about information without having a great deal of it instantly available is silly.

'Instantly available' information is that stored in your neck-top, and memorisation is a great way of placing it there. Without it, your capacity to process ideas lessens.

For an actual review, try this.