#tiebc: A Book Club Reflection on "Digital School" from Clive Thompson's book, Smarter Than You Think

#tiebc: A Book Club Reflection on "Digital School" from Clive Thompson's book, Smarter Than You Think

The classroom hasn’t changed much over the years. Over the centuries, actually.  In the 1350’s, artist Laurentius de Voltolina painted a scene of a university lecture in Bologna that looks quite like a present-day classroom: The professor sits at a podium at the front, pontificating to twenty-four seated students, one of whom is keeling over in apparent boredom, four of whom are ignoring the lecture while talking, and one of whom appears to be completely asleep. ( p 178-79)

Laurentius de Voltolina [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

What is it that prevents the true evolution of schools and education? Is it university entrance requirements? Is it fear? Does the education profession somehow naturally attract personalities who are rule bound and rigid in their thinking? I don’t think any one factor is entirely to blame, but "Digital School" in Clive Thompson’s book, Smarter Than You Think, propelled my thinking towards questions such as these.  Why do we seem to be so full of great ideas and progressive thinking, yet somehow we remain bound to a traditional curriculum built on traditional grades, percentages and standards. 

In Sugata Mitre’s Ted Talk, “Build a School in the Cloud”, he describes the institution of school as “obsolete” and “outdated”. In my work as a Special Education teacher in a distributed learning school, I have many students on my caseload who haven’t easily “fit” into the mainstream school environment. Central to Mitre’s talk and Thompson’s chapter titled, Digital School, is the idea that students, inspired by their own curiosity, will learn and explore very willingly. As I read and explored this theme, my thoughts kept returning to specific individual students that I work with. I have one student, burdened with a Generalized Anxiety Disorder, very likely meeting criteria as both Gifted and Learning Disabled, who is resistant to traditional curriculum and its mainstream delivery. Capable, but resistant, he’s not interested, doesn’t see the point and lacks motivation. However, he has been successfully coding computer programs for several years ; he has found his way to mentors, online, who share his passion and who guide him via online chat rooms when he has questions or is problem solving his way through significantly sophisticated levels of knowledge and skill on his learning path. I struggle to be the one to say, “Listen, that’s all awesome and great, but you really need to sink your teeth into this grade 9 Math or finish that project on the Renaissance.” We can, creatively, find some ways around some of his coursework, but I am not always successful in my advocacy for students in this context. This particular student has skills, abilities and strengths that are best accessed and utilized in the world of technology, following his own passions and interests. The relevance of the Renaissance or equivalent fractions to his world is a hard connection to make. The fact of the matter is, kids seek authenticity; the age old question “when am I ever going to use this?”comes up frequently and it can be challenging figuring out how to answer it. Maybe it’s not up to us, as educators, to provide the answer or rationale; maybe it’s the student’s own answer that matters most in this.

Consistent with the idea in this chapter that learning should be student centered, Sir Kenneth Robinson explains that “curiosity is the engine of achievement” in his Ted Talk, How to Escape Education’s Death Valley”. I believe that curiosity, or a high level of interest, is what has fueled my student in his pursuit of coding. Integral to this, however, is the fact that, as a subject area, coding is relevant for this student. Kids need to “buy in” to what they are learning; Thompson discusses the way blogs have been successfully used as a writing tool in classrooms and identifies an authentic audience or purpose of writing as integral to student motivation or “buy-in”. Authenticity and interest, or passion, are prerequisites, as far as I can see, to successful student-centered learning.





Thompson specifically discusses coding in this chapter and explains “programming has (deep) effects: For children, it becomes a philosophic act, a way of learning about learning.” (p. 188) It came to me as I read this that we keep trying to compartmentalize learning; the very way our curriculum is laid out, and the way many teachers are hired, is subject by subject, and this approach contradicts the idea that we want to maximize learner potential. Potential isn’t laid out subject by subject; one might be very Mathematical in his or her thinking, but as we know, Math can make its presence known in a wide variety of topics and concepts. And I have seen, firsthand, how many Math “thinkers” aren’t necessarily computation masters. Perhaps the evolution of education is

limited by the notion that we have subjects, rather than disciplines and, as Sir Kenneth Robinson pointed out in his exponentially viewed Ted Talk, “How Schools are Killing Creativity”, we value certain subject areas or skills over others. Perhaps we need to move towards seeing the child as a whole in the context of education, instead of continuing to try to break it down into parts, leading us away from authenticity.





I don’t know for certain what it is that inhibits the evolution of education to the degree that it can sometimes appear that we aren’t making any progress at all, but I think it’s very important that we continue pondering the question as we keep trying to move towards change. Clive Thompson’s chapter, Digital School, raised many points of interest and presented a variety of examples of people breaking the mold in their classrooms. There will be many deterrents, possibly naysayers, and we will make many mistakes, but Digital Schools inspired me to continue to strive towards change. It is messy, and often uncomfortable as we present ourselves in a vulnerable light in the context of our classrooms, to be able to confidently say, “I don’t know” and “let’s see what happens” to our students. Let’s keep painting a new picture of education, where it may be difficult to identify the “teacher” and where many students are talking, but where no one is fast asleep.

References

"Ken Robinson:  How to Escape Education's Death Valley." You Tube. Ted Talks, 10 May 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2014.

"Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?" You Tube. Ted Talks, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 Dec. 2014.

"Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud." You Tube. Ted Talks, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 Dec. 2014. 

Thompson, Clive. Smarter than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better. New york: Penguin, 2014. Print.

Mismemories and Misremembering in the Digital Age

“Better late than never” is feeling more like a daily mantra for me this term than something uttered as I run doggedly into a coffee shop to meet a friend 15 minutes late, but here I am with my first #tiebc post… 2 book club meetings (I missed the 3^rd) and 5 chapters in to Clive Thompson’s book, Smarter Than You Think.  Better. Late. Than. Never. Indeed.

Our #tiegrad book club meets every couple of weeks, and I must say how much I value these informal get-togethers, as much for the opportunity to discuss and share our thoughts on the readings as for the time to find the humour in our downtrodden moments, gain clarification or insight on some aspect of class, or discuss apparent obsessions with pirates and elephants.  My mood is always positive by the end of a #tiebc session and I am grateful.

In reflecting on my reading and our #tiebc discussions thus far, Chapter 2, “We, the Memorious“, particularly resonated with me. However, when we came together, our book club discussion didn’t lean into this chapter to any great extent. The chapter examines the way people use technology to record many, and in some cases, all aspects of their lives.  There were examples of people who chose to become virtual “lifeloggers”, recording all aspects of their lives in digital form, using digital logs to access details and memories that would otherwise be murky or altogether lost. I was intrigued as I read of MIT speech scientist, Deb Roy’s, “Total Recall” experiment where he and his wife wired their house to capture all aspects of their child’s first year.

One particularly interesting phenomenon revealed in the Roy experiment was the inaccuracies discovered in some of Roy’s own recollection of events;  when he looked at video footage of his son’s first steps, he discovered that “he’d completely mis-remembered the event” (p. 21).  While the “mis-remembered” aspects of the memory could be considered the less important details (time of day, sun shining, who was in the room), it is intriguing to me that our minds have the capability and inclination to fill in any memory gaps with creatively and logically constructed details, to make the memory complete.  I don’t see it as necessarily positive or negative, but it has me wondering why and at what point in time do these little shifts in the details of our memory occur? In Roy’s case, it didn't take much time at all to replace the actual details of the event with his mind’s own version of the details. 

This memory gap-filling phenomenon has me wondering which details of my own childhood or my children’s early years I have recreated or revised in one way or another. I met with my cousin yesterday and we briefly reminisced about a shared experience from our own childhood, and there were distinct differences in how we had “stored” the details of this specific event; certainly we were able to fill in some of each other’s gaps, but there were startling differences in what we remembered.  He remembers falling down a hill and hitting his head, of which I have no recollection, and I remember we wandered for what seemed like hours, lost in the woods.  The location, our ages, and circumstances all match, but key aspects of the memory have been remembered very differently.  I can see how the mis-remembered details of more serious events could be problematic. When I think about the fact that Roy’s mis-memory was skewed within a relatively short time, you can imagine the potential inaccuracies of recounted events from 10, 20, or 30 years ago.  

A potential solution for these memory gaps and mis-memories is the practice of “lifelogging”.  There are varying degrees of lifelogging.  At a basic level, for example, my father has, for years, habitually recorded the date, the weather, his physical activity (run: 52 mins. along the seawall with Bill), and any other random notables that seem worthy on a daily basis, without fail. The brevity and consistency of his record keeping make for a good reference point. When I ask, for example, what restaurant we ate at after that 10 km race 15 years ago, he can look through his “log” and tell me.  I can see the value of this habit, but, personally, I can also live quite well without it.  Taken to the other extreme, lifelogging with very intentional and constant recordings and / or photographs seems like an almost invasive and disruptive way to live one’s life. The idea of technology documenting all aspects of my life or my home in an ongoing, auto-set kind of way, is disturbing to me as well.  I get that there might be a time or circumstance where it’s really convenient to be able to look back at something, but I think I prefer to relying on my less than reliable grey matter.

In a sense, we are currently engaging in a form of lifelogging as we look at the prevalence of “selfies” and status updates.  Many, if not most, people are never without their smart phone or tablet, and we regularly engage in logging our lives this way.  It’s perhaps a step away from true lifelogging, but the outcome is much the same.  I think we have to consider how much time we, as a society, spend doing so and what we are missing as we are immersed in efforts to digitally record our lives. There have been many presentations, videos and talks to try to emphasize that we are missing much by trying to capture everything, and I am quick to agree. A great visual of this point is represented in the short video, I forgot my phone; while the video is, yes, dramatic, it presents familiar scenarios that many people can relate to.  

                                   

In considering both the ongoing, never-miss-a-second recording options for capturing “life” such as that used by Roy, and society’s current obsession with intentionally capturing meals, moments, and milestones via Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, and other means of social media, I can’t say that I see either as completely healthy or necessary. Like most things in life, there’s undeniable value to social media recordkeeping and documenting aspects of our lives digitally; I, for one, won’t be surprised if lifelogging as a practice becomes increasingly commonplace in the years to come.  However, there’s something very personal about our own, grey-matter-based, unrecorded memories and the fact that no one else can see them exactly as we do, in our own minds. Those mis-memories, with inaccuracies that are specific to the memory-holder, make for the best stories.

References

deGuzman, Charlene (Charstarlene). (2013, Aug 22). I Forgot My Phone (video file). Retrieved from  http://youtu.be/OINa46HeWg8

Thompson, C. (2013). Smarter than you think.  New York, New York: The Penguin Press