In the book, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” written by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner suggested that schools should have teachers teaching outside of their subject specializations. They suggested that this approach would force the teachers to put themselves in the position of the learners instead of assuming that learners would learn the way the teachers themselves used to learn when the latter were still in school.

Today, a college is doing very much what Postman and Weingartner had suggested some forty years ago. According to a report in the New York Times, St. John’s College in Annapolis and Santa Fe is doing just that. The teaching faculty do not specialize in teaching specific subject areas. They are expected to teach all the subjects eventually. The faculty has no departments divided along subject specializations. For example, Michael Dink, a tutor, has taught fifteen of the sixteen courses on offer.  Anthony T. Grafton, a professor of history at Princeton and president of the American Historical Association, said he admired the manner teaching went on at St. John’s but he added, “It sounds both fun and scary.”

There are many advantages of such a system of teaching and learning but in my view, the greatest advantage of St. John’s methods is that it stops people from thinking in silos. In the age of specialization, there is a real need for people who can see beyond their specializations as real world problems often would entwine various specialized areas. It stops people from having just one perspective but a more encompassing one. So what do you think of St. John’s College’s approach? Would you like to teach there? Would you like to be a student there? Give us your views.

What sort of people and institutions gain special economic and political power from this new technology? ~ Neil Postman

This question is very pertinent in an age where businesses are even more interested and bent on having a say with regards to what goes into education. Has education been sold to corporate or political interests?

While ICT has long been lauded for its democratizing effect, meaning, making education more readily available to the masses, what needs to be ask is the kind of education that the masses have been given access to. Has ICT moved the decision for the contents of a curriculum from teachers who are in the field or to instructional designers sitting somewhere in an office but away from where the teaching takes place? How much flexibility is there for the teachers to adapt their teaching when the curriculum is even more today defined and assessed by a “virtual” someone? Is the institution of the teacher under attack? Is it then a coincident that in this ICT era, teachers are seen to be even more easily replaceable especially in American schools  today? Is that the start of the trend to come globally?

Even at the tertiary level, university professors have expressed concern at how ICT has meant that “learning” has largely gone online. Has this trend strengthened the hands of the bureaucrats who see the economic bottom line as the most important yardstick for the buffet of courses on offer? ICT has made online learning relatively cheap and universities are rushing to offer such courses. Will ICT result in more automation to keep costs down in the “learning” process? Will university lecturers and professors be regarded as mere consultants an instructional design process despite promotion of “blended learning”?

This emphasis on revenues earned will (and has) attract the interest of private conglomerates to offer “education” as a product to be sold.  They in turn will only sell packages that will fit into the economic needs of the country. So who keeps an eye on what is sold to the masses as “education” especially when the political masters have chosen to defer to business interests?

Will the advent of ICT use in education also emphasize the dominance of science and technology as the final arbiter of knowledge? What is the implication of this on what is to be taught in our schools and universities? Will it only further de-legitimise non-scientific institutions in the long run?

However, there could be some positives. Traditional political institutions will have difficulty also circumscribing what is being taught. Censorship becomes all the more difficult. While political authorities can snuff out temporarily the global connections that ICT affords, they will not be able to do so permanently as seen in the Arab Spring uprisings, especially as seen in the example of Egypt.

ICT allows anyone with access to it to turn to “alternative” sources of learning. The wired world allows anyone to choose from a plethora of offerings from anywhere in the world. The officially-approved offerings in brick-and-mortar schools where socialization of political values can take place, can be bypassed. Learning can become truly personal through these personal learning networks as opposed to being a reflection of the demands of political leaders.

Neil Postman’s six questions that we should pose to ourselves whenever we want to introduce new technology is to encourage a dialogue with technology. This is to prevent us from going into an unthinking headlong rush to adapt anything that is technologically “advanced”. In my first post in this series, I alluded to the way the Amish people view technology as highlighted by Howard Rheingold. While we do not advocate a lifestyle like the Amish people, we can learn invaluable lessons from them about keeping technology in a more balanced and correct perspective.

End of series on Neil Postman’s “Six Questions”

“What changes in language are being forced by these new technologies? ~ Neil Postman

Recently, Lee Kuan Yew suggested that Singaporeans should learn American English because of the rapid spread of that version of English due to globalization. This is for a country that was once ruled by the British. I believe that American English has become even more pervasive today because the Internet. Most often the language we used is decided by the default language set by our computers. All too often it is American English. While we hear it spoken for years on TV, it is on the Internet that we really begin to use it because if we spelled it the British way, we will see a red underlining which will disappear only if we re-spell it using the American spelling. Even for Internet marketeers, they would be wise to follow the American spelling on their websites for “anti-ageing” products will not appear as often on search engines as “anti-aging” products. That is the power of SEO.

The above is related to the fifth question that was asked by Neil Postman with regards to the use of technology. Has ICT made changes to language?

With the widespread use of ICT, certain terms have become replacements for everyday English. When we search for information, we say “google it”. When we say this, we accept the impact of the giant search engine on our lives. It conveys  sense of the instantaneous availability of information. This gives rise to the question as to how we value information that is so easily obtained? Has the easy accessibility to information also blurred the difference between information and knowledge? Do more of us think that the knowledgeable man is the same as the one who has Google at his finger tips?

One of my favorite books

Has the meaning of “education” also changed even more profoundly with the rise of ICT? To be sure, the meaning of education has changed with the Industrial Revolution. This is itself proof that meanings change with technology use. It has shifted to a greater emphasis to the acquisition of skills that is useful at the workplace. In other words, when we say “education”, we actually mean training for employable skills. Has this worsen with ICT? What is the meaning of “education” when it is prefixed with “online”? In fact, often it is now usually termed as “online learning”. “Education” has been dropped. Why? Or in the Facebook era, what does it mean to “like” a post? Or to be a “friend”.

What other terms can you think of that has its meaning changed (or may change) due to the pervasiveness of ICT? What is the impact of this to (dare I say the word?) education? Share your thoughts.