What learning is the ‘right’ learning?

Since seeing a number of teachers in recent years using facebook for class groups I’ve had some difficulty coming to grips with the fact just because a student is on facebook, they might not necessarily be slacking off. It was sooooo easy a couple of years ago! Facebook??? “Naughty! Get back to work.” Now it’s all different. Facebook??? “Hmmm, that’s interesting. What group are you in there? Ohhh, it’s your health class group. Righto then.” It’s rather a lot more confusing and time consuming now. In the old days I could just order them to get back to work but now I have to inquire into what they’re actually doing. Sometimes I even end up in a lengthy conversation about what they’re learning in a vague attempt to cover or apologise for any initial assumptions I made that they weren’t learning anything useful.

But the thing that really bothers me, the stuff that’s starting to erode those old boundaries around what’s OK and what’s not, is that it’s not just whether they are on facebook that’s confusing, it’s a whole bunch of other thing as well. What makes learning the ‘right’ learning now? If they are working on a little bit of science in economics class, is it wrong when they’re choosing to prioritise an upcoming assessment they have next period? It certainly makes my job much easier as a teacher if they’re only allowed to work on my subject when they’re with me. Strangely though, during tutorial time we encourage them to prioritise the important work they need to do, anything that they need expert assistance on or really want to improve and now I’m telling them they just need to work on my subject for exactly one hundred minutes a day. Hmmmm. It doesn’t stop there though, what about learning beyond traditional subject boundaries? What if they’re reading up on something not specifically related to a school subject like project management or yacht design? And how do we justify our content anyway? Are the narratives in The Great Gatsby and For Whom the Bell Tolls more compelling than the events depicted in LA Noir, Fallout (who doesn’t love Ron Pearlman???) Red Dead Redemption (horrible spoiler in that link) or The Last of Us? Is the social commentary in computer games like these as powerful as Jane Austin’s? There might actually be some arguments both ways. And what about the student who is awesomely passionate about learning in one crazy area, I dunno, something like 3d animation and game design (I’d like to think of some non-nerdy examples here but that’s what I remember best) and they’re totally hating on that fifth subject they have to take. Are they ever going to be into that subject(s) they can’t stand? Even if they do believe that writing essays on literature or conducting science experiments will somehow help them in later life they still commonly fail at that-which-they-can't-stand. I guess they jolly well need to be interested if they want their level 2 NCEA! Gone are they old days where we could just answer the following question: “why are we learning this?” with something along the lines of, “because you’re in my class. And here’s a detention for being smart.” Whether or not students are more or less polite than they used to be isn’t the issue and it’s not even how well we can answer those questions respectfully that matters as much as how the concept of knowledge is changing and whether we are able to recognise this.

And who is the most concerned about the weight of evidence either way between the values of old and new anyway? I’d suggest that winning these arguments with students (or even framing them up as arguments to begin with) isn’t actually as important for us as educators as developing skills outside the areas that used to suffice. There’s a fascinating article here which summarises some of David Weinberger’s work around How Technology Has Changed Our Idea of ‘Knowledge,’ and What This Means for Schools. As much as a I hate some blogger’s inadequate summary of another text (go read the original! It’s awesome) the article examines Weinberg’s view of the differences between knowledge-transfer via printed media and how this differs from digital media, particularly in terms of the speed at which knowledge is growing and how this is accessed. Books as the primary medium to transfer information led to a view of, “knowledge as a canon of generally accepted wisdom.” Given the way that publishing works, some information got through and other information didn’t. Hence our belief that knowledge in books is more or less authoritative. He goes on to cite reddit as a good example of how a system of knowledge transmitted via digital means can grow much faster and that, “It solves the manageability of information not by omitting knowledge, but by prioritizing it.” When it comes to the what-this-means-to-education bit, Weinberger makes the important point that our response to this shouldn’t be to restrict students to a few particular sources but help them to develop their own filter for what might not be reliable and/or relevant. Digital literacy and knowledge literacy along with the skills to grow useful knowledge collaboratively are far more important than aligning students with our view of what’s useful or relevant by restricting their access to less ‘useful’ or ‘authoritative/correct’ kinds of knowledge.

So as educators we face a real challenge here. We have to continue to adapt our own thinking around knowledge and what is ‘important’ learning and start to look beyond our traditional subject boundaries to define our role and skill-sets. When we’re trying to plan programmes to meet student needs or a student asks why they’re learning what they’re learning, I think of things like reputable universities offering free phds and a charter school that might offer a customised solution where a student does get to engage in one passion without having to choose the compulsory number of 5 subjects. I wonder if flexibility and helping students learn how to learn and make informed decisions on what to learn may be our best remaining selling point. Because not only do we need to keep developing our own understanding of what ‘useful’ knowledge looks like, we also need to guide students through this process, help them learn the skills to do it themselves so they can make up their own minds about what knowledge and learning may be useful in the future.