| 13 February, 2012 10:02
On countering the ignoring and fearing of the Internet
While an obvious asset to the digital age is the Internet or new media’s ability to provide us with instantaneous information on any subject, it seems as though this reality has been quickly relegated to the ‘taken for granted’ category of our collective consciousness or worse, deemed ‘suspect’ in the eyes of so many. While a healthy questioning of any information is important, it seems there is an effort afoot, whether intentional or not, within our formal education system to deemphasize the Internet’s incredible usefulness as an educational tool by dismissing it as being without professional merit, not a very reliable source of information, and/or potentially dangerous.
The Internet’s ‘leveling of the playing field’ or the democratization of information and distribution has not been fully conveyed to students in such a way as to develop within many students a sense of awe or reverence for the medium that I feel it deserves. Why isn’t it a main objective of most educators today to present to their students the importance of the Internet as a self-education tool and to encourage students to take full advantage of this medium? Most notably, this author feels strongly that it should be expressed to today’s students that this new medium (the Internet) is perhaps the main, if not the only, conduit to a learner’s self-actualization and freedom in today’s world.
In the essay New Media Art Education and Its Discontents (Scholz, 2004) the author begins with a discussion about “file sharing” or “free cooperation” (Scholz, 2004, p. 96) being more accepted in places like “Social-democratic Germany” (Scholz, 2004, p. 96) rather than “the United States, with its iron grip of student loans and corporate credit reports” (Scholz, 2004, p. 96). (Some may also find it somewhat ironic that it seems it’s the Europeans, not the Americans, that are most questioning Google’s use of personal data and tracking, see Somini Sengupta’s article Should Personal Data Be Personal, New York Times, 2012). Scholz even uses the metaphor of “jazz musicians and dancers who improvise study the moves of the others and take turns leading” (Scholz, 2004, p. 97) as an example of how “free cooperation” works in the traditional collaborative arts. Scholtz alludes to the idea that the visual arts is more subject to being able to take advantage of this “free cooperation” in ways that it was never able to and “in spite of these examples and the interest of artists, most art institutions are neither interested in nor supportive of free cooperation” (Scholz, 2004, p. 97). This lack of interest is an example of the appreciation deficiency for the medium by institutes of learning I see most every day, which is sadly reflected in many of my students.
The Free Cooperation Conference, which took place in April of 2004 at the State University of New York at Buffalo, is discussed by Scholz as a forum that intentionally did away with and criticized the “ritualized academic structure of panels and the essentially noncommunicative forms of the keynote speech (which) feed into the celebrity system, reinforcing hegemonic paradigms that get in the way of genuine dialogue and of hearing diverse, emerging voices” (Scholz, 2004, p. 98). Scholz argues that “increasingly, formats of the sciences are unnecessarily imposed on the arts, driven by business logic of many universities that will acknowledge an art project as fundable if it affirms scientific formats of research” (Scholz, 2004, p. 99). At issue here is the author’s concern “with boredom, apathy, and anti-intellectualism in American undergraduate new-media classrooms, the role of the teacher, and issues of teaching beyond “’just-in-time-knowledge’” (Scholz, 2004, p. 99). (Just-in-time-knowledge “are skills necessary for the job at hand, rather than basic, broader skills” (Scholz, 2004, p. 100) and is a direct reference to a way of procuring inventory in today’s factories or businesses in order to reduce the possibility of warehousing extraneous inventory…which begs the question, is there such a thing as extraneous knowledge?) Scholz is questioning the validity of a conductor or leader thus inadvertently addressing why the Internet (a leaderless monster) is held in contempt or at least not taken seriously enough by education establishments.
The notion that the Internet not be taken for granted feeds into the idea that the learner takes a hold of their own education and with the help of instructors be shown how they have the power and ability, unlike any other time in history, to gather and process ideas and information. As an educator I agree with Delacruz in her essay From Bricks and Mortar to Public Sphere in Cyberspace: Creating a Culture of Caring on Digital Common (2009) when she states “our jobis to find meaningful connections to the things students care about and to make that content worthy of study” (Delacruz, 2009, p.12). New media has the potential to enable the learner to quickly obtain useful and useable information they’re interested in knowing and that ability can only embellish the learning or art making experience. I do not think schools are utilizing the Internet to this end well enough. There is a downplaying of it as a repository of useful information and the best educational tool to come along in 500 years. There seems to be more of a criticism or dismissing of it as a place that has an over abundance of useless and even dangerous information as alluded to in Delacruz’s citation; “restrictive school policies truncate and confine teachers’ classroom technology practices” (Delacruz, 2009, p. 10).
Because of the Internet being viewed with suspicion by many schools and educators, and because of the sense I have that it is being taken for granted, what I feel is needed in today’s schools is a comprehensive Introduction to New Media course. In this new course the instructor may relate to students the full breadth of potentiality and possibility this medium has, as well as its importance to their education and the world, and particularly to the democratization of the world. A practical discussion about how to actually utilize search engines and research ideas and how to recognize when information may be bogus and when it’s not, or when it doesn’t even matter, should be part of this Introduction to New Media course. Also, a thorough review of how the newest and most used repository of encyclopedic information (Wikipedia, an anathema to formal education) is used should be part and parcel to this course. It appears that many of my students have been convinced by other teachers that everything on Wikipedia is bogus. This notion has to be dispelled and a full explanation of how this new “Global Commons” (Delacruz, 2009, p.9) system, through a consortium of self-regulating peers and users, serves up important information, instantly. A brief lesson on how difficult it once was to obtain information prior to the Internet may be relevant and useful from a “putting things in perspective” perspective. Additionally, a lesson on commenting on blogs or websites and news sites should be a part of this required course, as well as a lesson on creating blogs and websites. A survey of websites like http://freerice.com, a site that actually donates rice to developing countries when people use it, should readily convey the medium’s direct ability to do things for the common good. Finally, an overall discussion of net neutrality and its detractors that threaten the life blood of the Internet should be required study in this course.
“Here there be monsters” is not the tack we need to be taking, however, if the Internet is a monster, we should be bending over and kissing the beast’s feet, instead of fearing or ignoring it, for it could very well be the saving grace of humankind, or at least, democracy.
References
Delacruz, E. M. (2009). From bricks to mortar to the public sphere in cyberspace: Creating a
culture of caring on the digital global commons. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 10(5), pp. 10, 12
Scholz, T. (2005). New media art education and its discontents. Art Journal, 64(1), 96-100.
| 02 February, 2012 16:39
Week 4: In the know
Stuhr, Petrovich-Mwaniki, and Wasson in their essay Curriculum Guidelines for the Multicultural Art Classroom (1992), rather succinctly sum up what a multicultural education should be when they concur with the idea that “many educators view the primary aim is an equitable distribution of power and resources among all individuals at all levels of society” (1992, p. 16). This is a noble and lofty goal and one that needs to happen if we are to ever finally end the ills that plague society. The authors also do a good amount of encouraging the involvement of the student participating in the education process in such a way that involves their input and what they "know" about their own personal identities. I think this type of empowerment is critical to getting the students to understand their importance as individuals, and that they count and what they know counts, something I rarely see in the Adult Education classes I teach (average age is around 20 yrs.).
Gorski’s essay, Complicity with conservatism: the de-politicizing of multicultural and intercultural education (2006) gets pretty dicey as it really criticizes that teaching multiculturalism can sometimes succumb to a “phoning it in” syndrome, or “going through the motions”, or worse, become lead by individuals that actually are surreptitiously interested in keeping the “white privileged” agenda, in much the same way we’ve seen many progressive movements become headed up by conservatives (I think of James Watts, arguably an anti-environmentalist heading up the EPA back in the eighties, as being perhaps the first example of this type of conservative usurping of a progressive agenda.)
I especially enjoyed Gorski’s criticism of educators capitulating to what he calls The Ruby Payne Syndrome. Ruby Payne wrote a book called A Framework for Understanding Poverty in 2001 that apparently has become “with little critical analysis, standard fare in US multicultural education classes and workshops” (Gorski, 2006, p.171). Gorski makes a great point when he criticizes Payne for reversing the “cause and effect relationship” (Gorski, 2006, p.171) regarding the cause of poverty. I hear this type of logic so often when discussing problems with students. People will say something like “it’s the parents” or “correct behavior has to start at home”. I agree, parents and home life can be and many times is a major source of problems and does have a direct effect on student behavior and success, but poor parenting or involvement more times than not is the result of a parent’s poor education, which is generally a result of a financially disadvantage situation which may have its roots going back many generations. It is my opinion, and undoubtedly the author’s (Gorski et al) too, that breaking the cycle of poverty and poor education is a crucial societal responsibility.
I like the way Delacruz breaks down things in Multiculturalism and Art Education: Myths, Misconceptions, & Misdirections (1995) when she delineates 6 areas of misconception about multiculturalism. One being Multiculturalism is for the “Others” (Delacruz, 1995, p.57) when in fact, as she points out what James Banks wrote (1993), it’s not about “them” it’s about “us”. I have found, ironically, most so-called “whites” have a multicultural background themselves ( I myself have a great grand mother on my father's side that was quite possibly full blooded Abernake Indian), but many are in denial. Plenty of “white Americans” have Native American as well as African American heritages as well as multiple European heritages. Which brings me to the concept of labels like “white” “of color” “black” “Latin” etc.. I think it’s time we get rid of these labels and use the world “heritage” to define people (if we really think we need to define people in such a way). As no one is “white” or “black” or “Latin”, we are Americans of a certain cultural heritage, European, African, Latin, etc., it just seems to be a more accurate description that's less reliant on a phenotype or inadequate superficial description.
Shouldn’t we all be inquisitive and try to “know” about all sorts of things, isn’t that what “educating” oneself is about? Isn’t multiculturalism really just that, an attempt at expanding our world and knowledge while democratizing the education system with the ultimate objective of giving everyone a “true” and “actual” equal education experience and opportunity?
| 22 January, 2012 17:37
Week 1: Elluding the Illusion
I saw a great bumper sticker the other day, many of you may have already seen it…it read; “I’ll believe that Corporations are people when Texas executes one.” As leading scholar in art education, Doug Blandy, alludes to in regard to Citizens United, the notion that a corporation has "the rights of citizens and (are) granted they and their surrogates the right to spend an unlimited amount of money on political campaigns” (Blandy, 2010, p. 251, Sustainability, Participatory Culture, and the Performance of Democracy: Ascendant Sites of Theaory and Practice in Art Education) as upheld by the Supreme Court in 2010 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, reflects a prevailing notion or meme that is probably at the heart of why our educational system represents a cultural lag in our society. It seems to me too that Supreme Court decisions like the above, and its popular mindset, is why our education system leaves so many of our citizens in the dust and unable in many cases to even read much less become self-actualized in any redeeming way.
At the risk of sounding too ideological or grossly opinionated, I would think it’s hard to not argue that our country’s religion is capitalism and any threat to the notion that it should not be, or that the profit motive should not be deified the way it is, is thought to be sacrilege. But until we come to terms with the fact that our education system, if not our whole economy, is broken for the simple reason that we would rather uphold this notion of capitalism as religion and continue to waste resources on its multi-trillion dollar military industrial complex, than give everyone a true educational experience, we are, as R. Cary suggests in his Critical Theory: A philosophy for praxis in art education” essay, falling prey to what Hegel called the “coercive illusion (Cary, 1998, p. 28). The coercive illusion here is that most people are unwittingly forced into believing or thinking that we need to spend an inordinate amount of our resources on the military as well as our prison system in order to preserve our way of life as consumerists (whether we're able to actually afford it or not). The change that is needed, and what Ken Robinson’s video, Changing education paradigms so succinctly and entertainingly laid out, is a drastic transformation of the education paradigm in our country, if not the whole world. As Robinson clearly points out, our education system's MO is at the very least more than 100 years old and therefore this conversion is long overdue.
What I do not feel is articulated enough and what I didn’t read at all in the reading for this week, is the importance of small classrooms, particularly for the very early stages of the education process, pre-school through 9th or 10th grade. If we are really serious about turning our culture around, creating fewer stressed out and alcohol/drug addicted individuals, less crime and more self-actualization, then instead of funding the military on the scale we have been for the last 60 years, I would suggest that our society fund education to the point whereby we can mandate that every classroom be no more than 10 students, at least until high school and that every teacher have qualifications approaching what is required to teach in our universities. My ideal art
class or environment would be along the lines of students at all levels exploring their own interests. This ideal “school” would have numerous avenues for students to explore. There would be technology and art centers that would be open at least 16 hours a day whereby students could utilize any media they desire to express or create whatever they choose.
I like what Cary suggests in his Critical Theory essay and that is concern for social justice through the emancipation of the oppressed (1998, p. 9) as this is what is needed most in our society, or at least the realization that it is needed. The notion never really and truly gained any traction, at least to the degree needed to really emancipate a majority of people and thereby create a true democracy. It’s a neo-Marxist ideal that us Americans find hard to swallow because of the prevailing coercive illusion that bullies us into instinctively rejecting anything that even hints of socialism, much less Marxism. Emancipation is what we need to keep striving for, the trouble is many don’t even know they need to be emancipated, perhaps we’re all too steeped in the “illusion” we are forever coerced into believing...pick your illusion.
Week 2: Wealth and Perception
In Tara J. Yosso’s essay Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth (2005) he cites Solorzano’s five tenets of Critical Race Theory. One of them , The challenge to dominate ideology challenges white privilege and refutes claims that educational institutions make toward objectivity, meritocracy, color-blindness, race neutrality and equal opportunity. (Yosso, 2005, p. 73) I think this is very true to a degree and these claims act as “camouflages for the self-interest, power, and privilege of dominant groups in US society.” (Yosso, 2005, p. 74) My experience has been that we have been trying to placate our own shame of hundreds of years of institutionalized segregation/racism by “seeming” to offer equality in the classroom, and obviously in many ways we fall short of the ideological intent. The other tenet that I found original was Soloranzo’s centrality of experiential knowledge. One thing I try to convey to my bilingual students is how much of an asset it is and will continue to be for them as they go through life to be able to communicate in two languages. I let them know it is one of the signs of a truly educated person to be multi-lingual and that they should be proud of this accomplishment and ability. I can see from their faces that many never really thought about their lingual abilities in this light. Most are shy and humble about their “cultural wealth” (Yosso, 2005, p. 69) and I think don’t feel or even know their “knowledge counts” (Yosso, 2005, pg. 69).
Something that struck me in all our reading regarding recent understandings about race, ethnicity, culture, power, and agency is at the root of a good amount of our culture’s afflictions is something that Delacruz mention in her essay, Nation of Immigrants (In Press), and that is issues of criminalization or engaging in criminal acts as a common occurrence in today’s society, as opposed to perhaps even 60-100 years ago. Delacruz points out that immigrant children being uncertain about their parent’s legal status in this country has a negative effect on the child. (Delacruz, (In Press), p. 5) In our society (or culture) many people are breaking laws on a regular basis, (some more serious than others albeit still criminal in the eyes of the state) whether it’s speeding , self-medication, lying on some official forms, reporting income, or hiding one’s illegal status…it seems more and more to be the new normal. The criminalization of the populace that permeates our collective reality is creating a culture of hypocrites and weakening our collective psyche. This was never the case years ago, there just weren’t as many laws as there are now. (Perhaps I digress a bit with this observation but it is something relatively new in our culture and a comment on “agency” perhaps.)
I read Reay’s Spice Girls, Nice Girls, Girlies and Tomboys (2001) and came away impressed with her finding that despite everything, boys seem to still be most respected by both genders on the playground and girls have it tougher. Is this a true reflection or microcosm of our society as a whole? I do find it curious that woman that get into situations of power often out-macho the men, e.g. Margaret Thatcher or Sarah Palin. (the irony is their power is a result of the feminist movement that was for the most part espousing passiveness and equal opportunities, both things the aforementioned woman are not known to be proponents.) In summation, is it male power we’re enamored with or just “power”?
In reading Wanda May’s essay The Tie That Binds:Reconstructing Ourselves in Institutional Contexts (1994) I feel she presented a constructive treatise on the problems that exist in today’s educational environment. I know that in my case, being an adjunct with no benefits and not many hours, if I were to start making waves, particularly about the exploitative nature of the use of adjuncts (which Delacruz mentions in her article) I feel it may jeopardize my job possibly. There are things that need to be changed where I work, but having been there only three years, I have to pick my battles, which brings one to the essence of the problem…economic.
In the aggregate, what I think we have is not so much a social/gender/phenotypic/cultural/linguistic problem in our society, but an economic problem, which I only saw glossed over in the readings.
| 22 January, 2012 17:06
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