Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school – Einstein

I can’t teach anyone anything – I can only make them think – Socrates

I don’t think I’ve forgotten everything I learned in school yet. We must have covered Plate Tectonics at least every term, in a number of subjects – ditto burning peanuts on a skewer – it’ll all remain imprinted until they give me a full frontal lobotomy – but, looking beyond the literal, I think I can see what’s behind these two quotes; that real learning is about developing the processes of reflection and critical thought, and constructing meaning, rather than absorbing facts.

Being a biologist by trade, I got all excited by Steve’s botanical metaphors. I liked the idea of rhizomatic learning – Dave Cormier’s paper on the subject looks like a great read so I intend to digest it shortly. It got me thinking about real rhizomes where the vertical stems spring up from pre-formed nodes when there are sufficient resources for growth. I particularly liked the parallels between the positioning of the nodes within the network of rhizomes – which is to a certain extent predetermined in the genes of the plant – and the concept of ’scaffolding’ of ideas and concepts.

One more random thought to finish – something that was mentioned quite a lot in Steve’s session was the concept of ‘just in time’ learning. It got me thinking – what about those of us who just love to digest theory (of any flavour)? Those of us who enjoyed school maths lessons because they simply liked feeling their own brain ticking? Is there still a place for these people in education, or is it all going to become work-focused and forcibly related to our own professional practice? Saying that, I just realised I didn’t actually make many notes about wikis, which is what Steve came to talk to us about.

In this recent paper in Action Research Expeditions, Margaret Farren reports on her PhD thesis, which examines the growth of her educational knowledge and development of her practice over six years of self-study.

As an E-Learning development officer, working with mid-career Engineering Masters students who are completely new to online collaboration, I particularly enjoyed wading through the discussion threads provided as part of Enquiry 2. I must admit I was envious of Dr Farren, with her very articulate and online discussion-savvy students. I loved reading Trudy Corrigan’s response to Darragh Power’s question about how he should address the failure of his organisation to recognise the value of collaboration. Basically, she advised him to just do it anyway and lead by example – sound advice that illustrates the power of collaborative learning and knowledge construction.The techniques Dr Farren has employed in her moderation of the discussion forum are sound – summarising and weaving are used well, and the discussion remains positive and encouraging at all times. I would have loved to read more about how Dr Farren got to this point with her students – whether they were already experienced at online discussion, and if not, what it took to get there.
Moira Laidlaw, another commentator, wrote that she felt greater emphasis, or different placing, could have been given to the multimedia elements of the article. I personally feel that these elements of the article were well-placed. I found the video clip useful only in that it gave me an image of the learning community that had been formed among the group – I prefer the clarity of a discussion forum if I need to gain an idea of what people are actually saying to each other.

I picked up many interesting points from Dr Farren’s introduction which I intend to look into more closely in my own study. Firstly, I was very interested to read the Skilbeck quote – “many institutions have failed to make teaching excellence an important factor in career advancement and recognition” (Skilbeck, 2001, p.87). – If only because this issue finally seems to be coming to the fore at Bath, which is employing a new framework for recognition and reward of academic staff that focuses particularly on teaching.

I was also interested in the adult education issue that Dr Farren raised – about adult education being regarded as belonging to a separate sphere from higher education proper. I wasn’t quite clear on exactly what was meant by ‘adult education’ in this context – mature professionals studying masters programmes or sub-degree level community education?

The Barnett reference also got me thinking – “Barnett asserts that the main pedagogical task of a university is not to transmit knowledge but to develop in human beings the attributes appropriate to conditions of supercomplexity (2000, p. 164).”. …and it will probably keep me thinking well into the small hours I’ll cogitate on that one for a bit longer and post some conclusions on my blog at a later date.

Finally, I agree with Dr Farren that strategic use of ICT for the diverse range of students in higher education will require explicit policy developments – but I’m confident that these will trickle through! Bath appears to be following a fairly organic approach – the usual state of affairs is that a critical mass of individuals get excited enough about technology-enhanced learning to get funding for a project, and they create something – learning about it in the process – and tell everyone who’s interested. This gives rise to more projects, more funding, more learning…and so on.

I must admit I’m still grappling with the phrases ‘web of betweenness’ and ‘pedagogy of the unique’. I think I prefer to stay within a comfort zone where everyone writes exactly what they mean in language that is unambiguous and doesn’t include mysterious-sounding phrases in inverted commas. But it’s all very interesting…

White is very exact in his own turn of phrase, and dislikes ambiguity and generality. He dissects bland, general and impressive-sounding statements, such as the aim of Baker’s National Curriculum, to show that they can be interpreted in a great many ways and therefore mean very little.

I found White’s discussion of Baker’s curriculum fascinating. I had never questioned before the reasoning behind the prescription of the curriculum subjects, but his suggestion that the curriculum should, at the very least, support the continuing development of a liberal and democratic society is obvious to me now. I found myself constructing a new compulsory curriculum in my head, one that ditched higher level mathematics and english literature in favour of subjects like sociology, psychology and economics.

This was very interesting, and I reflected further on it, drawing on my experiences of teaching citizenship, and enduring its predecessor, ‘personal and social education’. The ‘citizenship’ curriculum has certainly evolved since I was at secondary school. My only memory of PSE is of a video demonstration on how to use a condom. I think our tutor tried his hand at starting a debate but was thwarted by our steadfast refusal to get excited about anything, be it rascism, sexism or teenage pregnancy (apart from tutor-baiting – I remember that got us quite excited). Frankly, if we weren’t being examined in it, we didn’t see the point. I would hazard a guess that most of my old tutor group have similar political leanings and lifestyles to their parents. Students can now take a GCSE in citizenship – I don’t know if it’s a core subject (is it?) – and it would be very interesting to find out more about the effect of taking such a subject, both on individuals and on groups.

White has always held the view that it is important for the curriculum to be both centrally prescribed, and to be designed for the good of the developing child, but his views on exactly what is best for the child have evolved, and are evolving still. His philosophy centres not only around the protection of a liberal and democratic society, but also around the fostering of ‘personal well-being’, and this is leads to yet another interesting debate – what is personal well-being? What does it mean to lead a ‘flourishing life’? White provides an example with a list of factors that would probably appeal to most well-rounded Guardian readers, but acknowledges that for everyone, these factors, and their relative importance within the mix, will be different.