Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

Michael Wesch, the cultural anthropologist whose viral video. A Vision of Students Today has become the party piece for educational technology presenters all over the world, and the education blogosphere, has followed up his video with an interesting blog entry on the Britannia site. In it he says, as its popularity grew, he became increasingly uneasy about the content,

“By the end of the summer I had become convinced that the video was over the top, that things were really not so bad, that the system is not as broken as I thought, and we should all just stop worrying and get on with our teaching.”

On returning to work this Autumn, and beginning a new term,

“I was immediately reminded of the real problem now facing education. The problem is not just “written on the walls.” It’s built into them.” The classroom, “is nothing less than a state of the art information dump, a physical manifestation of the all too pervasive yet narrow and naïve assumption that to learn is simply to acquire information, built for teachers to effectively carry out the relatively simple task of conveying information.”

“I marvel at what a remarkable achievement it is to bring hundreds of otherwise expressive, exuberant, and often rebellious youths into a single room and have them sit quietly in straight rows while they listen to the authority with the microphone. Such an achievement could not be won by an eager teacher armed with technology alone. It has taken years of acclimatizing our youth to stale artificial environments, piles of propaganda convincing them that what goes on inside these environments is of immense importance, and a steady hand of discipline should they ever start to question it.”

but on questioning his teaching assistants he found, ” … apparently, several students standing in the back cranked up their iPods as I started to lecture and never turned them off, sometimes even breaking out into dance. My lecture could barely be heard nearby as the sound-absorbing panels and state of the art speakers were apparently no match for those blaring iPods. Scanning the room my assistants also saw students cruising Facebook, instant messaging, and texting their friends. The students were undoubtedly engaged, just not with me.”

He goes on to say that the issue is not new but merely the latest manifestation of an old problem and that fortunately the solution is simple, “We don’t have to tear the walls down. We just have to stop pretending that the walls separate us from the world, and begin working with students in the pursuit of answers to real and relevant questions.”

Image credit: C4Chaos