Feb 9 RTS 3 "OK, fine, a Good Paradigm"

Feb. 9 RTS 3

I'm a believer in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Yes, it's a paradigm. At the same time, I can't find fault with it. It consistently makes sense as it applies to the entire human experience. Although I'm not going to approve it too much as RTS tries to fit pedagogy and technology into its framework.

This is because the hierarchy of needs leads to the perfection of the individual and is defined--this is brilliant--by the steps needed to accomplish it. The lowest tier of human needs is subsistence. To move up, a human must observe those needs as fulfilled. The top tier is self-actualization. It is the completely individual fulfillment of potential.

No such fulfillment exists for pedagogy and education as long as the working model is a classroom of more than one student. Every student's potential--destiny, even--is different and difficult to decipher. Learning styles and exceptionalities will always prevent teachers from uniformly impacting students (as it should be --- everyone should have their own reactions to events).

The Frankenstein paradigm that emerges has four tiers: Content Management, Authoring, Collaboration, and Cultural Transformation.

Naturally, my bitterness with school, my program and this class will manifest as cruel criticism of these four concepts. While I more or less agree with the lowest tier, I don't think the next natural step is authoring. This is because of a deep cultural belief I hold about authority that is possibly undue but I'm breaking it as I write this. Writing and reading, once believed to be invaluable and sacred skills, was restricted to the copying and interpreting of religious texts and a little to the necessity of business transactions. The increase in learning branched out to literature and other forms of writing. Then there was the advent of the printing press. More things could be read and more learning to read and write could be achieved. Think of writing once--you would need to take the large feather of a bird, or the hair of an animal, and cut it just so. Then grind coal or tar and mix with water to make ink. Then you'd need to carefully write each letter, redipping the feather or brush every other phrase. Meticulous is the word, especially in regards to religious texts. Now, you need to sit at a computer and poke letters. They show up on the screen. You can delete them or make them any style you want. And you can publish them in a way that can be read by anyone else with the internet and who reads your language.

Technology does lead to authoring as the natural second step, but should pedagogy? To write something down is to make it important and understandable to others. Things written in a book are many times more credible than things said aloud. The danger of authoring is credibility, which slips away daily with the multitude ways of presenting information.

Transforming culture at the pinnacle of pedagogy is debatable. The question that should ALWAYS come with the call for change is this change to what. To assume transforming culture is always for the better is dangerous. Francis Bacon, the first English essayist, asserts that studies are for delight, for ornament, and for ability. What would he have thought of cultural transformation?