Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Toying with complexity

"What difference do you think you can make - one single man in all this madness?" 

Terence Malick. 
The Thin Red Line.


The forces laid out on the floor were aligned in battle order.

The infantrymen were placed in front of the artillery with the cavalry waiting in the wings.

With one glorious charge the cavalry shattered the enemy lines, men fell like ninepins.

Victory was sweet.

I had it all planned out in my mind.

"I will join the marines. I want to be a commando."

The storyline changed over the years.

I was watching a conference of Dave Cormier.

At first I thought nothing of it.
I watched it again.
I thought nothing of it.

Then I read a comment stream.

I don't know why.

Boredom perhaps.

There was a conversation going on between Viplav Baxi and Dave Cormier.

Viplav Baxi Awesome Dave Cormier! I loved your talk and you made a really clear and cogent argument for change. Kudos! Will probably follow up with some thoughts on the Cynefin framework - I really don't believe that anything is really that "simple".
LikeReply8 hrs
Dave Cormier will be buy that sometimes refying to simple is a useful expedient?
LikeReply7 hrs
Viplav Baxi Just worried that simplifying what is not simple may reify current practices
LikeReply7 hrs
Viplav Baxi So by saying 'what is the capital of France' is 'simple' to google and answer maybe reifying the mindlessness of rote
LikeReply7 hrs
Viplav Baxi And justifying traditional practices of assessment for those 'kinds' of questions or knowledge
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier Think about all the things we reify in learning to drive a car. If you tried to understand each of the steps you'd be overwhelmed.
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier So we say 'pressing the gas pedal makes the car go faster'
LikeReply7 hrs
Viplav Baxi You are right of you are focused on the outcome. But is that education?
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier Viplav i'm never in favour of justfiying assessment smile emoticon
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier Viplav sometimes. Education is just social shaping. We can shape it a bunch of different ways
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier I'm in favour of shaping the main instrument of education towards complexity
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier But sometimes i just want to 'learn' how to use my coffee roaster. Tell me what to do. I"ll do it.
LikeReply7 hrs
Viplav Baxi Reading Dewey right now. So introspecting. He writes that etymologically education means just a process of leading or bringing up. When we have the outcome in mind-that is when we talk in terms of shaping into the standard form of social activity
LikeReply7 hrs
Viplav Baxi If we stick to the former definition then we lead to instead of design to
LikeReply7 hrs
Dave Cormier all we can do, i think, is try to broaden the definition of education in inclusive ways. i think 'changing the definition' is probably more tgan we'll be able to accomplish
LikeReply6 hrs
Viplav Baxi Broaden the definition?
LikeReply1 hr

There was one comment of Dave Cormier which sparked my thinking:

"I'm in favour of shaping the main instrument of education towards complexity."

"How can education not be an illustration of complexity?" I thought to myself.

Then I read:

"But sometimes I just want to 'learn' how to use my coffee roaster. Tell me what to do. I'll do it."

I thought of ritual, of habitual, of process, of story.

I remembered a comment of my grandmother, aged 80.

"When I look at myself in the mirror, I just don't recognise myself."

I remembered a comment of my mother, aged 75.

"When I look at myself in the mirror, I just don't recognise myself."

They were unhappy with a plot-line which had escaped them.

I remembered a slogan on a t-shirt.

This is not the life we ordered...



I thought of climate change.

I thought of the people gathered together in some hangar, just North of Paris, hugging each other at their part played in some historic agreement.

Heroic.



"What difference do you think you can make - one single man in all this madness?" 

Terence Malick. The Thin Red Line.

I was watching a trailer for a documentary entitled 'The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson.'



In the documentary, a man faces up to his imminent demise:

"The idea that death is imminent makes you realise what a wonderful thing it is to be alive."
Wilko Johnson.

He becomes hyperaware of the joy of his existence.

"Everything lifted off of me. The present, future, past, it was all concentrated down into the moment...I'm alive."
Wilko Johnson.

"How does one 'shape education' towards complexity?" I thought to myself.

What is life if not complex?

What is education if not story?

Is complexity compatible with story?

"Everything lifted off of me. The present, future, past, it was all concentrated down into the moment...I'm alive."
Wilko Johnson.

What are these stories?

I thought of Terence Malick.





I don't know why.

"What difference do you think you can make - one single man in all this madness?" 

Terence Malick. The Thin Red Line.




3 comments:

  1. I don't know why but the comment interchange you cited at Dave's Talk reminded me of this book I am reading, by Randall Monroe: Thing Explainer
    https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/
    Kevin
    PS -- yes, we make a difference, each one of us. Sometimes, for the good of the world (sometimes, not)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Snowden says create attractors with semi-permeable boundaries. Begs the question: what do those look like? I think that the answer is that they resemble many things. Create safe-to-fail spaces, see what happens, re-evaluate. Or as my mentor Myles Horton said, "Get a simple place, move in and you are there. The situation is there. You start with this and let it grow. You know your goal. It will build its own structure and take its own form. You can go to school all you life, you'll never figure it out becasue you are trying to get an answer that can only come from the people in the life situation."
    The way to get started is to start. Yeah, no is going to pay a consultant for that kind of advice, but there it is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think your mentor sums it up pretty well.

    ReplyDelete