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Ivan Illich and Dadamacadamy August 10, 2012

Hi Steve, Andrius and everyone

This continues various previous discussions on 21st century education systems - Internet - changing roles and relationships, teaching, learning, knowledge creations and sharing etc.

If you want more of the background contact me by comments, or via LFEO or email me pamela.mclean@dadamac.net

Illich is a favourite of alternative academia, and his work has been around so long that it is well known in established academia as well. Given there is great overlap between this and much of Dadamacademy I think I may have discovered an interesting new bridge between what I am doing and established educational thought.

Ivan Illich wrote

Universal education through schooling is not feasible. It would be no more feasible if it were attempted by means of alternative institutions built on the style of present schools. Neither new attitudes of teachers toward their pupils nor the proliferation of educational hardware or software (in classroom or bedroom), nor finally the attempt to expand the pedagogue's responsibility until it engulfs his pupils' lifetimes will deliver universal education. The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education--and also to those who seek alternatives to other established service industries.
—Ivan Illich.

Hold that thought!

Now consider some aspects of Dadamacademy / alternative academia:

  1. What I wrote in the e-learning chapter ref my experiences as a DIY e-learner in alternative academia
  2. Posts I have written regarding my personal learning journey online - and my attempts to find appropriate descriptions that would not be open to misunderstanding - and my final decision to give up using established descriptions and instead describe myself as a Dadamac learner - i.e. "my kind of learner"
  3. Responses to that post where some of my contacts claimed to be Dadamac learners as well.
  4. The idea that if I wasn't the only one - and as we aren't just learners, we also teach each other - I'd change the description and not just have dadamac learners, but i had have an online space for us - the Dadamacademy.
  5. Blogs I have written regarding Dadamacademy Dream or Reality, and Don't Share an Idea, Build a Prototype.
  6. People in my online network who describe our relationship in terms of me being their teacher (although I always try to point out that we are teaching each other and I am also learning)   

Going back to the Illich quote - The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs.

The funnel idea could have a couple of meanings. It could tie in with the top down model of education which pours "right answers" into people, or it could relate to the industrial "production line" approach to education (taking people and pushing them through the system to turn them into employment fodder). The Dadamacademy ideas do reverse the old "funnel" appraoches.

......their institutional inverse: educational webs....

Dadamacademy of course is a small web-based community involved in various learning happenings.

......educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one....

Dadamacademy has no entrance requirements - except for practical present limitations due to lack of resources:

  1. Needing to use English as the language for learning because I'm involved in everything and I can only work in English. If more people were involved then other languages would be used. I think the majority of Dadamac learners are multilingual. 
  2. Needing to have access to the Internet - even if it is infrequent access and low  bandwidth. This presents financial challenges to various Dadamac learners as well as logistical ones. It would be good to be able to help them have less problematic access.

heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning....

  1. The range of topics to be studied are limited to the areas of overlapping interests within the Dadamacadamy community - but as we get more people (and better systems to help them find each other) that could grow. 
  2. Learners touched by the fully developed Dadamacademy approach and networked community could certainly learn much more that if they were outside it - so there would be heightened opportunity.
  3. The amount of time spent is up to the individual.

.......learning, sharing, and caring.....

Given a philosophy of knowledge creation, open-ness. Peer 2 Peer, learning commons, etc I guess we cover the sharing aspect

Given the nature of cross-cultural collaboration I think it tends to lead towards a different level of connection with people - and if you know people personally then inequalities and hardships hit home more forcibly so perhaps it does increase the level of caring.

@Andrius - thank you for your thoughtful reply to my previous posts - maybe we can have a skype voice chat to cover some of that ground and other ideas we need to catch up on.. 

Pamela