HYDRANGEA LOVE...
Kamis, 12 Juli 2012
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Theory, conversation and teaching
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I'm thinking back to my experiences as a music student in Manchester University, and particularly to the privilege of being present in some wonderful seminars with the Lindsay string quartet which were led by Professor Ian Kemp. Kemp was a remarkable teacher whose knowledge of music combined deep theoretical insight with practical common sense and an awareness of music's power. He always valued the experiences of those without theoretical baggage - they had the 'fresh ears' which he and his academic colleagues lost long ago. He was adept at asking penetrating questions of those who were listening for the first time, privileging the value of their experiences and explicitly demonstrating that value to those whose academic music careers had led them to be less open in their hearing.
As I was conducting a workshop on education and technology yesterday at the American Cybernetic Society conference, I was thinking about this approach. The Lindsay seminars were interesting because they combined performance with conversation. They had the form of a masterclass which went beyond simply playing the music, but sought to ask more profound questions about what it all meant. Yesterday in my workshop, I organised people into doing a role-play against a scenario (I did this before with Keith Smyth in our Strategy Cascade events: see http://strategycascade.wordpress.com/). The groups were sent off to play the roles they had been given. They talked, argued, and eventually came to some conclusions which they reported. Thinking about it now, I wonder if this is equivalent to the 'performance' aspect of the music by the Lindsays.
When they reported back, I tried to coordinated a deeper discussion about learning activity in general, the relation of technology to it, and what happens during a learning activity in terms of how we come to know each other better. Is this (I now ask myself) related in some way to what Kemp did when he would lead a discussion about what the music meant, or how else it could be played? I'm not sure... but I would like to think they might be related. Not just because I would like to be like Ian Kemp as a teacher, but also because it gives me a greater sense of connection between doing something which is clearly profound (talking about music) with doing something rather more prosaic (talking about technology and universities).
I believe the value in any kind of learning activity is that it focuses the object of knowledge on coming to know each other. Theorists tend not to think like this. Their object of knowledge is an abstraction which tends to only exist in a few brains (or maybe one - the teacher's). That can lead to pathologies of power, imposed authority and potential alienation of students. The ASC conference this year is celebrating the centenary of Gregory Bateson, and it's been interesting to observe that Bateson had tremendous theoretical insights, but tended to convey these 'from the front'. Kemp was not like this. He was not anti-theory (he knew and was fascinated by lots of theory), but instead of seeing it as an 'answer', he saw it as a tool for guiding his own questioning which in turn would lead out from his students insights which were powerful and valuable.
I'm nowhere near doing that with my work on educational technology and cybernetics, but I do think it's a good thing to aim for. I think this is the best way to see theory. In a sense it is to make it disappear. If a theory is a good one it can help us to ask powerful questions that elicit powerful responses from those who know nothing of the theory. In the social sciences, I believe we are the theory; theories are not external to us. The power of our theory is in the depth of the insight we gain into each other; it is in our capacity to make each other think and to love each other more.
As I was conducting a workshop on education and technology yesterday at the American Cybernetic Society conference, I was thinking about this approach. The Lindsay seminars were interesting because they combined performance with conversation. They had the form of a masterclass which went beyond simply playing the music, but sought to ask more profound questions about what it all meant. Yesterday in my workshop, I organised people into doing a role-play against a scenario (I did this before with Keith Smyth in our Strategy Cascade events: see http://strategycascade.wordpress.com/). The groups were sent off to play the roles they had been given. They talked, argued, and eventually came to some conclusions which they reported. Thinking about it now, I wonder if this is equivalent to the 'performance' aspect of the music by the Lindsays.
When they reported back, I tried to coordinated a deeper discussion about learning activity in general, the relation of technology to it, and what happens during a learning activity in terms of how we come to know each other better. Is this (I now ask myself) related in some way to what Kemp did when he would lead a discussion about what the music meant, or how else it could be played? I'm not sure... but I would like to think they might be related. Not just because I would like to be like Ian Kemp as a teacher, but also because it gives me a greater sense of connection between doing something which is clearly profound (talking about music) with doing something rather more prosaic (talking about technology and universities).
I believe the value in any kind of learning activity is that it focuses the object of knowledge on coming to know each other. Theorists tend not to think like this. Their object of knowledge is an abstraction which tends to only exist in a few brains (or maybe one - the teacher's). That can lead to pathologies of power, imposed authority and potential alienation of students. The ASC conference this year is celebrating the centenary of Gregory Bateson, and it's been interesting to observe that Bateson had tremendous theoretical insights, but tended to convey these 'from the front'. Kemp was not like this. He was not anti-theory (he knew and was fascinated by lots of theory), but instead of seeing it as an 'answer', he saw it as a tool for guiding his own questioning which in turn would lead out from his students insights which were powerful and valuable.
I'm nowhere near doing that with my work on educational technology and cybernetics, but I do think it's a good thing to aim for. I think this is the best way to see theory. In a sense it is to make it disappear. If a theory is a good one it can help us to ask powerful questions that elicit powerful responses from those who know nothing of the theory. In the social sciences, I believe we are the theory; theories are not external to us. The power of our theory is in the depth of the insight we gain into each other; it is in our capacity to make each other think and to love each other more.
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STUNNING WINDOWS!!!
Rabu, 11 Juli 2012
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DREAMING...
Selasa, 10 Juli 2012
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Meditation, Recursion and Science
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I'm at the American Society for Cybernetics conference in Asilomar at the moment, presenting on what I'm increasingly seeing as 'recursive visualisation': the harnessing of real-time technologies for ways of organising groups of people to examine available information and identify what's meaningful to them. With so much information, making group decisions about what's meaningful is difficult. Typically, power relations assert themselves as a way out of the confusion: the boss decides and everyone follows. Technology, I believe, may provide an alternative to this.
Real-time technologies allow us to 1. look at information; 2. look at our looking at information; 3. look at our looking at our looking at information; etc. A recursive real-time dynamic can be revealing of underlying patterns of meaning-making in each other. What do we find? I think we find out something about the absences that are shared amongst the group, and in identifying shared absences, we can identify a meaningful course of action. The recursive process is a process of making shared absences determinable. It works in the same way that a fractal (like a mandelbrot set) gradually acquires definition with each iteration of the recursive algorithm. So we go from this:
to this...
It's the same thing, isn't it? A book which has been copied containing an image of someone copying. I'm finding this quite fascinating.
What is more interesting is the relationship between the Scriptorium and the monastery and then the University. These were places of meditation and learning. What went on was profoundly hermeneutic: a reinspection and re-evaluation of ideas: looking again, and again, and again. What emerged? Was it too a shared conception of absence? In the case of the monastery, of God.
Early scientific knowledge also emerged in these circumstances, and I find that interesting as we think of new ways to do science, to avoid the pathologies of reductionism which our modern universities are so beholden to. I believe we need a participative, reflexive, and common-sense science. That means (I think) harnessing the power of recursive inspection to reveal shared absences: for science, although since the enlightenment, science has focused on the positive, working at the heart of the greatest scientific discoveries has been an acknowledgment of absence (particularly with people like Newton and Einstein).
So the question is "can technology deliver a different form of scientific enterprise?" I believe it can, and I believe we need to invest resources into trying to make it happen.
Real-time technologies allow us to 1. look at information; 2. look at our looking at information; 3. look at our looking at our looking at information; etc. A recursive real-time dynamic can be revealing of underlying patterns of meaning-making in each other. What do we find? I think we find out something about the absences that are shared amongst the group, and in identifying shared absences, we can identify a meaningful course of action. The recursive process is a process of making shared absences determinable. It works in the same way that a fractal (like a mandelbrot set) gradually acquires definition with each iteration of the recursive algorithm. So we go from this:
to this...
What's now interesting me is that this process of 'recursive visualisation' is not a million miles away from medieval practices of copying of manuscripts. What it amounts to is a collaborative meditation on artefacts, and a shared activity in re-realising those artefacts.
Are we simply learning to become scribes again?Here's another way of looking at recursive visualisation:
It's the same thing, isn't it? A book which has been copied containing an image of someone copying. I'm finding this quite fascinating.
What is more interesting is the relationship between the Scriptorium and the monastery and then the University. These were places of meditation and learning. What went on was profoundly hermeneutic: a reinspection and re-evaluation of ideas: looking again, and again, and again. What emerged? Was it too a shared conception of absence? In the case of the monastery, of God.
Early scientific knowledge also emerged in these circumstances, and I find that interesting as we think of new ways to do science, to avoid the pathologies of reductionism which our modern universities are so beholden to. I believe we need a participative, reflexive, and common-sense science. That means (I think) harnessing the power of recursive inspection to reveal shared absences: for science, although since the enlightenment, science has focused on the positive, working at the heart of the greatest scientific discoveries has been an acknowledgment of absence (particularly with people like Newton and Einstein).
So the question is "can technology deliver a different form of scientific enterprise?" I believe it can, and I believe we need to invest resources into trying to make it happen.
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COLOUR MY DAY!
Senin, 09 Juli 2012
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LOVING IT!
Minggu, 08 Juli 2012
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