wallpaper animals

I'm thinking about a 'wild' university, as opposed to the 'cultivated' (and genetically-engineered) variety that we are so familiar with. Following yesterdays thoughts about custodianship, the implications of a wild university are interesting. The value systems of governments which determine 'fairness', 'fitness', 'rigour', 'value for money' and whose value is transferred to students through qualification is a centrally-controlled value system which privileges normative value and truth-statements: "Joe bloggs is worthy of the award of a degree in Botany from Oxford"; "he is competent in botany". Why does Joe Bloggs need a qualification to make assertions about his ability at botany?

Understanding truth is pretty central this. Bhaskar's truth tetrapolity is useful here. He has four dimensions to it:
1. Normative fiduciary
2. adequating
3. expressive-referential
4. alethic
The qualification is a warrant, making a statement about his botany ability a 'warranted assertion' (adequating). But does the warrant have to come from an institution? Could it come directly from other botanists? This might equate to the 'referential expressive' dimension of truth. Then there is the 'alethic' truth of Joe himself as a botanist in convincing others of his botany ability: maybe this is the 'tacit' botanist in him which other botanists may detect. He needs no institution to have that, although the institution may have helped him develop it. How could Joe's botany ability become normative? How could a statement about Joe's botany be trusted?

It is partly to address these aspects of truth that I think we institutionalise quality in the way we do. If we can think of alternative answers to these questions, then a university in the wild might be a possibility...

With all the talk of tuition fees rising, I've been thinking about different ways of viewing the problem of the funding of education. In particular, I'm wondering about whether we have to see this through the lens of the 'benefits' of learning? What about the benefits of 'institutional membership' and participating in the maintenance of cultural institutions? Why not see students as shareholders in the institution for life reaping dividends (maybe in terms of rising social capital) for their 'investment' rather than purchasers of learning?

It strikes me that universities have been around for 900 years because people have cared for them in the past. That care relationship is not something based on consumption, but rather on custodianship, and students have been the main custodians.

If you pursue this membership model, what then becomes of academic quality and the 'degree awarding' role of the University? If my role in the University is to help take care of it, how does the taking care relate to the achievement of qualifications? These strike me as interesting questions!

Scott Wilson and I made this video discussion yesterday to introduce Open Source Software to students.

Introducing Open Source Software Development from Strategy Workshops on Vimeo.

before i went to bed last night, i picked up one of my dad's this old house magazines (do y'all read this....it has some good stuff from time to time) and saw this fun before and after kitchen.  i thought y'all might enjoy it too!  the backsplash kind of reminds me of tom scheerer's fabulous kitchens.  i'm away for the rest of the week so i hope y'all have a fabulous weekend!!

it's a strange feeling when you wake up and you have an email saying "did you see this"!   seleta, you rock for filling me in...and San Francisco Chronicle- i love you more than peanut butter hearts jelly for including me in your article.

*images courtesy of dirty pretty things, sweet nothings, suzie beezie, emmas blogg

This was an attempt this evening to make my daughter's maths tables fun. In fact I think we succeeded in making it hilarious! Whether the exercise did any good I'm not sure (she still struggles with a few of them..) But it gave us all a very warm feeling. Will that warm feeling now over-ride some of the negative emotion she has experienced with relation to her maths in future? I don't know, but everything's worth trying...

One thing is for sure -- she wants to do it again!

I found Hermann Weyl's 'Symmetry' in the library, sought out via a circuitous route by way of Stafford Beer's 'radar' reading list and a fascinating discussion yesterday. It's beautiful. What's interesting is the two uses of the word 'symmetry' - one for proportion, the other for mathematical bilateral symmetry, and the way the two forms of usage relate.

Symmetry and pattern are related. Musical forms have symmetry: typically A-B-A forms, but the second A is often not the same as the first. It happens at a different moment. I wonder if physical symmetry is also like this - happening at a different 'moment'; the moment when the pattern is first cognised, and the moment when it is re-cognised. What does symmetry tell us about ourselves? What does it tell us about the flow of our experience as we are geared to respond to it? But that the symmetry which has the most powerful effect on us is often imperfect. What are the regulating moments of playful experience that go on as we look at a sphere or a cube?