Yesterday's Tools for Tomorrow's Work?

I was in class yesterday and we were discussing the change in mass-media since the beginning of the 20th-century and how this change related to social evolution in general. It was clear that, while the group had no prior knowledge of the differences between Mode 1 and Mode 2 societies, the students had an instinctive awareness that there was a real and important difference. Not only that, but (after something of a history lesson), they were convinced that the transitional period between the two forms of social structure lay between 1918 and 1945. Significant dates indeed.

I asked them why they felt this time was so critical in the transition and we spent a good 10-minutes throwing ideas and counter-ideas around the room, narrowing down the possibilities as we went. The students (all international students, so their conclusions are doubly informative), found they could reach consensus on the following points: 

• the advent of modern technology as evidenced (for example) in the development of the atomic bomb
• the complete social upheaval caused by women entering the industrialised workforce and thus emerging as a new economic force
• societies can never go back[wards]

Needless to say, I was really chuffed that my group felt able to articulate these points, and I'm sure it will stand them in good stead for the remainder of the term. However it was only after I watched the three videos about pedagogical change that I can see an even better way to illustrate the differences in social organisation.

Greg Whitby's discussion of 'pedagogical DNA' (Whitby, 21st century pedagogy) offers a concise but telling analysis of the exact difference between Mode 1 and 2 societies. M1 (yesterday) is hierarchical, rigid, and informed by grand narratives. M2 (tomorrow) is fluid, transitional, more a matrix than a solid form and consists of multiple levels all working independently as well as interdependently. This difference is so clearly visible in the way we teach today.

The second video (great soundtracks, BTW), was a short film from Tom Woodward and one which raised my eyebrows again as it was uncannily close to the ideas zooming around my head while watching the Whitby segment. Woodward examines (in brief) what he calls 'education translation' and with visual clues points out that we are still teaching the way our grandparents were taught, yet we are teaching students who may be working in jobs that have not yet been invented. How absurd is that? Though no recommendations were presented, the film was clearly admonishing the current educational and pedagogical systems.

The final piece of video (which has been doing the rounds for some time) was a fascinating ethnographic case study of a Kansas State University class (subject unknown). These young people had gone to a lot of personal effort in order to self-survey and construct a 5-min commentary on the divergence between academic 'reality' and real-world truisms. One example that resonated in particular was a girl who said that while she would read 8 books that year, she would also read several thousand web pages and a huge number of Facebook pages. This shows that our students are not troubled by the prospect of absorbing masses of information, but rather it's the format of the information we expect them to absorb which is troublesome.

I grew up with books, book and more books. The idea of having to spend my time learning from social networks and mobile phone downloads would drive me nuts. I'm not sure I could even do it. Yet by sticking with archaic pedagogical forms, I am demanding my students do exactly what I would most dread: being forced to absorb and learn in a format with which I have a limited tolerance. This cannot be the best way to teach for tomorrow.