Breaking down fences

Seth Godin's blog is always good value, but his post today is quite profound. He writes about his avid reading of the entire collection of one library's science fiction stock during his high school days and concludes that "Expertise is a posture as much as it is a volume of knowledge". Expertise does not come easily. It takes hard work and a lot of tenacity to become expert at anything, whether it is sport, music, art or and other realm of knowledge or skill. Godin urges us to 'go deep' and to read everything we can on our chosen subject, and on the surface, this seems a no brainer. We read for a degree. Reading is what it takes to master a topic.

I tell all potential PhD candidates I meet the same thing. If they wish to complete a research degree, they must become an expert in a very narrow domain, and through their research they should contribute something unique to that field. In order to do that, they need to explore their field thoroughly. It means reading a lot. It means reflecting on your own practice, and thinking critically about your field. It means finding where the edge of that field is, and sometimes - if you're bold enough - even breaking a few fences down to venture beyond into uncharted territory.

It doesn't just apply to PhD candidates. Anyone who is a professional should try to be the best they can be. What about your own professional practice? How do you find the edge of your field of knowledge and expertise? What do you read and where do you find the edgy stuff?

Although journal articles and books are a great source of knowledge, many articles go quickly out of date, and were probably in most cases already out of date by the time they were published, due to ponderous editorial and review processes, and a general back-log of articles that wait in a queue to be published. It's the same for just about every closed pay-per-view journal. Open access journals are better - they are generally more up to date, and are of course free to read. Many can be found online and usually, as soon as an article is accepted, it is quickly published. Better still, if you wish to approach the very very edge of your field, search for blogs written by the leaders in the field. You can gain access to the latest thoughts and ideas posted onto the web direct from the mind of the author. You can't get much more immediate than that. You may receive more understanding and wisdom from a just-written-blog by a reputable researcher or leading thinker than you will ploughing through several dozen paper based journal articles. You need to find your own pathway. Any way you do it, go deep, search for the edge of your field and then break down a few fences.

Image by Lionel Grove


Breaking down fences by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A digital heretic?

Some people think I'm a bit of a rebel. A non-comformist. You see, I don't take too kindly to unnecessary rules and regulations, and tend to scoff when people try to impose them. I despise bureaucracy and red-tape. 'Why can't I do this?' I ask. 'Because it's against the rules!' 'But what if the rules are wrong?' 'I don't make the rules mate, I just make sure you keep them...' How ridiculous!

I know we need some rules to maintain a semblance of order in society, and we need order to avoid a descent into chaos. But when rules are created for the sake of creating rules (governments and large institutions are very good at this) I am usually tempted to step out of line, just to see what happens. It doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone else, but it causes problems for the 'powers that be'. What do they do with me? I'm on record as supporting the do-it-yourself ethos of Edupunk, and a rejection of the corporate learning platform 'solutions'. I also use this blog as a platform to rant about a whole range of education issues. I don't consider myself to be completely rebellious though - I just tend to get a little too uncomfortable when I'm expected to tow the party line when I don't actually subscribe to it. And when I see something I consider unjust, wasteful or unfair, I have to point it out, and if necessary, shout very loud about it. I'm the little boy watching the emperor walk past in his birthday suit, and I'm the one who points out that he's naked. I'm the one walking out of step in the parade. I'm the conformist's worse nightmare. I would be a very bad party politician, and an even worse soldier. What I think I am good at though, is thinking outside the box, trying to come up with stuff that makes people think, or challenges preconceptions. That's the bit that I like the most, so perhaps that's why I tend not to conform.

I was reading the book 'Tribes' by Seth Godin recently, and although it's rather simplistic in its use of language and doesn't tax the mind much (it's written for corporate types after all), I never the less enjoyed reading it through to find out what his take was on leadership and business. I like his concept of 'sheepwalking' where people blindly follow someone or something without really questioning or understanding what they are doing. I like even more his idea of tribes, as groups of people that have purpose and communication. What I like most of all about his book though, is his notion of the 'heretic'. In more superstitious times, says Godin, the heretic was burned at the stake or at the very least, cast out from the community, undesirable, unwanted, a dissident. In present times though he says, the heretic is now more valued, and is probably the one who asks 'er.... why can't I do this?', and then when told it's against the rules, goes out and does it anyway. It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, says Godin, and I think he's right. Heretics don't lose their faith, he reckons, they just challenge the established 'religion' - the status quo, the established ways of doing things, and they find another way.

I suppose that makes me some kind of heretic. Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not satisfied with the learning platforms I see, and I'm not too keen on being complicit to corporate profiteering. That's why I use my own online tools, tapping into free services I know my students will find useful and will enjoy using. I'm opposed to respectable and long accepted theories such as learning styles (Honey & Mumford should hang their heads in shame) and digital natives theory (Marc Prensky has retracted much of what he said about cognitive change, but people still keep trotting out the theory as if it's a fact, hoping it makes them sound knowledgeable), because these models try to categorise students and thereby constrain creativity and individuality. I strongly support user generated content as an effective means of supporting learning. PLE will triumph over VLE. Who's to say that txt language is inferior to standard English? And let's allow children to use mobile phones in schools. Call me a digital heretic if you like, but I'm certainly not the only one.

Image source

A digital heretic? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.