The Tool Imperative or A MacGyver Complex

"ddraper You really think that school exists primarily to teach kids to use the tools? http://post.ly/10zuH @irasocol stars as #MacGyver."

 Darren (not Don) Draper [1] had said this...

"But you're not really buying this, are you Scott? You really think that school exists primarily to teach kids to use the tools? Whatever happened to student-centered pedagogy? Whatever happened to creativity? Whatever happened to thinking?

"Show me a kid that's learned how to learn, one that can think, can process, and critically evaluate. Show me a kid that's learned how to analyze reality, with or without the use of technology...

And I'll show you the kid that will master the tools of the future, simply because they invented them in the first place."

Now what I had originally said was this...

"The issue is this -

"In order to be lifelong learners it is essential to understand and know how to function with the information and communications technologies of our world, and to know how to adapt when those technologies change.

"In order to be human successes we also must understand how to communicate what we know, how to collaborate, and how to distribute information.

"This is why Socrates drilled his students on memory. In pre-literate Greece, that was the essential tool.

"This is why we taught “reading” (meaning decoding ink-on-paper alphabetic texts) in school, and why we taught writing with pens and pencils, and why we introduced students to libraries. In the Gutenberg era these were the essential tools.

"I sure hope we didn’t do this to preserve our great grandfather’s skills. I hope we did it to enable our students to function in the world.

"Now, the tools of learning have changed, as have the tools of collaboration, of distribution, of creation, and if our schools do not teach these – and much more – help our students to understand how they must manipulate these tools for their purposes – and the world’s – nothing else we do in school really matters, because our students will not be able to effectively work with what they know.

"So when Troy (below) says, “Without technology an educator can be ‘successful’” I think he is wrong (I note as the spellcheck in Firefox allows me to instantly correct his misspelling “‘succecssful’” – a spellcheck which I can instantly switch between US English, British English, Australian English, Irish, and French). So is the colleague who told him, “I don’t need technology to engage my classes” – who, I bet, uses 15th to 19th Century technologies every day in her classroom (printed books, chalkboards, paper, pens, a clock, lighting, windows, chairs).

"Without the technologies which enable communication and information access, education is simply impossible. And if you choose to refuse to use the technologies your students will use – whichever antique technology you are limiting yourself to: books, carved stone tablets, hand scribed scrolls, or cave paintings, Morse Code or mail sent by sailing ship – you are abdicating your responsibility as educators."

So am I just a MacGyver tech geek? Or do I have a point...

Is learning personal or social?

There is personal, internal learning. You don't need a lot of social interaction to know, as an example, that if you stand outside and it is raining, something will change. You might even, without social interaction, learn that - depending on the season - this will feel good or not. And further, you may learn that if you are uncomfortable and you stand under a tree, you make become less uncomfortable. And I'm not here to discount any of that human learning - it is very important.

But to go beyond that - to know what rain is or to know that standing under that tree may not always be the best solution - we humans need social learning. We need to be able to share information.

And sharing information requires technology, which, as frustrating as it is to bring in an academic discussion of an old German Nazi-collaborating philosopher, brings us here...

"Heidegger found his way back to the Greeks in answering the problem of technology. The Greeks use the word techne for technology. Techne does not only refer to activities and skills of craftsman, but also for the fine arts. This is why techne as craftmaking is also techne as art. More than the idea of making and manipulating, techne is a way of bring-forth something. It is a way of letting something be known. The techne of making a statue for example is a way of bringing forth or showing the nature of the human body.

"Techne in this sense is very much related to the idea of poiesis. Poiesis is the origin of the word poetry. Poetry is an “art” of bringing forth into imagery the reality. Like the basic meaning of its etymology, poetry is a way of “revealing” something.

"Furthermore, both poiesis and techne are connected to the idea of episteme. Episteme means being at home, to understand, and be expert in something. In other words, episteme has something to do with knowledge in the broadest sense of the word. Today words taking its root from episteme, like epistemology, connote “knowledge.” Epistemology means the study of knowledge.

"These three Greek terms (techne, poiesis, episteme), although different, have the same essence; they are all processes of revealing, bringing-forth, and opening up. Thus, going back to the question of technology, what is decisive in techne or technology does not lie at all in making and manipulating, nor in using of means, but in the aforementioned revealing. Heidegger maintains: “Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence in the realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where aletheia, truth, happens.''

Technology is what allows us to socialize learning. Language (verbal and non-verbal) being, perhaps, step one. Technology also allows asynchronous social learning (step two - languages - pictorial, symbolic, and alphabetic) from the first cave paintings to Twitter. It is through technologies that the world is revealed to us, and that we reveal ourselves to the world.

Lascaux Cave Tour

So, it is a need for technology, not an unquestioning love for any specific technological set, which brings me to insist that technology is the most important set of skills we can help students learn in schools.

We all know this when we remember what "technology" is - our way of manipulating the world. And we all know this when we remember that one of the primary definers of humans is adaptive tool use.

Bonobos use tools, but they don't adapt them like humans do... (cc: Wikipedia)

Yes, plenty of other species use tools, but none adapt tools the way humans do, changing them, developing them. It is what has allowed humans to survive, and significantly, to rise from the middle to the top of the food chain.

Thus, education must be dominated by helping students to understand and adapt the tools of learning and communication. They cannot become lifelong learners without that. They cannot engage the world without that. Their "learning" - without that - becomes limited to the personal.

And we must help them learn and adapt the learning and communication tools of their time. Antique methods make nice hobbies - we still have stonecarvers and scroll artisans, people still make quill pens and papyrus (all awesome YouTube videos) - but none of that is helpful in discovering how the universe works, either mechanically or poetically. And none of that will enable them to voice their thoughts and discoveries to the world effectively.

I stand by what I said... this is not a question of MacGyver theatrics, but a question of human learning.

"Without the technologies which enable communication and information access, education is simply impossible. And if you choose to refuse to use the technologies your students will use – whichever antique technology you are limiting yourself to: books, carved stone tablets, hand scribed scrolls, or cave paintings, Morse Code or mail sent by sailing ship – you are abdicating your responsibility as educators."

- Ira Socol

[1] I had thought "ddraper" was a cute pseudonym, until I realized it was the man's name. When I coached soccer I had a player named "Steve Rambo." His jersey said "Rambo" and he took a lot of heat from opposing players... luckily, he was very good.