Who’s the scribe?
As an educator, one of the big “lightbulb” moments while reading, “Here Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky, was the idea about scribes and the printing press. Shirky notes:
“Professional self-conception and self-defense, so valuable in ordinary times, become a disadvantage in revolutionary times, because professionals are always concerned with threats to the profession.”
In my experiences, educators often feel like they are being attacked by outsiders and the push for educational change related to technology makes many teachers uncomfortable. But in our digital revolution I’m not sure sure that teachers are the scribes, and I think it is wise to look at other possibilities.
School
The idea that a school or school system is the “scribe” that needs to be replaced has been around for a while. Schools represent an obstacle to the digital revolution in serveral ways:
- Physical Location: A student must travel to their school and be present to receive learning. Students are limited to interacting with only the students/teachers at their physical location.
- Filtering: Schools, often by legal mandate, must filter many of the web-based services (i.e. MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, etc…) that have spawned the digital revolution.
- Rigid/Arbitrary Structure: Students are still clustered by grade-level and ability level. This often means that curriculum is based on a norm as opposed to personalized.
Student
The idea that a student is the “scribe” hasn’t been discussed much, but I think it is valuable to look at:
- Student Expectations: It seems like students expectations for themselves and schools has changed in the 9 years I’ve worked with education. Students’ expectations of themselves as learners is what needs to change so that they are responsible for their own learning.
- Student Attitudes: Student attitudes towards each other and the world have changed. American students have a skewed view of what the world owes them and don’t seem to understand what will be required of them to maintain the standard of living they enjoyed as children when they become adults.
- Student Competition: American students do not seem worried about the millions of bright and energetic students in developing countries. American students are not aware of what it will take to be competitive in a global economy were a “first-world” upbringing doesn’t insure future prosperity.
Educational Leadership
It can be argued that educational leaders are the “scribe”. The is a lot of research that points to principals and district officials as being the agent of change, here are some ways they may be the scribe:
- Modeling Technologies: I to many cases I’ve seen principals who are unwilling to use new tools to communicate, collaborate, and learn with their staff. If a leader is not willing to commit then why would a teacher.
- Bureaucratic Mess: Some educational leaders cling to the “old” way of doing things at the cost of efficiency and productivity. Leaders often make excuses for staff that are unwilling to learn/use a new technology instead of expecting professional growth.
This list is far from complete and hasn’t been particularly refined but I think it is a start.