Week 8: Question for Huw on Communities
Huw, after finishing the rest of week 8’s core readings, I have a few questions that are related to the previous blocks. I hope you could share your insights and point me in the right direction.
Bayne, Knox and Ross (2015) suggest that the open education movement is “worryingly amenable to the forces of neoliberalism in the community” (p. 2). Brown and Adler (2008) highlight the power of learning communities and collaborative online spaces.
I was from a catholic primary school. It’s is important to note that all primary schools in Singapore are still controlled by the government in terms of curriculum (to ensure that it is still secular) and student intake (to ensure that there is diversity). My parents are moderate Muslims, but now I identify as monotheistic, Abrahamic or secular humanist (depending on who I speak to). I have always been a part of somewhat religious communities.
With regards to Bayne, Knox and Ross (2014) claim, I would argue that the open education movement is also susceptible to conservatism and fundamentalism. From my online observations, I’ve noticed that a fair number of religious people are not open to discourse and re-learning. Instead, they take a militant stance on their views and only seek out knowledge to reinforce these views. Worse, some of them simply use the Internet to restate their beliefs. Similarly, Prager University is an example of conservatives pushing their own agendas by simplifying issues under the guise of “critical thinking”. These support the learning paradox. If they don’t know what they don’t know, how can they possible question what they know?
Religious schools in Singapore tend to be richer because they receive generous donations on top of state funding. A lot of the alumni are more willing to donate to their alma maters because they see it as giving back to their faiths. The lines between education and religion are quite blur. Moreover, Abrahamic faiths tend to protect the role of the teacher (i.e. religious leader/preacher). For example, Muslims believe that it is wrong for someone to learn about religion on their own without the guidance of the teacher. In Singapore, New Creation Church utilized new technologies during the Covid-19 lockdown to stream their services. I don’t think religious institutions will replace their teachers with automation. Also, though not impossible, I think religious followers are not going to be receptive to the idea of learning about their faiths from a physical or virtual automaton.
Brown and Adler (2008) provided very good examples of how learning communities and collaborative spaces can diminish the roles of the university and the teacher. However, these are examples of hard sciences where concepts, theories and beliefs are more “fixed”. Hence, collaboration is easier as it is (for the lack of a better term) people adding on to one another’s knowledge bank. For the soft sciences (e.g. philosophy, sociology, psychology), leaving such communities to their own devices might lead to stagnation or worse regression.
Lastly, religion has always been at the forefront of the spread of education. Historically, the first schools in Singapore were set up by Christian missionaries. I believe this is the case with a lot of other countries.
Questions:
- Is there a relationship between religion and education, and by proxy digital education?
- Will religious institutions be the saving grace (no pun intended) for the teacher (even non-religious ones?
- Are self-learning communities not a good idea when it comes to anything other than hard sciences?
- Is there another term for “we don’t know what we don’t know”? – Case in point, I can’t find the term because I don’t know it.
References
Bayne, S., Knox, J., & Ross, J. (2015). Open education: the need for a critical approach. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), pp. 247-250.
Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: open education, the long tail, and Learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), pp. 16–32.
Thanks for these questions. These are topics close to my heart so I’m happy (try) to answer them. I hadn’t thought of the centrality of the teacher in faith-based teaching in comparison to ICT-led teaching – very thought provoking. I’ve been witnessing a parallel form of critical thinking emerging within a lot communities including what are called Red Pillers (metaphor taken from The Matrix within which the main character takes ‘the red pill’ and sees reality for what it is). The common theme that unites this and some religious teaching is the establishment is trying to indoctrinate us and there is an alternative and better worldview available.
Answers:
1) Yes and it goes back centuries. In many ways education, especially Enlightenment thinking, emerged from religion as men (women weren’t allowed to think) sought to reveal the majesty of God’s creations through Science. But then they realised that they didn’t need the concept of god to explain anything and eventually realised that god was a social construct. We, in sociology at least, understand religion as what Foucault called a technology of power; a system of rituals, knowledge production and protection that maintains hierarchies of power and control: particularly ones within which men stay in positions of power. This is why we had wars about who had the authority to read The Bible out loud, or translate it into English, we had The Spanish Inquisition, and so many heretics were tortured and burned at the stake – established churches trying to maintain their monopoly on knowledge and truth.
2) I hope not because I think education should be taken away from religious institutions; especially those implicated in child abuse scandals and the protection of ignorance.
3) Self directed learning is important and valuable but even hard science needs guidance – science is still value driven, contingent and provisional – however there are also hard scientific facts such as evolution that aren’t open to question – learners need to know the difference.
4) There’s a whole sub-field of sociology called agnotology https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=11232 that studies this.