Stream of consciousness alert! I thought I’d make use of this blog post to consolidate what I’ve learnt in weeks 1 and 2 and the feedback from Huw. I believe the concepts I cover in this blog post will give me a better understanding of Sian’s (2015) article, which I’ve skimmed.

Observations

I thought I’d start off with my observations from my own personal life to provide more context.

I was from a struggling working-class family where a university education was not an option. The advice I received from family members revolved around gaining employable skills. These pieces of wisdom echoed statements from the government. After secondary school, I chose to pursue a diploma in Mechanical Engineering instead of doing my A levels. My “education” at this stage was largely vocational; most of the time, I was taught to do and not to think about what I’m doing.

I am not having a go at the working class or belittling their motivations. I truly understand their struggles and motivations. But this leads me to my main point.

Should we simply view education as a way to ensure survivability? Education forms a significant portion of our lives. For most people, it is the first two decades and that is a considerable amount of time. Surely, it should do more than help us overcome the bottom three levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (see fig 1 below), which are our physiological, safety and belongingness and love needs? This example also highlights the influence that the state and the (educational) system have on people’s worldview.

Image 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs taken from McLeod, S. (2020). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

The cost of reducing education to a supply system for business and industry

Doing so causes problems. The first is that we may be robbing people of the chance to lead more meaningful lives. In the video below (see video 1), Johnny Harris (2019) shares his experience of learning crucial “soft skills and critical thinking skills” at university that has made him a more “nuanced and powerful thinker”. Personally, I have prefer the term “inquiry skills” because “soft skills” feels like it includes things such as “public speaking” and “presentation”.

Video 1: Harris, J. (2019, January 13). Should you go to college [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYjBxxm0lmM

Arming a student with inquiry skills will help them make better sense of more latent issues in their lives such as the influence from politics and the building of stronger personal relationships, among other things. After reading the article by Biesta (2013), a recommendation from Huw, I got a better understanding this. We need to empower students. Social mobility in terms of financial security is an important goal, but it isn’t enough in tackling bigger issues like inequality.

Secondly, “hard skills” may not be translatable. Even if they are, they won’t be if a student will not be able to see the links.

Education and training: A case of semantics?

The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary  (Oxford University Press, n.d.) defines education as “a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools, colleges or universities, to improve knowledge and develop skills”. In contrast, it defines training as “the process of learning the skills that you need to do a job (Oxford University press, n.d).

We have to be careful to not reduce education to training. If we do, it’s like we’re saying:
“There’s no need to question or think (deeply). Just go out there and get a job”.

Sian unpacks the term “technology-enhanced learning” in her article. It is important to consider the motivations behind such terms, because they are not random. They have been semantically pieced together for a purpose. Every now and then, educators hear of some new buzzword that claims to revolutionise the landscape and benefit a generation of students.

Meritocracy

In the last few years, meritocracy in Singapore has taken on negative overtones due to its association with elitism and there has been an ongoing debate over social inequality and stratification in society.

The problem with meritocracy is that is contextual and its definition is malleable. What goes into the criteria of a judging process is determined by the assessors. It can be abused.

Here’s an example. Recently, the government’s response to the diminishing faith in meritocracy was to replace examinations for primary 1 and 2 students with teachers’ assessments of their progress. Firstly, these assessments are highly subjective. This allows for things like subservience to be rebranded as “demonstrates respect”. Additionally, parents who more well-off are going to prepare their children for examinations in primary 3 right from the start by sending them to private tuition centres. This might widen the gap because those from lesser privileged homes will not have had the exposure to an examination setting.

Huw provided an example of how the screening process at Oxford takes into account other factors and not only “high IQ”. I am not arguing that IQ should be the defining factor, but all of the candidates had already proven (to a degree) that they had “high enough IQs”. We don’t need to pick the fastest runner in the platoon to be the commissioned officer, but it should be someone fast enough.

As someone moves up the education pyramid, the ability to acquire knowledge is insufficient. Inquiry is necessary for progress (Huw, is this an example of essentialism?).

The pivotal role that digital literacy plays

New technologies are a government’s wet dream. If the goal is to remain in power, the ideal situation would be to have a workforce that is capable (i.e. trained) to do the work, but incapable of questioning those in power. New technologies are the magic bullet in this Orwell-Huxley collaboration of a nightmare.

As Davies (2019) puts it: “Therefore no digital literacy programme is ever likely to work unless it produces reflexive critical thinkers, motivated to challenge their own thinking and postionality: people know and care when they are being sold a biased or racist view of history, pseudo-science or when they are being manipulated.”

Technology on its own has not made us “reflexive critical thinkers”. Many are simply using it to reinforce their existing biases (e.g. “______ (insert preferred deity) is the only way to salvation!”).

References

Oxford University Press. (n.d.) Education. In oxfordlearnersdictionary.com dictionary. Retrieved October 3, 2020, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/education?q=education

Oxford University Press. (n.d.) Training. In oxfordlearnersdictionary.com dictionary. Retrieved October 3, 2020, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/training?q=training

Davies, H. (2019, June 15). Digital literacy vs the anti-human machine: A proxy debate for our times. Medium. https://medium.com/@huwcdavies/digital-literacy-vs-the-anti-human-machine-b2884a0f075c

Week 2: New technologies: Spreading information but not skills? / Illyas Lim Effandi / An introduction to digital environments for learning (2020/2021)[SEM1] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0