Gaps
Something's missing if we think learning is mostly about access to knowledge
I went to a conference in Melbourne. I liked it. It made me think about how so often we look at the wrong things and that fools us into believing that if we innovatively fix them we’re home and hosed.
He talks to us about education, specifically the worldwide trends over the last two years which are, basically, that kids have learned less. He has graphs that prove this, and I look at them and I want to put my hand up and ask him why he thinks this is so because edtech has ruled education for the last two years and that was supposed to be the answer
The wide, skinny room is polkadoted with tables and I think — that means the stage is close no matter where I sit. But I don’t want to be close. I don’t want to be in the eyeing line. I see an empty table back left corner and I think, that’s the spot for me; I make a beeline for it, and sit. But now it’s weird. Lots of people know each other. There is a lot of conversation, a lot of full tables full of smart looking people leaning in, confident; a lot of people coming in thrilled to join people already seated and be smart and confident too. I’m suddenly very conscious of being here alone, and that makes me very conscious of the vibes I’m giving off and so I sit a bit straighter and adjust my face.
And then two people join me. They know each other, they have food - a rushed breakfast, I find out soon - and they are deep in some kind of secret chat. Disrupting that feels rude, so I keep to myself. Still, I’m listening for a gap while also thinking about how hard this is, about how I need to be brave enough to open my mouth soon because soon it’s going to be too late and I’ll have to live with this weird feeling that will sit between us and that will make soon feel like forever. I think this and then my friend Marty jumps into my mind — he helped me learn the little bit I know about va - and that little bit I know makes me really aware of the space between me and these other two people. And then there’s a gap, and I say hello.
Va is something that needs to be cared for, nurtured. We all have a responsibility to do that, but the nature of what we can do is inextricably linked to our social position and role.
I’ve written about va before. Here is one of those things
Marty quotes Mila-Shaaf and Hudson in his PhD. They say this about nurturing va
“Teu le va is often translated as ‘making beautiful the va’: balance, symmetry, beauty – these are unapologetically ‘Pacific’ aesthetic values strongly linked to wellbeing and good outcome... As a matter of preference, connections are made and conflict minimised out of concern for the relationship and a desire for harmony and symmetry within the engagement."
I like this quote because it makes my mind arrow in on cutting questions. Questions like, how many classrooms are beautiful spaces and who has the most responsibility for making them so? I don’t just mean about the walls.
At precisely 9am, two precisely confident people step onto the stage, just as they’d promised. They talk about global trends in health, climate and education and they have excellent, clear images on their slides. It is very interesting and I can see many people think so too because lots of people are making notes in their paper notebooks - which I think is extremely interesting at a summit focused on innovation - and that makes me think that I should get my notebook out too, but then I remember that at university I would sit and listen and think of questions and that seemed to be what worked best for me so I decide not to, and then a fascinating graphic of the global mean average temperature over the last 100 years comes up and I’m really pleased I’m not distracted from that by taking notes. I get to feel what it shows me — alarm.
Here’s something — all around me phones get raised and photos taken of that graphic, and that makes me feel alarm too because my phone isn’t out and even though I think of getting it out I know that by the time I do it’ll be too late. I can’t even draw it in my notebook. All I have is an emotion and a simple thought, nothing I can point to and say look, I was engaged.
Right on time they finish, exactly as promised. Google logos appear on the slideshow and a man from Google wearing a black Google t-shirt springs onto the stage and says he’s from Microsoft, and we all laugh. He talks to us about education, specifically the worldwide trends over the last two years which are, basically, that kids have learned less. He has graphs that prove this, and I look at them and I want to put my hand up and ask him why he thinks this has happened because edtech has ruled education for the last two years and that was supposed to be the answer, but I don’t because I chose this table to be out of the eyeing line — plus I remember I’m at a summit focused on innovation and there’s meant to be nothing more innovative than technology. But I do think to myself that it’s a good question, and it stays in my head for the rest of the day.
It’s a question that’s loud in my head when I’m in the room that’s focused on edtech and I’m listening to some CEOs talk about their products, their journey (ugh), and what’s in the pipeline, and one, in particular, makes me think that what he seems to be doubling down on is a suite of what we’ve had lots of during covid - knowledge access, video, monitoring - but he seems very pleased and can talk about impact with reference to numbers and is confident and has lots of money behind him, and all that makes me feel a little bit sad. Is all this actually making learning better for kids? — I write this question in my notebook. And then there’s a question about what’s different about education as an industry, and they all can answer it because these CEOs have no education background prior to them running these companies so they have a point of contrast. But that makes me wonder how they know what to build, because my education background has helped me see that trying to squish knowledge into kids' heads quickly when they have no control of what and when, and basing relationships on compulsion that’s guided by the tracking of achievement data is the fast track to disengagement and helplessness. I write this down too.
But then after lunch another man from Google wearing a Google t-shirt who says he’s from Google is on stage during a session called, ‘Evidencing Outcomes in EdTech and Online Learning: What Matters?’ which is basically about how do we judge the effectiveness of our products? — and he asks, Is anyone asking the kids what matters and what is effective? I laugh quietly because I know it’s a rhetorical question, but no one else laughs, they’re all nodding seriously or scribbling into their notebooks. And then he tells a story of his two kids. I like his story and what he’s trying to say with it and that makes me think that I might like him, and the session becomes interesting to me — has that happened to you too? After the session he’s by the coffee station; I pretend to get a coffee and a pastry so I have an excuse to talk to him. I say, Thank you for saying what you did, and he likes the compliment. We talk, and we get on — wavelength stuff — and when we’re done I am really happy because I have met someone who understands where I’m coming from.
Where am I coming from?
Well, perhaps it is something like this: learning is simple if we understand that learners are complex.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s the connection, the relationship, that matters, and while that is complex territory to navigate, if it’s good then learning isn’t as hard as it can be if kids are isolated achievement units.
Something like that, anyway.