edupunk

Note: this is a comment that is currently in the moderation queue of the original blog.

Hello, Ken,

In reading through this post (as I did, a couple times) before replying, I was left wondering if you had actually read any of the posts you linked to. For example, you link to the post Authority is not truth — in this post, the author links to a very detailed analysis that debunks some blatant inaccuracies of a WaPo article. What is the matter with that? It’s an excellent model of critical thought. Read the article. Please.

RE: “These guys look intellectually and emotionally indistinguishable from their students.” — I don’t know what’s worse, the disdain this shows for students, or the pretension about the value of appearance.

This also flies in the face of your line in a recent comment: “You mentioned suits. I don’t wear ‘em.” — which flies directly in the face of your picture on your about page, which is of some guy (you?) in a coat and tie. Personally, I don’t care. But, since you brought it up… IMO, wisdom doesn’t need a fashion sense.

You also mention “Forty year old tenured men” — and this comment again raises the specter that you haven’t actually read the people you criticize. Who among them has tenure? (Hint: not many). Your generalizations diminish your credibility.

In your original post, you say, “Ultimately, however, I would not recommend that we politicize learning 2.0 and certainly not by reducing it to the level of of DIY culture.”

Then, in a comment, you say: “I also tried to post on your Half an Hour, but Blogspot is blocked here in China and I can’t comment through a proxy.”

This juxtaposition raises a couple thoughts: First, in the states, anyways, education is politicized. IMO, learning 2.0 is a useless expression that, like most labels (and I include edupunk as well, btw) reduces some useful ideas to bitesized pieces the marketing guys can sell — but that’s an entirely separate conversation. NCLB, net neutrality, the role of texbook companies in creating policy decisions — you’d need to be blind to deny that politics and economics haven’t played a role in shaping educational policy.

And then, you say that Blogspot is blocked in China. So how is it that blogspot is blocked? Feels a little political to me. Any impact/connection between learning/net neutrality/censorship?

Also, as you read the posts you link to, do you ever get the sense that maybe, just maybe, there’s a little tongue in cheek going on here? Maybe? Because, as the author of one of posts you link to, I feel pretty comfortable saying you missed it.

Cheers,

Bill

Okay. This is starting to feel like a movement.

The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

-- The Clash, Clampdown. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones

At its most rich, education is subversive. Education means struggling, at times for the sake of struggle. It means getting angry about the right things, and acting constructively to address them. Edupunk means sounding a barbaric YAWP in the interest of curiousity as to what will come out. I don't know when the notion of education as a transformative force lost currency as part of the mainstream discourse (here in the states, I suspect it was right around the time that the notion had difficulty fitting in a scantron bubble, or getting you into The Right School), but it's nice to at least hear people talking about a DIY ethic founded on openness and transparency as a solid way forward.

And I'd like mine in a large, please.

Seriously. Who did up the shirts?