Lots of folks responded rather strongly to my suggestion that talking about and focusing on scalability is immoral. As usual, I appear to have done a poor job articulating my feelings. 🙂
The focus on scalability scares me because it only focuses on reaching lots of people, on reaching large numbers of people, on reaching the majority of people.
The amount of commitment necessary to reach all as opposed to many seems qualitatively different to me. I’m afraid that the focus on scaling, and talk about how great and worthy reaching the majority of people is, will allow instructional technologists to feel like they’re off the hook for reaching the few, the small numbers of people, the minority.
So yes, the work we are all doing on scaling is important. It’s foundational. But lately the people I’ve heard talk about scaling are talking about it like its the end goal. It’s not. It gets us to the majority of people. These same methods don’t get us to the minority. Things like eGranery get us to the minority.
We have to go beyond scalability in our thinking. Beyond reaching the majority. We have to think about reaching everyone. And its going to require very different thinking than the scalability thinking going on right now.
I agree: Reaching everyone requires very different thinking than the scalability thinking. Because the scalability is an issue of instrumental rationality, while reaching all is an issue of ethical and political rationality; there is qualitative difference between them. Scalability aims to maximize the number of people that we reach; exactly because of this, it is a matter of technical efficiency. However, reaching all has nothing necessarily to do with efficiency. Reaching all might be less efficient than reaching an elite group. This, however, does not make reaching all less meaningful. Reaching a small portion might yield the same “profit” with reaching all; however, there is an aesthetical difference between them and scalability may not recognize this difference.
I’ll try to express my concern about reaching “everyone” more concisely as well. Advocating universal access to education (I’ll assume that means for everyone who wants it, vs. everyone period) seems noble, until we examine the concept closely enough to consider what it might actually mean. Does it mean, for example, expanding the madrasahs of the Muslim world to create even more youth filled with hate for the non-Muslim developed world? Consider how measles and polio are on the rise in Africa because of mistrust of outside (in this case US) motives. (see http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1111639861758B252 for link to article.) If much of the world is this mistrustful about basic health care, how mistrustful do you think they might be about education, particularly if outside models are imposed? Let’s say that handheld computing devices were ubiquitiously available — which is more likely for the forseeable future, universal contented use or widespread fear that the devices are another sterilization plot?
Universal access to education is not a universally accepted notion, nor is there any clear path to making it so. Until we can address such questions concretely, it makes more sense to think about scalability IMO.
In the meantime, let’s keep thinking about what it means to reach everyone with education. Starting with some examples of where reaching “everyone” is truly essential would be one place to start. But let’s not fret about our inability to do so until we have a reasonably clear notion of what it would actually mean to implement such a social engineering endeavor…
I’ll try to express my concern about reaching “everyone” more concisely as well. Advocating universal access to education (I’ll assume that means for everyone who wants it, vs. everyone period) seems noble, until we examine the concept closely enough to consider what it might actually mean. Does it mean, for example, expanding the madrasahs of the Muslim world to create even more youth filled with hate for the non-Muslim developed world? Consider how measles and polio are on the rise in Africa because of mistrust of outside (in this case US) motives. (see http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1111639861758B252 for link to article.) If much of the world is this mistrustful about basic health care, how mistrustful do you think they might be about education, particularly if outside models are imposed? Let’s say that handheld computing devices were ubiquitiously available — which is more likely for the forseeable future, universal contented use or widespread fear that the devices are another sterilization plot?
Universal access to education is not a universally accepted notion, nor is there any clear path to making it so. Until we can address such questions concretely, it makes more sense to think about scalability IMO.
In the meantime, let’s keep thinking about what it means to reach everyone with education. Starting with some examples of where reaching “everyone” is truly essential would be one place to start. But let’s not fret about our inability to do so until we have a reasonably clear notion of what it would actually mean to implement such a social engineering endeavor…
I found this discussion very sad and very anti-Freirean. Well, actually Dave Bauer said it already pretty well: “The answer is to stop thinking about “providing” education and start thinking about facilitating or encouraging learning.”
In the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Freire makes a clear distinction between the “banking concept of education” and “problem-posing education”. It’s not hard to guess what he was promoting.
The aim of reaching everyone is immoral. It seems to be a project of expanding the banking concept of education where “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (Freire 1974 – chapter II online at: http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html.
Now I’ll go with my daughter to our little hut by the lake and we will learn something from the old fisherman who speaks a funny language you don’t understand at all. You will never reach me! 🙂