The Complexity of Racism Based Action

This was a difficult blog to write because diversity, and by way of otherness, is such a grotesquely simple topic that provokes a wide range of crazy. I was going to go through and list protests that have occurred at Virginia Tech, such as the 2003 affirmative action case involving Attorney General Kilgore's opinion about the legality (he said it was invalid) of Virginia Tech's affirmative action policy,  that one didn't work out well. I wanted to talk about Professor Christopher Clement, who's scholarship and educational background were grounds for employment termination. There were others, and I welcome other memories in the comments, but without challenging our everyday assumptions that enable institutional racism, these protest memories will keep being posted. So I don't know how to do this post, other than post a racial toned Louis CK explaining whiteness, and Angela Davis explaining violence.

Pseudo-Authority in the Time of Culpability

At last night's (2/13/13) GEDI class included a discussion regarding Authority versus Authoritarianism in the classroom and the role of the instructor of setting a tone to complete class business. This discussion was based, to some extent, on a reading by M. Wimer. In the reading the author makes a case for a democratic pedagogy, with student centered learning enhanced via increased student power, in the classroom and in class business decision making. Many things were said about the piece, that I will not get into here, but news out today renders the discussion slightly moot.

Take a moment to read the following: (it is short)

Northampton County judge rules there's enough evidence in suit over student's poor grade to move forward

Think about that case. Here you have a professor, being sued, as a result of their authority. It made me wonder if professors and instructors actually have authority in the classroom. If students have the ability to force professors to pay out of pocket expenses for court cases involving grades, who actually has the power? If anything, wouldn't the student have more power, by default, than the instructor? Adjunct's are historically known for their poverty*, would they become a target? Would they be more inclined to give everyone A's? Would wealthier students simply bring a legal team to campus with them? Are they actually students or are they officially, customers?

As you can see, this cases raises a bunch of questions for me. What are some of your thoughts on the matter and do you think students should be able to find faculty and staff personally liable for grade related damages. 

*proof

Systems Education or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

So I am watching the New Learners of the 21st Century PBS documentary and I was in awe during the segment by James Paul Gee on systems. I was in awe because he wasn't talking about General Systems or Complexity Science, Chaos Theory, or even Complex Adaptive Systems. No instead Dr. Gee is talking about Game Theory as Systems Theory. This is problematic because Game Theory, an incremental bureaucratic for decision making created by the Rand Corporation during the design of the atomic bomb (States have an interest in determining the optimal time required for extermination), involves absolute-rationality. What do I mean by that? Well, it means that the practitioner (student in this case) is assumed to know everything in a complex environment and can take that information and complete the necessary processes for optimal (not correct) outcomes.

I hope you see the problem. The student, by default, does not know everything. The student is already limited with the application of this learning style. This style would require an all knowing teacher/facilitator, something not guaranteed.

This reminds me of planning, and my research, as it relates to decision making. Planners historically operated as "systems" practitioners. Everything was great until the 1950's, but the problems were apparent. Charles Lindbolm's The Science of Muddling Through released in 1959 highlights the rigor that practitioners actually operate, and the incrementalism that is encouraged with real world applications of game theory. Writing later, John Forester's Bounded Rationality and the Politics of Muddling Through, presents the practitioner dilemma found above. For Forester, the practitioner doesn't know everything, is well aware of this, but still operates using rational decision making. In the end, planners aren't systems practitioners, instead they fall into a Weberian self-sustaining, caged bureaucratic existence...

There are alternatives! Learning systems that promote knowledge generation, encourage practitioner/student participation in learning, and enable social change. That is what I think is necessary in a 21st century learner.

The following is the trailer for Koyaanisqatsi, notice the built environment of rationality compared to the organic.

Hermeneutical Challenges in Unstructured Learning Environments

You are looking at a screen. This screen is not the absolute of your life, there are other things going on behind that screen and behind your head. You may be aware of this issue. So what does this have to do with GEDI? Simple, you are judging this blog, the author/publisher, and all elements related to the dissemination of the said author/publisher's thought. But how are you judging this post? Is it a good post? What if the diction read differently. Are you one to hate mispellings and grammar, errors? What about the use of specific words? I know I hate the word "guts," it literally makes me feel queasy. If I read a blog that has that word, I get sick. How do you think that hypothetical author's work is going to be judged by me? How about we go even further. What screen are you looking at? Is it one of those expensive screens that says droid when it lights up? Or are you broke and looking at this in the library? How do you think that is going to affect the review of the material? Richy, with a three grand phone is probably going to have different objective standards than the person who ate cat food for lunch. What is the weather like when you are reading this blog? Do you hear anything? Are you racist? Do you have a driver's license? When is the last time you bought shoes? Do people even read blogs the same as they do, say a magazine? Most student papers can be assumed to be black ink on a piece of papyrus that is about 8.5 by 11 inches. This is a screen. The "newness" of blogs is alluring, but it seems to me that they present to much unknown for everyone involved, leading to potential student troubles related to questionable posts and end of semester grades. This is my problem with having free range learning with limited structure and the item of blogs in particular. Review, at least the bureaucratic sort we force students to go through at Virginia Tech, requires placing students in categories of merit. We wax about how the goal is for students to learn and that failure is ok, but that is false. The student may be taking out huge sums of money for an education. Failure represents a monetary loss for the student. Without a guaranteed plan for success, the investment potential from the class is diminished or completely non-existent. As the university is a corporation, it probably wants its endeavors to be economically feasible (at least for Virginia Tech). With no way to guarantee future results for the student, even heightening the students financial risk, the course becomes less marketable in the long term. Why would the University want to keep the program on payroll. You have probably gone back to facebook stalking.