A New Pedagogy? or A-bloggin' I Will Go. . .

A New Pedagogy?
Or
“A-bloggin’ I will go”


Submitted by Kay Dean
In Partial Fulfillment of the Class
Edu 255


I have chosen three of our author’s blogs: “If We Could Start All Over, What Would We
Build?, “The Future of My Kids’ Work”, and “New Reading, New Writing”. These three are some of his newest postings, and they caught my eye immediately.
In “If We Could Start All Over, What Would We Build?”, the leading question is basically if we knew then, what we know now, how would we do things differently? Well, that is an age-old question, not unique to the 21st Century! Our textbook author, Will Richardson, has been blogging for eight years! Obviously, he walks the walk and talks the talk. Eight years is about the age of one of my sixteen grandchildren! So, I am really behind the times!
His musings on this subject began when he read an article by Tom Carroll, which was written in the year 2000—an entire year before Richardson began blogging. The Web 2.0 was in its infancy, and Mr. Carroll had a vision of what it could be and should be used for. Richardson feels that “most people” would find his 2000 article difficult to handle. He did not make it plain as to whose “these people are”, but he did refer to educators as being some of “those people”. I agree with him, mainly because I am an educator, and until this class, I had NO idea the ramifications of Web 2.0, let alone even what it was – a full nine plus years after Mr. Carroll’s article!
I resent Mr. Richardson’s generalized comment that “actually, there’s little “new” anywhere in the thinking about school and teachers and classroom learning right now.” I know lots of examples of schools who are on the cutting edge of education and effective teaching and learning. The fact that he believes that there are “only a handful” of educators in any student’s K-12 life really makes my blood boil.
Sure, with hindsight, we could have more foresight, but I for one, feel like the majority of educators are doing their level best to be better teachers and to stay up with the “emerging technologies”. (With one exception that I know of – me!!) The constraints that current day educators are under are immense. High stakes testing, low budgets, and the home life of a large percentage of students in their K-12 classrooms are just a few of the demands teachers have.
In “The Future of My Kids’ Work”, Richardson’s leading argument is that our workspaces/places will look very different from what they look like now. I agree wholeheartedly. He says we “may never get to retire.” I agree with him that there are worlds of opportunities out there, even now in this “depressive” state of the economy. Well, I’ve retired officially three times now, and I am still working, so that is not much different!
I’m not sure where he has been of late, but hello, women have been at the controls since Adam and Eve – they are just being allowed to do more now. I don’t see that shift changing, and neither does he, but I’m not sure that the word “increasingly” is the correct one to use to describe women being at the helm. Using the word “continuing” to be in charge, would be a better choice.
With 40% of the United States’ workforce being independent contractors by the year 2019, that is not that far away. I am sure Mr. Richardson is right that not too many (if any) classrooms discussed the Time magazine article that Mr. Carroll wrote. I didn’t understand, though, why after he had put credence in Mr. Carroll’s article, that Mr. Richardson made the statement “I know Time’s vision may not come to fruition”. That seems counterintuitive to me.
The third and final On My Mind blog by Mr. Richardson that I have chosen is “New Reading, New Writing”. His leading argument in this blog compares two articles/essays on the topic of reading and writing across the Internet. His description of how one can interact with reading and writing that someone else has done in cyberspace is fascinating.
I love his reflection on how “no one will read alone anymore”. This is a whole new idea to me. Mr. Richardson maintains that reading will become “a community event”, with each part and parcel of the book launching a global conversation not just a single person’s reflection.
In summary, I enjoy reading Mr. Richardson’s blogs, as well as the textbook for our class. He is logical and a deep thinker. He also is an innovator, and would like to see the emerging technologies being used more prolifically in the classroom setting. I remember a statement of one of my professors in a master’s level classroom. The reason education is called an “institution” is because institutions are stable, firmly foundationalized systems. Our government is an institution. My professor used the analogy of governments in South America. They are fluid systems that can change with the wind, so to speak. We certainly don’t want our government, let alone our educational system to be “changing with the wind”. That is the good news. The bad news is that when change is eminent, institutions are the last to change.