The Burden of Knowledge
Yesterday my wife and I did something we haven’t done in quite a long time – we attended a church service.
One of the things that came out during the sermon really struck me in regards to teaching and the nature of knowledge.
Leading up to Christmas, the pastor had been spending a number of weeks unpacking the scriptures used in Handel’s Messiah. This particular week he was focusing on Matthew 11:30, where Jesus is quoted as saying, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” As the pastor set up the historical context for the verse, he began talking about different rabbinical teachers, and comparing the teachings of Jesus to other teachers at the time. One of the offhand statements he made was that at the time, students would choose to study under a particular rabbi, and then ‘take on’ their teachings as a way to live their own life.
What I found so interesting was how concepts of ‘teaching and teacher’ in this context are tied to the metaphor of a yoke, an instrument of control or discipline. In agricultural terms, the yoke is the device used to control oxen, and through this control, to allow the power generated by the animals to transfer efficiently to the cart being towed. The yoke constricts the oxen from wandering, and funnels the energy in a forward direction.
Comparatively, to study under a teacher during this time would mean to take on their teachings – or to adopt a way of being in the world that was modeled or constrained by the ‘teaching’. In this way, the student would be offering up elements of their life to be controlled or ‘yoked’ by the teacher – with the underlying assumption that the student gives up some measure of control to be disciplined by the teaching. In this way, the teaching itself takes on an ontological dimension – the students in this historical context do not study to ‘learn information’ or ‘gather knowledge’ but rather to ‘become something.’ This has a radically different view of knowledge than what we currently hold – where the underlying goals are to acquire as much information as possible, and to have our students ‘race to the top’ with standardized outcomes and high stakes testing. In our world, what we can amass is far more valued than who we are.
After the service I began to wonder when this type of relationship between teacher and students changed. It would seem strange now to think of my own students striving to live their lives ‘under’ my teaching – or that the purpose of my teaching is to somehow ‘yoke’ my students to become something. It’s obviously tied to the accompanying change in the nature of knowledge, so I would guess during the scholastic period and rise of ‘secular’ forms of knowing during the 12th century. It was also cemented during the early days of public education, when Taylor introduced the factory model of efficiency into the foundation of schooling.
And while this model of ‘teaching’ seems antiquated and almost uncomfortable to me, I wonder if we have lost something in the radical de-contextualization of knowledge that modern curriculum is built around. It is rare to find curriculum presented in a way that makes an ethical or moral ‘call’ on a student – and its not often we hear of knowledge or teaching that ‘yokes’ students. We have an enlightened 21st Century worldview that seems to celebrate freedom and personal liberty above all else – so to think of knowledge being a burden or weight strikes us as ancient and constricting. Who could possibly tell us how to live? What would it mean for knowledge to intrude into my life and constrict my personal freedom? When do we think of knowing being equal to suffering or burden?
I wonder too about the role of ‘networks’ in light of this view of knowing. There’s so much talk in the edu-sphere about personalized learning – of teaching students to teach themselves – that teachers should be teaching students to learn from the network. But I wonder if this is yet another step away from the historic understanding of ‘teaching’ – where students undertook a discipline in order to become something. If the network is the new teacher – are we yet another step further from authority?
I know many might shudder at the mention of ‘authority.’ I recognize that it’s a term loaded with oppression and control – but I still wonder if we are losing some of the authority of knowledge and ‘teaching’ – teaching in the historical and relational sense – where a student enters into, and under, the careful and compassionate guidance of an expert – one who has gone before, is able to steer, correct and pass wisdom onto the next generation. Right now, I’m not convinced that networks and social tools are the answer.
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Love this post Neil. Very interpretive, I think.
You know, the Japanese did this forever and still do in traditional circles, especially within the arts. 'Uchideshi' literally means 'home student' as in, the student lived with the teacher, worked for the teacher, learned for the teacher, became something from this 'being' with the teacher. I think it resonates very well with your post. I once travelled all over Japan studying a martial art -from dojo to dojo. I returned to my original teacher in Japan, who had taught me for four years straight. He saw my changed art, asked me about it, and I explained that I had learned it our there, from other sensei. He told me I did not understand the art at all. That was a very hard lesson. Thankfully I got the point and sensei and I were able to get back to being in the relationship of student and teacher, as a way of being with one another, not as a means of 'stuffing my head with info' which happens a lot here as you point out, and also in martial arts in the west too. It's very very very difficult to get student to know that what they are learning is less about the actual 'content' and more about being with one another, and how that relationship is the vehicle for a kind of discipline which allows the rest to happen as a course of becoming something…
Thanks Neil. I'm enjoying your posts!
Great post! Thanks for sharing.
Aren't networks and social tools the reflective part of our learning? An opportunity to share ideas that might be useful rather than choosing particular teacher to become like? Selectiveness required, active learning essential, constructivism in practice – an opportunity to make sense of what we are doing? the conversation between the disciples rather than the rabbi and disciples? Maybe a rabbi leading it if it is led by a teacher, maybe not if a professional PLN e.g. group of teachers discussing ICT uses on twitter….
My practice is my practice and your practice is your practice, because I've got my selectiveness and you've got yours, and well, constructivism runs this danger of being subjectivism, of being every person for himself and if not that, then the collective agreed upon construction. Is there not a need for mastery or masterful experiences to help guide, as in the sense of having practical wisdom to say "No you don't. Not that." Or "Yup. Go this way." Is this not what professors do in a sense, especially with thesis or research work – they mentor us along the way through their practical wisdom in the field of expertise. I think it is not about becoming like teacher, but becoming something with the guidance of one who has gone before, and has experiences a becoming of something, and knows how to foster it, guide it along, keep the becoming something perpetually open so that one continues to grow within a discipline…
Hi Neil,
An interesting post…thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I too have a deep interest in networks (and associated theory), especially as it is being taken up most recently with regards to learning at 'any pace/place/time'. I have just finished writing an initial response to a draft Technology in Education policy for Alberta, and in this piece note the following:
The suggestion that “digitally competent students are self-directed learners” fails to account for a deeper understanding of the issues related to digitally customized (personalized) learning.
Alberta Education has been sharing a vision for K–12 learning in any pace/place/time, particularly in conversations related to Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans and the 2008 Distributed Learning Forum. In these conversations, students are not bound by a social or physical space but can be autonomous learners as long as they have access to highly customized content and the technological network. Simply put, the language suggests a focus on an efficiency model of content delivery packages across networks, one that is technologically instrumental and naïve to the contemporary research on learning.
Framing learning as an act of “delivery” through a technological medium where pace and location (time/place) are inconsequential engenders a larger discussion (primarily corporate) of managing and marketing learning in a mass customized framework. It draws on the success and appeal of differentiated learning and then twists them into the notion that differentiation is only about the individual autonomous learner, not the learning community or collective and social context.
The research on learning is unambiguous: education is about not just content and customization but also a collective and highly relational set of experiences/activities within a community of learners. Learning is a socially constructed, active and inquiry-oriented process that engages individuals in social, emotional, cultural and deeply intrapersonal experiences. This research holds true regardless of whether one is considered digitally literate or is a member of Generation Y (also known as the New Millennial Generation or Net Generation).
When we move from the research on learning into this warped, digitally customized (personalized) learning space of any pace/place/time, learning is positioned as a mechanical act of delivery, not a socially constructed space of inquiry and collaboration. In Alberta, our public education system has been successful because certificated teachers have spent a great deal of time in universities learning to become teaching professionals, and then over time (and as the provincial context changes), they continue to gain knowledge of and experience in supporting the complex conditions necessary for student engagement and learning to flourish in a digital age. As Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) suggest,
With customized learning, students access existing and unchanged kinds of conventional learning through different means—on site or off site, online or offline, in school or out of school, quickly or slowly. . . . [B]ut the nature of learning is not transformed into something deeper, more challenging, and more connected to compelling issues in their world and their lives. . . . . [T]wenty-first century schools must also embrace deeper virtues and values such as courage, compassion, service, sacrifice, long-term commitment and perseverance.
Customized learning is pleasurable and instantly gratifying. Nevertheless it . . . ultimately becomes just one more process of business-driven training delivered to satisfy individual consumer tastes and desires.
…So if this is of interest, you can read further at: http://www.teachers.ab.ca. I am trying to foster a more sophisticated conversation about technology in education (grounded in learning theories), and your posts add to this generative dialogue.
Have a great holiday and a safe and prosperous New Year.
Phil McRae
I think we as a society have misplaced our democratic roots in the push to increase test scores. As a teacher it is my hope that my students will become something, not a baker or a butcher but participatory citizens. These networks make it possible for technology to become a place for connections. This place can and must be co-created and potentially technology can become democratic tools. Teachers in this place need to be present and participate in a transparent way. As an older teacher (52) I find these places devoid of my generation and I really wonder what the 50 something teachers are afraid of. Young people have few to set an example in how to behave in the digital public. Students can learn how to be participatory citizens only by having it modeled for them. So yes I agree with the old old school in this case. I want my students to become something.
The last question ask suggests that social media and having a mentor are possibly at odds. It reminded research that began as a study about guilds and apprenticeships. The assumption at the beginning of the study was that the relationship between the mentor and the novice, or in your article between the expert and the follower, was the source of knowledge sharing. It seemed only logical. The master had been there before, and could share that understanding with the beginner. However, the result of the study was quite different. It appears that rather than a master/novice relationship being the primary source of the learning, it was actually the relationship between the novices and the not-so-new novices in the apprenticeship. As each member of the apprenticeship moved closer to expert performance, it was the social processing, or as Brown and Duguid call it, “The Social Life of Information”, that promoted primary learning not another lecture from the mentor. I learned there were three elements to this rich learning space. 1) A common topic of interest that drove the gathering (much like the choice of a “teacher” in your article, 2) a gathering place for learning, exchange and the production of common learning artifacts, and 3) and sense of identity that was shared as each underwent this learning process. Social media, is a gathering place. The question is, are they talking about your teaching? If not, why not?