Criss-crossing.

criss-cross

ˈkrɪskrɒs/

verb

gerund or present participle: crisscrossing

1. form a pattern of intersecting lines or paths on (a place).

   
   

   "the green hill was criss-crossed with a network of sheep tracks"

   • move or travel around (a place) by going back and forth repeatedly.

     
     

     "the President criss-crossed America"

   
   

We set up the meeting for 15:00 Finnish time. 

I am never quite sure whether in France we are one hour ahead or behind. 

Leena found the mistake...

It was one hour behind.

A week or so before, I had sat with a Maritta from Finland, Terry in the US, Teresa in the UK and Marcin in Poland on a smartphone and a group of French teachers talking about higher education in an age of technology and connectivity saturation.

They had talked of the lack of training in pedagogy in their context.

They had showed interest in the possibilities of continuing conversations between countries, of investigating the possibilities sharing their pedagogical practices and discovering those of others.

The days before I had been busy with facilitating exchanges between French, Polish and UK students as part of the CLAVIER project.

#clavedu @WarwickLanguage @RoselyneHenry1 @mcrustan @makle1 @MarittaRiekki @LauraTommaso1 #warcler #kracler to be continued... pic.twitter.com/zmq5zfv3yk

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 22, 2017

It was the third and fourth time that we had had physical exchanges with students from Poland and the UK.

It is these criss-crossing of paths which enable us to learn deeply and gradually to change together.

It is a slow at times pain-staking process.

I am currently reviewing and mapping out my reflection here in this blog concerning the CLAVIER.

Having written at speed, now I am going back slowly trying to get an overview, an other view.

Criss-crossing.

So there we were, Christine, Leena, Maritta, and myself in a hangout.

If with Leena and Maritta we have been in contact for two or three years, the time taken to really understand each others' contexts has been limited.

I had sketched out some possibly areas of converging interests for conversation during the hangout and sought to find out whether we might find spaces to work together.

Just before the hangout, I engaged in a short Twitter conversation with Jesse Stommel who I noticed had tweeted the following:

Higher education pedagogy, as a field, remains strangely marginalized to the point of being almost nonexistent at most institutions.

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) March 22, 2017

Thereon there was a rapid exchange of tweets between the US, the UK and perhaps elsewhere.

Meanwhile we concentrated on the hangout.

Time was short, it felt, only an hour to try and explain my thinking and to attempt to find some sort of common ground.

Retrospectively that was perhaps absurd.

We need so much time to make sense of contexts that we have never lived.

I think now of all the time - the five or six years of I have spent criss-crossing the English channel, getting to know the context of the language centre in Warwick University.

As I spoke more and more, I felt more uncomfortable.

I felt that the picture that I was painting was difficult for Leena and Maritta to decode or at least to translate into their very different context.

I am becoming to realise that there is a chasm between work in an English language centred philology department and traversal foreign language service like the one in which I am employed.

As we teachers we have much in common with the librarians with whom we collaborate.

We are subject neutral, even if we get to specialise over the years within specific departments.

It is this element about my work which I enjoy, the ability to cross disciplinary boundaries.

It seems that these question of boundaries, national, institutional, social, disciplinary are at the forefront of our concerns today.

During the hangout Christine had a back-grounded telephone conversation going on in her office which with the audio system became fore-grounded at times during the hangout.

Open conversation across boundaries is not without obstacles.

And yet we are thrown together by this "internet" this global network.

If some are free, have the power to pass through boundaries with impunity, we inevitably get pulled back into the little boxes within which we are grounded.



I am looking forward to Maritta coming to France in June so that we may deepen our understanding of our contexts and to speak of possible ways forward.

I am wondering whether Maritta, Leena and Christine will share their reflections on our meeting, will meet me and others on Twitter to connnect.

I look forward to reading and hearing more of their stories.

Will their student teachers finish by working with us in Clermont Ferrand?

Will their teachers exchange what it is to work in these strangely connected times?

Will we learn to work together over time?

Time will tell.

In the meantime I will continue my reflective path.

It is when those distant voices come to people our little boxes an instant and change it for ever that we realise that we do indeed share a common and for ever shifting ground.

It is that curious attachment which brings us together despite all our differences to meet and so to learn and to grow which fascinates me.

Of all the people who might have shared their attention, it was them, then.

I went back to Storify the conversation which had happened during our hangout.

Another line of thought to follow....

Keeping up. LOL ;-)

I stood in front of the photocopier.

Sorry, I'll start again.

I stood in the queue in front of the photocopier.






Sorry, I'll start again.

I stood in the queue for the photocopier, looking at my watch.

As time goes by.

I might have spent my time learning a new song, practising origami, watching a Humphrey Bogart movie, going for a walk with the kids...

Nope, I was "stuck in a queue" for the photocopier.

With every second passed, my stress level went up.

With every minute passed, my anger level went up.

Hatred is such a destructive emotion.

A triumphant teaching tenant of the photocopier was holding a large ream of copied paper.

The teacher in front of me was also clearly in a hurry

"Do you have many more copies to make? I have a class in five minutes?"

The TTT (triumphant teaching tenant) launched another 40 copies with nonchalance, gave a large smile, waltzed past the desperate queue of professional copiers off into the teacher's room.

Resolutions

As life is short, I made two promises to myself:

1. Search before death all means to eliminate all aspects of my life which I hated.
2. Search before death all means to amplify all aspects of my life which I loved.

Photocopying, came pretty high up on my 'hate list'.  I stopped all photocopying in 2009.

Meeting new colleagues with whom I could have fun teaching was high up on my 'would love to' list.

Connections

As I worked using these two simple principles, extraordinary things started to happen.

1. I was loving teaching as never before.
2. I was experiencing less and less frustration doing what I loved.

Connections

At the begining of 2014 things were going too fast. I decided to slow down.

Trying to build a community can take a lot out of you, I decided to concentrate on having fun. 

I joined Dave Cormier's Rhizomatic Learning Course #rhizo14 for fun. 

The irony of what happened has not escaped me. 

Rather than slowing down my learning, my learning accelerated. 

Rather than having less time to do things, I was finding I had more time to do things. 

I joined #clmooc for fun. 

The irony of what happened has not escaped me. 

Rather than blogging, (I was tired with blogging), I spent my time doing drawing. 

Rather than feeling under pressure, I felt rejuvenated.

I joined Connected Courses for fun. 

The irony of what has happened has not escaped me. 

Rather than learning from #ccourses to develop #clavier, I am beginning to understand that #clavier and #ccourses and #ds106 and the whole caboosh is actually the same thing.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE 

(time to go and buy an ice-cream, look out the window, whatever)

Instant Karma

Back to class.

I arrived in class to find our partner librarians ready to teach our students. 

I had forgotten about the pleasure of this part of our year. 

After the intensity of the start-up for the year, they come into our classes and give us a break and help our students with developing information literacy. 

I was able to take time, to chill out.  

I read Tania Sheko's post 'The art of slowing down.'

I commented leisurely on Tania's post.

I wandered out of the classroom into the nature on the campus. 

I felt the warmth of the Indian Summer on my back, I sat down on the grass.  

My attention was taken by the beauty of the wild flowers and a dandelion swaying in a light breeze. 

I imagined the plateau without the concrete. It must have been a beautiful place for a picnic... before they stuck a concrete university here.

Breakfast with Teresa

Today we were having synchronised breakfast with our partners in Warwick University. 

I chatted with my friend Teresa Mackinnon, that was nice.

It was lovely to smell the toast in a university classroom.  

I love the smell of toast.

Some of the students were busy working out how to extend our CLAVIER networking to all students on the campus. 

I showed them what to do. 

They then went and did a marvellous job, networking for themselves.

As they were busy, I scrolled a little on my Twitter stream for #ccourses,

There was a tweet from Maha Bali about how she wanted to keep up.

There are so many things going on, there is a temptation to feel that one must keep up.

I sent her a gif. 

Go Maha Go!

It helped me to write this post. 

She favourited the tweet. Clarissa favourited the tweet.

Maha replied with a  LOL tweet.

Keeping up.

I remember a few years ago that I had so much energy, I was running up and down mountains. 

I went beyond my physical limits because I had so much energy. 

I was euphoric, I didn't feel the pain.  

The knee injury slowed me down.

There is that adrenaline rush or maybe a dopamine rush which we get when we are caught up in an exciting movement. 

It is rather the opposite of that non-feeling of being undead one can get when one looks at one's watch every two minutes to see when the working day will be finished.

LOL! WE CAN NOT KEEP UP!  THAT IS INSANE!

Imagine for a moment all the beautiful people who are doing exciting things at this moment somewhere in the world. 

Imagine for a moment all the sad people who are doing horrible things at this moment somewhere in the world.

STOP IMAGINING!

There is a beautiful dandelion blowing in the wind.

It is within touching distance. 

Sit down, look, study its complex form.

Seeds in the wind

Each seed may be carried far by the wind.

Each seed may become a beautiful yellow dandelion lighting up a meadow.

Maha, Teresa, Tania and Clarissa et al, you are a beautiful dandelion lighting up a meadow.

Thanks for the inspiration.

No laughing matter.

All buttoned up and spick and span for Sunday family service.








The seriousness, the holiness of the occasion, the advanced age range of the terribly proper congregation, all contributed to building up the conditions for mass hysteria.

It had started fairly normally: "Our Father, who art in heaven", "those of us who move in Sundry places", (I always thought it was Sunday places, or perhaps something to do with ice-cream)...the first hymn.

All things bright and beautiful.

Then it all went pear-shaped.

It was my sister's fault.

She responded to my suffocated giggling, with a wide grin and gasps of withheld laughter.

"Shh, shh, shhh.....', my mother attempted to keep the tension under a lid.

"Shh, shh, shhhhhhh....."

We were as if contained in a pressure cooker.

"Shh, shh, shhhhhhhh....."

Then.... we got to the wretched chorus.

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God, Almighty."

The spectacularly tone deaf warbling was too much for us.

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God, Almighty."

"Shh, shh, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Our father, on holiday from being the main man, was feeling rising embarrassment.

How could his children, his children, his children of the cloth, behave so badly, in a.....holy place?

God's house?

God knows, but God it was funny.

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God, Almighty."

How many more bloody times would she sing the chorus?

It was aural torture.

By the third repetition, we were rolling around in our pew, our sides splitting with manic hysterical laughter.

The congregation, continuing the hymnal massacre, were beginning to  glance back, giving us, and by association my father, dirty looks.

Oh, the shame, the shame!

I was picked upon (as usual) as being the instigator of the outbreak of giggling.

I was dragged out of the church, down the aisle, looking back in triumph at my elder brother and sister left to the mercy of Our Father in Kingdom Come.

I took a few deep breaths.

I felt a whole lot better.

No laughing matter.

And yet, and yet, it didn't stop.

At school, it appeared that I was in a sort of church.

We were sat in congregation for delivered sermons, lectures, instructions, drills, exercises.

This was no laughing matter. 

This was serious education.

We were told to turn to page 46, 57, 79, 987 and we did it as one.

We stifled our yawns our enthusiasm.

This was serious. 

We religiously filled the space in boxes.

We follow the ritual.

"Shhh, shhh, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

All together now.

The Life of Brian

"Regardez l'image page 9."

"WHERE IS BRIAN?"

All together now, in Italian...

"STOP IT now. SHHHHHH." 

Courses are serious, very serious, serious.

"Have you finished yet?"

"Yes.

"You were very badly behaved."

"Sorry, but it was just too funny."

"This is serious. It's no laughing matter."

Our nature.

It is the tranquil immersive nature of this image which captured my attention.

I shall sit here a moment.





I was up early this morning, I saw the beauty of the sunrise behind the Puy de Crouel.

I captured it, I tweeted it, I saw it favorited by someone in Illinois.

Where is Illinois?

I haven't quite got used to the rythm of Thursday mornings.

I am unused to having time on a Thursday morning.

I am savouring the freedom of emerging connections which slowly spark from some place somewhere.

There were the early morning exchanges with Maha and Maxime, on their blogs, the shock of Susan's story of a twelve year old boy.

I am taken into this deeper pool of empathy.

I am learning quietly, but apparently with little constraint.

Terry and Keith and a rooster are speaking to me from a moment last week. 

I can feel my mind wander from time to time with the rhythm of our conversation.  I dip into the stream.

I am catching my breath, what was that? What was that I hear myself say?

"Time is short."

"What will be our message at the last clap?"

 "What can we acquire?"

We are talking of, we are talking of...

"COMMUNION"

How on earth did I ever hear myself say that word, live?

I was live on air, on Youtube.

I have that tendency to run ahead of myself, I lose the signal.

I recognise my lack of patience, I recognise my hastiness.

"I am hasty, too hasty chaps."

It's a Thursday morning I have a moment to shut up and listen.

This reminds me of Mariana Funes and our exchanges.

We are speaking, we are connecting now in silence.

Terry captures angels so well.

I want to tell my captured self to shut up and listen to Terry.

Being connected to angels, all these guardian angels around us, watching over us.

It is a great image Keith, a great image. You are right.

Am I lurking now, am I lurking next to tranquil pool, on a Thursday morning?

Are we children of eternity?

How are we to be framed?

Terry reminds me of a poem I wrote to a Tunisian friend and poet.

He is right, he is so right, we need to feel the sides, the constraints, our cultural frames.

I know this.

I know sitting here.

I am being written by my friends.

I am being written by unknown people I will never see.


Our nature
This has meaning for me, now, sitting by a pool.

I see my life flowing out, flowing past and I am content.

Nothing very much.

Twenty seven seconds.

Twenty seven seconds.

It took twenty seven seconds of singing Happy Birthday and then it was done.



They thought nothing of it at the time.

Nothing much, they didn't do anything much.



By the time the twenty seconds had been tweeted around the world, it was already too late.

It was a pretty simple meme, nothing to write home about.

It was sufficient to make a message clear.

They were not alone in the room.

There was a wider meaning to their actions.

They had had an effect on a real person.

They had done something with their time.

There were tears in their eyes as they listened to the heart-sang reply.

Extraordinary how such a simple meme can move people to tears.


Thank you Maha.

Thank you Kevin.

Thank you Terry


They now know others care about them.

Twenty seven seconds is nothing.

Twenty seven seconds is all it takes to change someone's life.

Thank you Maxime. 

Thank you is a powerful meme.

This is just the beginning.

In Tribble Valley.

Ailes du désir

Freeze frame, worrying static, silence difficult to decipher.

We hold our breath,

1, 2, 3, 4, 5......

No sign of movement.

Un ange passe.

Massive frame, frozen in Dutch master-piece, a dim light glimmers.

Impatience, gesticulation, fidgeting anxiety.

Be still.

Be attentive to that moment of connection.

Un ange passe.

Little by little a reassuring message can be detected, coming from afar, as if from down a well.

A well of longing.
A well of welcome.

Be attentive to that moment of connection.

Communication, established, we adjust our rhythm to the murmur of a giant.

Be still.

Little by little we become aware that we are in the company of a chorus of angels.

Some of them take human form and emerge slowly from the shadows.
Others, perhaps more shy of contact take only symbolic form.
Indiscriminately promiscuous in their shape-changing magic.

They are etched out in chaos.
They are axe-hatched in trees.
They appear in clouds.
They disappear above the waves.

Murmuring, murmuring, meaning.

Un ange passe.

We are.
We are my friends in AWE.

My friends there is sweet music in the air.
Open your ears, be still to hear.

For Terry, a giant. for Keith an angel-hunter, for Susan, an angel-seeker, for Kevin an angel-friend

Compagnie d'apprenants

Rounders, the ball comes my way, I give it a big wallop and then run round, sort of.

Here's a sort of wallop:

I was in Nancy in November 2010, for a conference which I blogged about in "What are you?".

That was one perspective on a process I have been living over a number of years. I was there to talk of  "company of learners" - "Compagnie d'apprenants" in the company of learners.

I felt, perhaps wrongly as a result of my own fear, that I wasn't in the company of learners.

My anger comes out in my blog post. I am not sorry for my anger.

I felt unable to connect.

I was in Clermont in 2008, a maverick, to talk about using social networks in teaching , my mother had just died, the internet didn't work, I felt unable to connect with many of the people there. I was over the edge.

The words of one of my students, one of my fellow learners helped me continue. Those words, some of them, are translated here in this post Nagasaki mon amour.


I was in Pau in 2010 to talk about how to find meaning in language learning with connecting learners via their passions, via affinity.

I attended the conference in secret. 

During the summer I wrote unexpectedly a sort of article in French while sitting next to a swimming pool, I didn't know I didn't have to write an article.

I was able to write an article, to come so far because of my colleague Marie Christine Rustan.

Without her, nothing would have happened. I would have remained isolated probably, unhappily in a disconnected classroom.

She helped me with my French, she helped me fight.

She trusted me. 

This is a tribute to her, to all the learners with whom I have been able to learn - sometimes despite them.

They put up with me

This is a tribute to my wife, my two sons, two daughters who help(ed) me with my French, miscellaneous cats, dog and fish and all my family spread out around the world and elsewhere.

I spent hours writing that article I didn't have to write. I am not sure what my family thought.

It would have been difficult to explain.

Aikido taught me to respect the other as myself.

Pau is a long way from our home. My family came with me, the internet didn't work, my family had made great sacrifice to accompany me, their anger helped me to complain to the organisers to find another slot.

I spoke, I was in tears at all the frustration I had felt, the people in the room were touched.

I was touched. 

That would be Taches de Sens dans les Nuages

The accompanying portfolio/website would be Taches de Sens

I started a blog.
This would be this  Touches of Sense
I didn't really know why or if I would ever write more than one post.
To boldy go represents the first.
It will also represent the last.


I came out in the open.

I started to find wider support in my institution.

I was able to go to Learning without frontiers in January 2011 in 2012.
I was able to spend special privileged time in the company of my uncle in his final two years.
I was able to see Steve Wheeler speak.
I learnt what Twitter was about.
I began to feel really connected.
I was no longer alone.
I might be a maverick, a one-off.
I was no longer weird.
I wasn't completely crazy.

In April 2012, I fulfilled my ambition to speak at the Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference.

I felt able to experiment, to venture into Nomad's Land.

There were not many people present but the voices of Alec Couros and another person who spoke with me after, reassured me. I felt connected, I felt supported. I could take risks, safely.

I wrote about this experience here in Swings and Roundabouts.


I met Catherine Cronin, I think first in London and then again in Plymouth, I met Mary Anne Reilly, we spoke over dinner about Nomads, about Rhizomatic Learning. I felt connected. I felt that I could communicate, I felt nurtured. I was not alone.

In September 2011 a connection with my friend Teresa Mackinnon, met on Steve Wheeler's blog Learning with e's, opened up a path to connected learning via his blog via Twitter. It was thanks to his blog that I learnt that I could comment safely, the perhaps that I might even blog. I felt as many do I had nothing to say. I could never contribute anything. I still lived with the words of an ex-boss in PR,

 "and you can't bloody write".
(not like you Tony, not like you)

With only an hour face-to-face meeting with my friend Claude Tregoat we set up connections for 500 students in a project which would become to be known as CLAVIER.

They trusted me!  

In August 2012, with my colleague and research mentor Christine Rodrigues, she trusted me (I didn't know how some of you guys do research stuff) (I didn't know how to use the library) I was able to get a presentation, a study on social networks of language learners online, entitled Building Bridges, accepted at Eurocall in Sweden. We still have to find the time to write the article.

I met with my friend Marcin Kleban. After a twenty minute discussion we started a project of 40 language teachers and learners, he trusted me.. I met with my friend Blaise Ngandeu, I was able to learn about Nexus Analysis from my friend Maritta Riekki.

Suddenly people in my institution appeared to be taking what I had to say seriously..to almost trust me.

In August 2013, with my colleagues Christine Rodrigues and now Marcin Kleban we presented again at Eurocall in Portugal a study, Telecollaboration in Historical Spaces, looking at the barriers and openings  to widening connected learning among teachers and learners.

We are still looking for a place to publish the article. So if anybody has some bright ideas?

Meanwhile Teresa Mackinnon has been able to represent our rhizomatically evolving project in the UK and elsewhere got it accepted as a case study by a European Project.

In January 2014, I signed up and played along with Dave Cormier's Rhizomatic Learning Course, I started with no time, plenty of fear, and no expectations.  I found that not only I could write regularly when well connected but with ease.

I was able to really accelerate my reflection, my competences, my network connections, my vision of my place in this world.

I dabbled along with the #ds106 crew, that was fun.

That was a new sandbox.

In August 2014, I followed my friends Terry Elliot, Kevin Hodgson, Keith Hamon, into CLMOOC, I learnt to haiku, I rediscovered my love for art. I met a new friend Susan Watson. That playing around naturally led to Connected Courses.

There were names that were already familiar to me:

Howard Rheingold (yes he speaks)
Jim Groom (yes he speaks and speaks)
Alan Levine from #ds106 (he seems to have the biggest spanner),
Alec Couros, (he has lots and lots of great slides and talks and makes us laugh and think)
Mike Wesch - the guy who helped a bunch of students to make 'Visions of students today.
Mimi Ito, (I just read your report, and your book thanks a lot!)
Helen Keegan the one from Salford who does amazing stuff with gamification in front of Manchester Town Hall...et al.

I had already connected myself with their worlds through Youtube, through books, through Steve Wheeler, through lurking but never participating in MOOCS with Steven Downes et al.


Meanwhile our CLAVIER #tag is expanding its attention like topsy, people are popping up from all over the place to connect with us. These are heady days for a teacher who was told off, warned that his career might suffer if I didn't just teach. That was the worst thing they could have said to me. I found pleasure, space, just to play, to learn, to connect, to teach in secret. This is no longer a secret.

This morning, after a blog post I shared with my friend Maha Bali, a few tweet chats with more of the rhizo14 crew.

I found a moment to watch Catherine Cronin's ALT Keynote: Navigating the Marvellous.

 All the thoughts about space, about openness, trust, respect of learning across spaces, the importance of hermes-like tags which can cross boundaries,were as if condensed in her conference.

That for today is quite possibly the best conference I have attended Catherine. A special thank you.

You know there are moments when things just click.

Things have just clicked.

These Connected courses may not yet have started...but for me the connected courses started in an open classroom in 1995 with a group of unemployed language learners. It was impossible to teach in a traditional way. For me these connected courses started way, way back before I was even an embryo.

This has been a pretty long warm up to this class.

Rhizomatic learning expresses how I learn, how I have lived my life.
It has brought me to write these lines.
I write as Catherine says not with hubris but with humility.

I am now out of in the open. I am unmasked.

I trust myself and I trust you.

This/I/We is/are a product of converging lines, conflict, resonance, trust, play, and love.

I feel that finally I am indeed connected in my disconnections and that indeed with my diverse particles I belong somehow, somewhere in the company of fellow learners.

I thank you.

You mean an awful lot.


(Note to self. That was unexpected)
(Note to self - I think this is what Maha calls a Meta post?)

#key

Europe 1 

cue jingle.

JINGLE

WARNING!!
the following copy and paste is in #FRENCH (yikes) and a bit small to read:



- never mind, click below to read it yourself


http://www.europe1.fr/faits-divers/porteur-d-un-bracelet-electronique-il-est-arrete-pour-16-braquages-2200849#.

Please use GOOGLE translate if in doubt of meaning. 

We apologise for any loss experienced in translation.

So for those of you who don't follow instruction, here is a brief summary of the aforewritten veritable facts: 

Robber robs 16 shops while wearing a criminal #tag.

Conclusion; 
if you want to deter a robber from robbing, the scary idea of being followed around Paris by the Pink Panther sitting in front of his sophisticated control panel ain't working. 


What went wrong? 

Hypotheses:

• Was Pink asleep each time the suspect was doing his business? 

• Was Rob using sophisticated microwave blocking device?

• Does Pink have a prostate problem which he is finding hard to admit to?

• Does Pink listen too much to Europe 1 on the radio and ignore Rob?

• Does Pink get paid by Rob?

We shall never know.

Crimewatch didn't investigate.

Meanwhile in the 'Justice Ministry' they're looking at their budgets and tearing their hair out. 

Too much crime, too many criminals, too much too young...

Violent crime is on the rise in France. 

(Oh GAWD! )

Solution:

Build more prisons. 

The problem with prisons is that young offenders who have been sciving school to rob banks, to pay for their dope and Call of Duty fee get the privilege of going to a proper and rather pricy finishing school, called #detention centre.  

Brilliant! 

Come to #detention centre, you get to meet a selected community of practice (#COP) who will simultaneously alienate you for ever from 'normal society' and give you an apprenticeship in more advanced crime! 

For Reference - watch The Prophet (it ain't me)

Meanwhile...

back at 'normal' school, teachers and kids are being put in well-designed 'educational boxes' (classrooms, schools), banned from using their mobile phones, social media, watching tv, and told off for looking out of the window or chatting with their mates about their Kill percentage on Call of Duty.

Scandalous! 

If you ask me they should increase sensory deprivation and take the solitary confinement (one teacher one classroom) further. 

That will stop them imagining, creating, cooperating, innovating, and generally limit all spread of dangerous sedition exemplified by the idea that in a connected world perhaps the idea of shutting up kids in a box for 8 hours a day isn't perhaps the only concept of education imaginable.

Stop and think for a moment.

How would you stop innovation in pedagogy, revolution in China, or kids playing Candy crush in class? Go on, go on... so?

No ideas? 

OK, here's mine:  You stop people talking to each other, you wear them out so they don't want to speak to other people and basically you try to follow them around while limiting their movement when they go off in the wrong direction. 

Bells, rollcalls, clothes restrictions, timetables, sport, uniforms, threats, rewards (limited) monitors....

Problem. 

Government has less money to follow people around and shut them up in boxes. 

Solution

Private entreprise see opportunity in following tagged people around, selling the data to other corporations, shutting them in boxes for the....government? 

Question.
How do people get to be in the government? 

They have to raise funds....from? (I have no idea, just asking)

I digress...

So enclosure is for bad people?  

You ARE PUNNISHED if you are confined in a box.  

You are threatened by being sent to...Coventry (no one speaks to you, or you don't understand the accent) 

Or if you are really bad (Denis Rodman - he is so bad - he chose to go) you get sent to.... NORTH KOREA,  where they will force you to clap a fat man with an uncool haircut and a mania for serial murder. (scared?) 

WARNING BOMBS!

Enclosure is for rich people?

They have a problem at the moment, the French government.... 

Valerie spilled the beans after being serially-jilted. 

Merci pour tout, she said - I am sure I detect irony. 

No, I am talking about much less serious things...er immigrants. (scary African immigrants, or Afghan, Syrian, (#terrorist) or er the rest.)

The serious things....the immigrant issue is unsolvable....


Rihanna?

No, not Rihanna. You are getting distracted. Stop, read again what I was saying.

So we must post more guards around our borders protected with barbed wire fencing and scary dogs. 

If they don't have enough dogs they could perhaps try #decoy barking over loudspeakers.

I digress.
So they up there (God) are having difficulties with all the things, the people, the lack of dogs, the lack of North Koreas, the lack of #terrorists  to make you sufficiently scared to want to be in prison or rewards to make you build your own fenced condominium (er behind borders/bars etc). 

We need jobs, or a new version of CALL of DUTY to keep the kids off the streets.  (scared yet?)

Whatever.

The corporations who do Call of duty and prisons and fences and dog collars are happy, their investors sound. 

Bully for them.

What about school? 

Well might I be so criminal to suggest that it might need a revamp? 

Keeping people in boxes all day is after all expensive. 

Prison warders Teachers etc are pricy...they tend to go off on a tangent when you up there have organised a carefully researched educational 'path'.  (Fiddlesticks! They are not working how they should???darn! Back to the lab. Where's that inspector when you need him? PINK? PINK?) 

We could replace humans with R4DE (robot) or the unpopular amphitheatre drone with a MOOC (x) from Harvard. 

Researchers are working on that one.

I digress.

If we want to reimagine education, maybe we should start with a blank sheet of paper.

Questions:

Why do we put 1 person in a box with teenagers playing on banned smartphones?

Why do we try to enclose a Network?

Why are we scared of technology which offers us Wikipedia?

Why are we still thinking in terms of classrooms, regions, and countries when Amazon and Google don't? 

Why do we believe in democracy when the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, the wars uglier, the forests enclosed, exploited, the things we find (resources - people we do/don't care about) destroyed?

Have these people got the foggiest idea of what the f*** they are doing? (Yes, I know... don't answer that)

Proposal

We start thinking and educating ourselves in terms of complexity of networks, of chosen tags (or no tags), of emergence, of freedom of association, of respect for diversity, of free movement of ideas, creativity, innovation, justice, empathy, understanding, civic responsibility, planetary responsibility....

Please add your tag....your thoughts, your music, you pictures, your words, in the language and form of your choice on the blank page  here

(Should you wish. I have no means of enforcing this. This is not for credit/debt/cash)

PLEASE SHARE

#Key proposals for sustainable education

I have said my peace for now. 

I can go back to bed and sleep.