The big picture.

Preamble.

I hadn't blogged twice in a day for months. Then Maha made a comment on Twitter. It was a response and a appreciative comment to a blog post I shared with her.

There isn’t and never has been “A big picture” only ever moving, solitary and ephemeral collages... “A big picture” is a lie.

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) April 8, 2019

The big picture

Sorry this is an inane rant.


So this (the map above) is the (a) big picture.

This is a perspective that I was brought up with.

This is a perspective that I was educated with.

My father was born in 1907, the year on the map of the World.

It's a big world made smaller with all of that pink.

The pink here represents the British Empire.

The pink represents the worldview of some people in 2019, they still hark back to it in their attitudes, arrogance, their bank balances and their politics.

[BREXIT]

[JOHNSON, FARRAGE, REES AND MOGG]

[THE COMMON (cough) WEALTH]

There is this idea that all of this and all of that land belongs to "us" and not to "them".

That is the big picture - power.

[POWER AND CRICKET AND AFTERNOON TEA AND GREENWICH MEAN TIME]

BIG PICTURE = BIG POWER.

Power built on military domination, torture, slavery, expropriation, exploitation, land of hope and glory, "Christianity", Inanity, songs, prayers and lies.

"OUR HISTORY" - THE BIG PICTURE.

PROGRESS THROUGH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.

PROGRESS THROUGH FREE MARKET EXCHANGE.

PROGRESS THROUGH DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM.

(Altenatively: progress through Chinese Communist Party etc )

PROGRESS THROUGH SUPERIOR VALUES.

There are still people who hold onto an irrational reverence to science being an explanation for all.

[I had a class with people who told me this only a few days ago...]

There are still people who hold onto an irrational hope in strong men being an answer to politics.

[TRUMP, PUTIN, BOLSONARO, ORBAN, MUSSOLINI, NETANYAHU, HITLER, etc]

There are still people who hold onto an irrational bigotry that white people are innately superior.

[WHITE SUPREMACISTS, KKK, etc]

There are still people who hold onto an irrational belief in their "god" granting them the right to kill.

[TOO MANY TO MENTION]

There are still people who hold onto an irrational belief that humans are simply men and women and nothing in between.

[TOILETS, GENDER CORRECTION SURGERY]

There are still people who hold onto an irrational belief that Western societies are built on meritocracies or goodwill.

[LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE, THE STATUE OF LIBERTY]

There are still people who hold onto an irrational belief in "individual success", the primacy of the individual.

We love stories of good and evil.

[AXIS OF EVIL, GOD the DEVIL]

We love ideas of heroes and villains.

[MANDELA - MANDELA]

We talk of saints and monsters.

[POPE(S)]

The big picture is a comforting lie....for those who like the picture.

[GOD SAVE THE QUEEN THE FASCIST REGIME, THEY MADE YOU A MORON]

We love our myths, our legends, our narratives, our plays with neat beginnings and endings.

POWER NOW INCLUDES PINK POWER!!!

Of course now, if we wear rose tinted spectacles,  we might think of pink representing a new trendy, liberal, more caring Britain.

Uncomforting Exceptions to the big picture...

Somewhere in all of that pink there is a little land called Brunei.

"The British" no doubt found support for a pet exotic, a Sultan convenient.

They kept him sweet over the years with Eton, baubles, bullets and flattery.

They oiled the wheels of his Rolls Royces, with the oil that came cheap.

They fêted his presence in their big picture with our majestic Queen.

Now that ex-pink has it in for all the pinks present.

Brunei introduces death by stoning as punishment for gay sex

Big picture of big building.

Post scriptum

Sigh. Yes Simon. I meant the context :) I think I can get my head around your writing when I interact with you for longer periods of time, more immersive... but when it's decontextualized, it's beauty i don't fully understand but still appreciate

— ℳąhą Bąℓi, PhD مها بالي 🏵 (@Bali_Maha) April 8, 2019

Sigh, sometimes, often even, we get sparked by comments and words taken out of context.


(It's been too long a while that Maha and I have not interacted)

Sparks can light candles or bonfires.

I fear that the story in the Guardian about a tiny country and its tyrant will spark more islamophobia and more "big pictures" with more big headlines.

I wonder when we will be able to appreciate the beauty in people's expression of spirituality, or sexuality, the value of all people over that of oil, pf the value of life over material possessions, of the reality of our common humanity, and to accept a more equitable, more complex, less graspable, less controlled, more moving collage.

Post post scriptum.

The big picture is that this post is a mark of individual privilege and servitude- a few data points for those who have access to the means to interpret "big data" and use it for their ends.

Looking at all that blue doesn't make me yearn for the pink but makes me wonder how it will affect the stories people will tell their children...

Footnote and conclusion.

We are indeed slaves to what brings us freedom....

Survey and Surveillance...

I sat down to work on the survey...

I had finally found some time to start working out the questions ready for the following week.

Then I stopped to think.




Participants anonymous? Hmmm.

The mechanics of it would be straightforward enough.

The collection of data, analysis of the results, creation of colorful barcharts and piecharts with the stats a few clicks away.

We can all be "scientific" now.

That's terrific...(terrifying?)

Google forms, Google analytics, Survey Monkey...

Survey Monkey? 

Er....who's being made a monkey of?

make a monkey out of

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To cause a person, group, or action to appear foolish or inferior; to subject someone or something to ridicule.

Something clunked in the process.

Was I working on a survey....

a) on the teachers?
b) for the teachers?
c) with the teachers?
d) about the teachers?

Would they be research subjects now...or friends and colleagues?

What did my "administering" of the survey say about how I saw our relationship?

What would my "administering" of the survey say to the colleagues about how they saw our relationship?

Would this be seen as an unsolicited intrusion into their lives?

The telephone rings...

It takes about ten seconds to establish that this is another unsolicited intrusion.

"Good afternoon. My name is...[complete from a list]" 
"We are the bureau/corporation/office...[bar where inappropriate]."
" Of energy conservation/solar panels, life insurance...[bar where inappropriate]
"We would like to ask you a few questions..."

"Good afternoon, could you tell me where you got this number please?"

Ten seconds later the line goes dead.

The penny drops...

You roll in your penny's worth.

That penny drops.

The moment it leaves the tips of your fingers it is lost and forgotten.

You have lost and forgotten.

The Arcade, is winning.

Survey and surveillance.

I went off and found some people who could aid me in my reflection.

I Google "Survey and Surveillance" [giving Google another data point to play with.]

I start with the etymology.

survey (n.) 

late 15c., survei, "oversight, supervision," from survey (v.). The meaning "act of viewing in detail" is from 1540s. Meaning "systematic collection of data on opinions, etc." is attested from 1927.

survey (v.) 

c. 1400, "to consider, contemplate," from Anglo-French surveier, Old French sorveoir "look (down) at, look upon, notice; guard, watch," from Medieval Latin supervidere "oversee, inspect," from Latin super "over" (see super-) + videre "to see" (from PIE root *weid- "to see"). Meaning "examine the condition of" is from mid-15c. That of "to take linear measurements of a tract of ground" is recorded from 1540s. Related: Surveyed; surveying; surveyance(late 14c.).

I come across "Survey and Surveillance" by Gary T Marx (in F. Conrad, and M. Shrober eds "Envisioning the survey of the future", 2008).  

It's old (so am I) but I find some cause for pause and reflection.

"A survey is a form of surveillance. Survey and surveil sound alike and are synonyms. The former, however, does not usually conjure up Orwellian images. Rather the survey in its best light has been seen as a component of democratic society in which citizens can voluntarily inform leaders of their attitudes and needs and help clarify public policy questions and all under presumably neutral, scientific conditions that can be trusted. Survey respondents are encouraged to participate in order to "make your voice heard."

"There is risk of a kind of scientific colonialism in which various publics are expected to offer unlimited access to their personal data, but rather than serving the public interest, this can facilitate manipulation by elites pursuing selfish and/or undemocratic ends."

"A concern of some social researchers, particularly in the later 1960s and early 1970s was with the impact of survey research as part of a broader critique of social science (e.g., Gouldner,1970; Colfax & Roach, 1971; Mills, 2000). Who did the surveys serve? Who sets the research agenda? Are potential users aware of the survey’s sponsors and their reasons for seeking the information? What did the survey offer to those disadvantaged and beyond the mainstream who were disproportionately the subjects of research? What did surveys really tell us about social reality (Blumer, 1948)? Those issues have not gone away, but as this volume makes clear new issues are appearing.

Academic social researchers like other brethren in the discovery business (market researchers, investigative reporters, police, private detectives, national security agents) are surely more spies than spied upon, even if for academics this is usually in benign contexts. We all seek to find things out about others which they may, or may not, wish to reveal and which may hurt, harm, help, or be irrelevant to them –whether as individuals or more indirectly as group members (Marx, 1984)."

I come back and start to annotate the article so as to better think.

https://via.hypothes.is/http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/surveysurveil.html

I walk with the author a while.....

I compare walking with colleagues to poring over atomised, anonymised data.

Unsolicited intrusions.

I think for an instant about the objective of my research: to discover to what extent language teachers are able or willing to use complexity perspectives to inform their practices.

I wonder about the unsolicited intrusion of researchers.

While no doubt colleagues will be willing to contribute, I wonder about my positioning as regards the group.

I reflect on my desire to enable participative reflective practice in an educational community.

I reason that it may well be necessary to continue to take time to build dialogue, to unearth questions which we might share together.

Participation between learners, learner-teachers and learner-researchers.

Whose game are we playing?

What if nobody wants to participate?

What if everybody only wants to go home and do something else?

What if the problem of education is that it is about sorting of people into categories (boxes)?

What if the problem of education is that it is about preparing people to play roles in an arcade?

What if understanding complexity was a just an avoidance of understanding the real game?

Ticks, clicks, ones and zeros.

Is a survey appropriate for my purposes?

I suppose the answer is that it can be... if the participants themselves are involved in its design and interpretation and buy into its objectives... (I note down what appears an appropriate term - buy.)

I find myself suspicious of those boxes, of those ticks, those clicks, those ones and zeros.

Is a dialogue box really about establishing diaglogue?

I know that such stuff might give me credibility.

Lost in translation.

I come back to a Virtually Connecting session with Steven Thorne. 

Even if the participants to a research study are willing what happens to their participation?

How accessible is the language used once moments of their lives have been disembodied,  "their data" is researched, analysed and interpreted?

I am reminded of "Extraction".

I am reminded of "Submission".

A person becomes a learner or is it the other way round?

A learner doesn't necessarily become a researcher even if he/she searches.

Is language all about being part of a group with more or less power?

Do we use language so that we may be recognised as "being somebody"?

I listen to "researchers" addressing the criteria for research being "good research".

I listen to "keynotes": speakers get warm introductions, and more time.

People listen attentively, laptops open.

People wait for the ritual moment when they will be asked for a question.

Most remain silent.

They close their laptops.

They wander off into the lobby for coffee.

What is it that they do in the lobbies while drinking coffee?

What is it that they are really doing in conferences?

I am reminded of academia being a reputation economy.

I am reminded of "What are you?"

I am reminded that "My lawyer is a dog..."

Whose boxes are we/they trying to fill?

Case studies.

I think back to being in hospital.

I think of parts of my body which suddenly become pathologised, they are dispossessed.

I think of losing control, of being impotent in the face of expert medicalese.

I am a case.

On leaving the hospital, I am asked to complete "a survey of satisfaction" to enable management to "better provide for patients needs."  

"I mean really?"

False friends...

I consult Facebook and I find its intrusion ever more grating.

It's that false friend who is ever ready with soothing words and a sly agenda.

"Want to share an update Simon."

"You haven't shared an update in a while, Simon."

"Good morning Simon."

"It's [insert name]'s birthday. Send her your good thoughts."

"[insert name] likes your post, commented on your video, reacted to your video, etc etc"

"I see you are in the hospital Simon, want to share an update with your friends?"

I turn off the access to my location.

I remember to go and remove access to my camera.

The fucking camera guy.

I Google him and find that I am not alone in hating him (it).

I fucking hate this guy #Facebook pic.twitter.com/qi03hKQEOY

— Eli Braden (@EliBraden) April 28, 2017

I go back and find that article I shared this morning on platform capitalism.

We need to nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon. Here’s why. < but it ain't gonna happen IMHO https://t.co/Ex71Pcwkqi

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) August 30, 2017

 I see yet another survey/quiz call it what you will asking me to profile myself.

I avoid it, despite peer pressure.

Aren't we all having fun?



In the search box.

I am in this box, I leave a trace of my passing.

I have still not "reclaimed my domain."

It's still Google's.

In the dialogue box.

I completed a survey on lurking in CLMOOC the other day.

I did it because the researchers are my friends.

I finish writing this.

I don't finish the survey.

I leave myself time to think.

I leave a few data points for others unknown, unknowable to track.

Will I be receiving targeted ads on hospitals,  or viagra this evening?

Will my health insurance be more expensive?

Will I, as a researcher, be an anaesthetist who sends patients to sleep or an activist who, with others, facilitates peoples' awakening?

No child left behind.

The successful outcomes benefit from sophisticated monitoring and advanced data analysis, a continuous stream of the latest intelligence, distant human piloting and decisive engagement.




No child left behind.

The board meets to congratulate themselves on yet another successful year.

Training budgets for apprentices are up.

Local schools are flourishing.

Unemployment is at a new low.

Faith in freedom is reborn.

The president cuts the ribbon for a new line.

The people come to wave their flags and cheer.

No child left behind.

I watched as the young people around me froze.

A deathly silence fell upon us.

The camera moved around the room.

Chairs and tables had been overturned.

People seemed as if suspended in the air.

All activity stopped.

Nobody was laughing now.

No child left behind.

I looked at the data in the spreadsheet.

1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.

It was marvellous news.

I tweeted to my colleagues in the UK.

The students seemed to be engaged with their distant correspondents.

Isn't this what we call "a global classroom"?

Don't we need a [global] "village to educate a child"?

@WarwickLanguage ca marche. #clerwar entretiens d'embauche pic.twitter.com/JT8Nw4v2O0

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) November 25, 2016

No child left behind.


I concentrated my energy on the person behind the zero.

He was a high level sportsman..

That was what explained the zero.

Column 5 - Date.

Column 6 - 1 for presence 0 for absence.

He had done the work.

I didn't have a trace.

Fantasies fill the void.

"He's not interested in my classes."

"He's doesn't care about my subject."

"I am the One with power."

"Zero! He's worth zero."

Fantasies fill the void.

Dialogue 1 - 1 was facilitated by the tools.

Dialogue 1 - 1 helped us to build respect.

Dialogue 1 - 1 moved us to another place.

No child left behind.

Tools extend our reach.

Maps extend our reach.

Words extend our reach.

pic.twitter.com/Yh5dNvyz3N

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 19, 2016

I look at the blog statistics.

"Touches of sense..."

142, 000 hits.

No child left behind.

Ronald reminded me.

@sensor63 Searching for children of Native Americans and aboriginals to bring them to the institutions to take their own culture out of them

— Ronald_2008 (@ronald_2008) November 27, 2016

I watched the video again.


No child left behind.

I did a search for Australia.

Education down under is nothing if not inclusive.

I watched Walkabout on Youtube with an English rose.

I watched the test match.

We won the ashes.


No child left behind.

"I reconciled myself to separation."

We learnt about 1066 and all that.

Shall we ever venture into  "Noman's land."?

We learnt to march.

We learnt to drill.

We learnt to bat.

We did "Target Practice."

Teachers inspired us.

Teachers abused us.

Teachers thrashed us "Behind closed doors."

We escaped an instant the day of the deluge.

No child left behind.

We have a common core, a common culture.

Standards are kept.

Competition is fierce.

Money speaks.

Scores cards are tallied.

Numbers never lie.

No child left behind.

I read Terry's post.

Step Right Up. Get Ready. It’s Coming…It’s Here https://t.co/5mNMH0H021

— Terry Elliott (@telliowkuwp) November 27, 2016

I listen to the song.

"Road to nowhere."

I tweet a response.

@dogtrax @telliowkuwp @ronald_2008 pic.twitter.com/Jk4n7RSros

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) November 27, 2016

I see Kevin's response.

@sensor63 @telliowkuwp @ronald_2008 and yet ... pic.twitter.com/vV7BhYhbuv

— KevinHodgson (@dogtrax) November 27, 2016

That gets me thinking.

Fantasy fills the void.

Road to nowhere @telliowkuwp @dogtrax @EatcherVeggies @ronald_2008 @jmc3ualberta @anna_phd @laura_ritchie https://t.co/koQud6FFLB

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) November 27, 2016

I think back to Kevin's tweet.

"We are on the road to somewhere...."

I think back to the spreadsheet.

No child left behind.

"We are on the road to somewhere..."

No child left behind.

I think back to the spreadsheet.

No child left behind? #digped #clmooc pic.twitter.com/5oO93i7jBs

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) November 27, 2016

I think of all those zeros...all those ones.

At times, I despair.

"I do not think words alone will solve humanity's present problems. The sound of bombs drowns out men's voices. In times of peace I have great faith in the communication of ideas among thinking men, but today, with brute force dominating so many millions of lives, I fear that the appeal to man's intellect is fast becoming virtually meaningless."

Albert Einstein.

Laboratory rats.

“These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings.”

Douglas Adams.

It was the mouse which brought me to computing.

Little did I imagine that it would become a protrusion into my own privacy, a threat to our freedom.

Learning management.

I looked at the data available to me on the learning management system.

I tried, I honestly did try, to see if I could do something with all that data to help my pedagogy.

I quickly gave up, I didn't have time to teach, I was an unwilling or incompetent data analyst.

How the hell were clicks more telling than a learner's pace of breathing, posture, expression, smile, sigh?

The data came into its own for those who had the ear of the management.

No doubt they had less time for sighs or smiles and more time for numbers.

Who, after all, has the time to really listen to each student, to each teacher?

I have a feeling that I am failed as a teacher (that should read ambiguously).

Data brokerage.

I was reading up on the deal I have "agreed" with Facebook.

"98 Personal Data Points That Facebook Uses To Target Ads At You."

I have come to the conclusion that as far as the silicon valley is concerned  I am a lab rat.

I am:

• a Facebook Lab Rat, 
• a Google Lab Rat (but not a Google certified teacher), 
• a Twitter Lab Rat. 
• an Amazon Lab Rat. 

I can even choose the feed I get from Facebook by editing the info they have on me.

Oh joyful squeak!

I get to modify the feed!

I suppose this is "personalised learning."  

Erggh..spit, spit.

I am:

• a well trained Lab Rat.
• a MOOC badged Lab Rat.
• a Life Long Lab Rat.

Which good researcher/marketer/government agency is extracting the data?

What the hell is the difference between a researcher/marketer/government agency?

Aren't they all part of the same system?

Aren't they all "vastly hyperintelligent pandimensional beings"?

I go and install the Ghostery Extension on Chrome.

I know that it won't be long before I trash it again.

It feels oppressive.

I watched with horror a short documentary about data brokers.

For which data brokers are we lab rats to?

Aren't we all lab rats to some agency?

1984

I fell upon a page of quotes from George Orwell 1984

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting  both of them."

Doublethink:  I am a servile lab rat banging on the cage while expressing 'freedom' of speech here.

"Ignorance is strength."

Ignorance, Isn't that the most comfortable state? Doesn't a critical mind make you weak?

Ignorance, Isn't it that which is enabling the rise of racist, populist, fascists?

I read Foucault.

“The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.” 
Michel Foucault

"Fascism in us all?" I prefer to ignore it.

Ignorance - so much bliss.

"The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind happiness is better."

Freedom: Do I seriously want freedom? I am not so sure.

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."

Rebellion: What is the price of consciousness? How can one rebel while remaining a lab-rat? (one can't)

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."

History: Who controls this history of mine? Who is aware of my fingers tapping on the board?

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

Picture: Do I really want to be conscious to such a picture?

I am somebody's lab rat.

I find a quote of Foucault.

"Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are."

"Freeish Speech".

I go and find a panel discussion between Noam Chomsky, Glenn Greenwald, and Edward Snowden (in a distant unspecified location) on the question of privacy.


I refuse to accept happily being an ignorant lab rat.

I am weakly conscious of my state.

I shall bang angrily on the cage.


Photo Credit:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/coreyburger/4802199595

Persistent Clutter.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded sleep." 
W. Shakespeare. The Tempest.

The PC was resistant, but with a few clumsy blows of a hammer, one or two screws undone, its memory heart  ripped from its fastenings, it looked pretty dead.


"Throw it in the river," he said, "they won't dredge it up there."

He saw that I was a little reluctant.

"What of its trace on the environment?" I thought to myself.

He had no care for pollution; his gestures were insistent.  After all, he was not going to be long there to answer complaints from the council environmental officers.

As for the personal data-security question, nobody else would ever understand the filing.

"What the hell!" I swore under my breath.

With a vigorous swing, I heaved the hefty 120 gigabyte hard disc into the Thames.

It sank, slowly. The accompanying flottilla of Canada geese, coots, and miscellaneous ducks looked on disappointedly.

No bread today.

Hours of painstaking searching, keeping, sorting, onto:

• scraps of paper
• floppy discs
• cd roms
• usb keys

cramming into:

• boxes
• drawers

slinging into

• bin-bags  

had become a pathetic annoyance.

A few months later, the house was empty.

I took a deep breath.

I turned the key and pushed hard to open the front-door.

It was hopeless, it wouldn't give, I came up against feisty resistance.  A heap of bloody junk-mail was, I ascertained, heaped up on the mat.

To The Readers' Digest, The Grand Draw, and collected charities, the deceased had not ceased to be.  He was, as if forever, a loyal reader, a potential chancer, a generous benefactor.  That no one answered, would not trouble them....ever.

Nobody had been there to sort through the remnants of his mail.

I stepped over the hearth and took in the emptiness of the place...

"Out of clutter find simplicity."
A. Einstein.