Between the lines...

I hated colouring books as a kid.

I hated colouring in between the lines.

After a while of carefully respecting the model, I would end up scribbling, discard the book and find a blank scrap of paper.

What is it about this colouring book craze?




"The Adult Coloring Book Craze Continues and There is No End in Sight"

What does it say about people's desire to stay between the lines?

Does it mean that people are regressing to childhood?

Does it imply that people need behavioural therapy?

Does it speak of passive surrender?

Does it accompany a rise in authoritarianism?

Does it express an inability to keep up with an ever-changing world with fuzzy boundaries?

“The frightened individual seeks for somebody or something to tie his self
to; he cannot bear to be his own individual self any longer, 
and he tries frantically to get rid of it and to feel security again by the elimination of this burden: 
the self.” 

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

Does it come with a global existential crisis?

Does it express an escape from freedom?

“Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. 'Patriotism' is its cult...Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.” 

Erich Fromm

According to Michal Ann Strahilevitz, who is described as a "behavioural economist" (wtf?) by Forbes these books popularity can be explained by five factors:

1. Fun (regression?) : “Every grown up has an inner child that just wants to play, and coloring books are perfect for that,”
2. Nostalgia (regressive behaviour) “there is a nostalgia element, since coloring books remind us of childhood.”
3. Relaxation (escapism) : “So many things in life are hard, but coloring in a coloring book is easy. It’s a nice way to relax.” 
4. Being creative without drawing skills (passivity?): “These books let us be creative with choice of color and create something lovely and unique, and best of all, we don't have to be any good at drawing to make something pretty.”

There is no questioning that art is therapy.

“The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering but to give a voice to it, to find a form in which it can be expressed. Expression is itself transformation; this is the message that art brings. The therapist then would be an artist of the soul, working with sufferers to enable them to find the proper container for their pain, the form in which it would be embodied.”

– Stephen K. Levine

Writing and drawing here is certainly therapeutic for me.

Between the lines...

For reasons which are beyond me, last night I found nothing better to do than to do a bit of colouring.

I started off with that fine educational philanthropist Betsy Devos.

I wanted to find a way of turning an image of her into a page from a colouring book. I found a solution with Prisma. I then went to town with Paper 53 as my coloured pencil case and followed it up with superimpositions with Fused.

As I played, the images became progressively more monstrous.

The one below reminds me of religious imagery. She has been sanctified with a halo (of dollars?).

She has become some sort of horrific Russian Orthodox Icon.

From one horrific image to another.

I was on a camera roll.

I messed around with 5sGif app.

Vouchervulture. pic.twitter.com/2eUCDHHLED

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 10, 2017

This morning, I continued my regressive/depressive/expressive colouring artwork.

I have been fascinated by the physical appearance of the goblins that the hardly-elected, so-called President of the US has assembled.

Jeff Sessions has that evil look which would look not out of place in a horror movie.

Bela Lugosi, I thought.

Reg Tillerson, wouldn't look out of place amongst stony faced politiburo  members.

I settled for a post Soviet Russian propagandist image.

Frankly some of these people don't need retouching to let their ugliness shine through.

Flynn looks authentically, damaged, authentically deranged.

I am not sure that colouring these people is making me feel much better frankly.

How do you efface memories of ghouls?

If they scare others, perhaps they are themselves fearful?

Trump vexed by challenges governing presidency.

Is fear the reason for repetitive obsessive behaviour, crowd counting, ratings counting, cable TV addiction?

Does traumatic insecurity underpin a need for power, explain desire for violence?

Artists, powerless that they are, seem inspired.

What Art Under Trump? https://t.co/j3elxEUZTx

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 11, 2017

“Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.” 

Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

'It's going to make art great again': the street artists taking on Trump https://t.co/UFk6HdA2Sz

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 11, 2017

“If the meaning of life has become doubtful, if one's relations to others and to oneself do not offer security, then fame is one means to silence one's doubts. It has a function to be compared with that of the Egyptian pyramids or the Christian faith in immortality: it elevates one's individual life from its limitations and instability to the plane of indestructability; if one's name is known to one's contemporaries and if one can hope that it will last for centuries, then one's life has meaning and significance by this very reflection of it in the judgments of others.” 

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

What is this obsession with buildings, with walls, with deals, with colouring between the lines?

"We cast away precious time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality."

Judy Garland.

The canary falls silent.

"Artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive.

They are super sensitive.

They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before any robust types realize that any danger is there. "

Kurt Vonnegut (1974)

I am writing this two days after Leonard Cohen went and snuffed it.

Cup your hand to ear and listen.

Can you hear anything?

No?

Me neither. 

Silence.
Silence.
Silence.

Your first line of defence has just fallen off its perch, it's kicked the bucket, it's an ex-canary, dead, dead as the stuffed fucking Norwegian Blue. 

Ha ha ha ha.

Fucking comic ain't it?

Don't you just love those wacky Oxbridge guys?

Now for something completely different.

This time we are not joking.

This time it is deadly serious.

If we are fucking lucky, the canary is just faking it, waiting for us to take action, before it is too late.

You think I am joking?

I had a short conversation with a French friend of mine who has two young adopted Ethiopian kids, one of the young kids was worried about Trump being elected.

Pfff, shouldn't worry the kids about the bogey man, Trump's in the US.  

She has good reason for fear. 

Hate crimes are on the increase.

Systemic racism is not a tall tale you tell to kids...

Down the mine.

I went to see "I Daniel Blake" of Ken Loach 

The situation depicted in the film is not a tall tale.

Close family members - mine -  live in fear of having their benefits cut, of being told that they have to go back to work. 

Sit, shut the fuck up and listen.

It's difficult to imagine a gnawing chronic stress that eats away at your being.

It's all so distant from a privileged existence.

"They can't ask someone mentally ill to go back to work, can they?" I think.

Daniel Blake keels over. 

Others are rotting in the streets.

"Nasty, nasty, depressing stuff, stop spoiling the party." I hear some say.

"We need to be positive (and do fuck all)."

They kill the fucking canary (mocking bird) don't they?

Close family members (mine) fear for their well-being walking down the street in the evening.

You or I walk down the street, we whistle free as a bird, no risk for us.

Close family members try to shrug off abuse, violent attack, assault and battery.

They don't want to worry us.

They fall silent.

How can we understand their suffering?

Jesse Stommel speaks for those in my family who lie low.

I thank him.

I think of kids - mine. (this is not a fucking rhetorical device).

"Nasty, nasty depressing stuff, oh stop spoiling the party." I hear some say.

"We need to be positive (and do fuck all)."

Listen to the bloody canary before it falls silent.

Please stop saying you're "tired of the divisiveness of this election" if you haven't been the victim of a hate crime.

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) November 11, 2016

The canary falls silent.

I read a post of Sean Michael Morris entitled "Nothing to Say." 

http://www.seanmichaelmorris.com/blog//nothing-to-say

"The truth is, I have nothing to say. It’s not that I don’t have words, or that my thoughts do not fly up. It’s that the angry stare with which I must now consider you—an unknown stranger who may have used your vote as a hate crime—is too firm to let out anything but vitriol. And there cannot be more vitriol. The air cannot bear it. Nor do I know if anyone deserves the thoughts I am thinking."

Sean Michael Morris

I thank him for his silence.

You may shrug your shoulders and think:

"I am not a canary, I am not a miner, I don't need a canary, I am safe [add place where you feel safe/home/countryside/ivory tower/in my whiteness/in my privilege etc etc]."

If you were to do so, you would be unwise my friend.

The Sentinel.

There are those in our world who are our sentinels.

Sentinel species are organisms, often animals, used to detect risks to humans by providing advance warning of a danger. The terms primarily apply in the context of environmental hazards rather than those from other sources. Some animals can act as sentinels because they may be more susceptible or have greater exposure to a particular hazard than humans in the same environment.^[1] People have long observed animals for signs of impending hazards or evidence of environmental threats. Plants and other living organisms have also been used for these purposes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel_species

The sentinels, our sentinels, far from being strong and mighty, are vulnerable.

Their voices are drowned out.

And yet.

And yet.

We depend on them for our survival.

Some, we have put in little cages of our own making.

There are those in our world who would put them to sleep.

There are those in our world who would have you sleep.

They will say: "Look we don't live in a mine, we have no need for canaries."

They will say: "There is no risk of toxic gas, up here above the shaft."

Don't listen to them, the gas is not only toxic, it is omnipresent.

Don't take my word for it?

Take a look at the fiercesomely named Thylacine, Tasmanian Wolf, Tasmanian Tiger.

You wouldn't fancy your chances if you came face to face with it.

Difficult to categorise that poor beast really, they named it a "canivorous marsupial".

Wow fancy!

Beautiful ain't it?

Dead now, dead, dead dead like the proverbial dodo.

It ain't faking it...unless it's bloody good at hiding.

No risk to any beast now.

Data control and look outs.

Of course you may not recognise the need to take care of canaries.

You may feel you have a great system of warning.

You may want to close yourself up in the comfort of your room/privilege.

You may want to rely on any of the following, as forewarning for danger:

Your Facebook feeds
Your Intellectual Idiot Facebook friends
The liberal media
[Add to list]

"Digital Redlining  After Trump: Real news and fake news on Facebook"
https://medium.com/@tressiemcphd/digital-redlining-after-trump-real-names-fake-news-on-facebook-af63bf00bf9e#.fwtxlgqv5

"The Intellectual Yet Idiot." 
https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577

"Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working class Americans."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/13/liberal-media-bias-working-class-americans

The fucking boat sinks

Let's take our minds off things and watch a movie.

"Where's the popcorn?"

At this very moment, I kid you not, there's Celine Dion blaring out from my TV.

Sorry, you hate the song?

You didn't have to click the bait.

Haven't seen the movie?

You wanna know the story?

Here's a spoiler:

The fat cats think their vessel is insubmersible.

The fucking boat sinks.

Leonardo diCaprio, him of the golden locks and flamboyant name, dies.

COMIC INTERMISSION

GO AND BUY POPCORN

Ha! Ha!

Leonardo diCaprio, him of the golden locks, and flamboyant name, sings like a canary too.

BACK TO THE MAIN FEATURE

Boo, hiss, cheer, weep, our hearts will go on.

Some of the bad guys get away - it makes for a good story - you get to boo.

Some of the bad guys get drowned - it makes for a good story - you get to cheer.

The old lady gets to twinkle her eyes - you get to weep.

END OF MOVIE

This is not fucking Hollywood we are talking about here.

People are already fucking drowning on the lower decks of our fucking boat.

We, the spectators are ignoring their cries.

We are locking the fucking barred doors.

We are shooting the ones who are threatening to get out.

On the upper decks.

Think this is cinema?

Still not concerned for your own safety?

Still ignoring the sentinels' cries?

Pretending to be deaf are you?

Let me tell you a story.

I went to Poland and visited Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

I learned the story of what happens when a fascist force confronts academics.

On the arrival of the Nazi occupation force, the academics attempted to carry on as before.

This interim period lasted a few weeks.

Then the academics got moved to new premises.

The Nazis had a plan, they called it "Sonderaktion Krakau"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderaktion_Krakau

"Visiting professor explains nazi persecution of academics"
http://ndsmcobserver.com/2015/01/visiting-professor-explains-nazi-persecution-academics/

You think such times are past us?

Look at Turkey.

"Turkey's purge of academics leads to record asylum requests."
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/turkeys-purge-academia-leads-record-asylum-requests

You think it only happens elsewhere?

Think what you will.

Care for canaries, heed their cries.

Care for canaries, our sentinel species!

You don't need to go on Facebook or Twitter, or go to Poland.

You don't need to listen to Celine Dion or watch the Titanic on TV...again.

You MUST NOT take my word for it.

You MUST look for them around you.

They may be shy, fearful creatures.

They may not make a sound.

They may feign death.

You may, at first, not understand their cries.

Take time to try to make out what they are saying.

Take that time.

Take your time.

You depend on them for your well-being.

Cherish them.

Don't let them fall silent.

Heed their warnings.

Act accordingly.

We are living in toxic times.

Want to ignore this call?

Another canary drops off its perch.

Fire-raisers

"Il a l'intelligence d'un cendrier vide."

(Sven Mary avocat belge de Salah Abdesalam)

"He has the intelligence of an empty ash-tray."  

http://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/04/26/sven-mary-comme-si-j-etais-abdeslam_1448793

Playing with fire 

I loved that role.

I was a fire-raiser invited to act in the Max Frisch play.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_Raisers_(play)

I loved playing evil.

I sneered, I spat, I glowered with menace.

I got to smoke long cigars.

I was fourteen.

I was angry.

Resident evil

There is a real carnavale joy in playing evil. 

There is nothing intellectual about it.

It is visceral.

It is viscious.

It is hateful.

It is joyful.

There is real power in the embrace of evil.

Burn, break, destroy.

Senseless, bestial, exhuberant violence.

Kîll the pig. Kill the pig. Kill the pig.

http://youtu.be/x-7cYNN48D

The place of education

I think back to the intelligence of the teacher who cast me in that role, who chose that play. 

How can you possibly understand the anger within you if there is no place to express it safely?

I learnt more thanks to that teacher than any of the others I had.

Thank you Geoffrey Lee.

Thinking of the unthinking.

Thinking of the unthinkable.

I was reading Bonnie Stewart's post

"The spectacle...or Welcome to the handbasket?"

http://theory.cribchronicles.com/2016/07/24/the-spectacle/

"Spectacle. Power. The fomenting of archaic hatreds, not because one necessarily believes them…but because they’re there"

I was reading Sean Michael Morris' post 

"The place of education."

http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/the-place-of-education/

"It’s impossible to deny we live in frightening times when our country looks at fascism as a viable alternative."

When have times not been frightening?

I am thinking of the complacency of the Biedermann family in the Fire-raisers who allow the arsonists to stay with them.

The Biedermann family's house will burn.

"This dark comedy is set in a town that is being regularly attacked by arsonists. Disguised as door-to-door salesmen (hawkers), they talk their way into people's homes and settle down in the attic, where they set about the destruction of the house. Written in the years following World War II, as a metaphor for Nazism and fascism, the play shows how "normal" citizens can be taken in by evil."

A little less conversation.

I am thinking of the limits of conversation with a football hooligan who wanted to "smash my face in" because I was there.

I was thinking of the limits of conversation with a class of kids I had to teach for whom my success as a teacher was limited to avoiding them smashing each others' faces in, class after class.

The place of education? 

I am thinking of the gap between the depth of discussion witnessed among participants in #digped discussions and that possible with some of the kids I teach. 

The place of education?

I remember reading the anger of an ex-student who after the Nice attack on July 15th suggesting applying medieval torture methods to terrorists on Facebook. I am fairly sure that he wouldn't have shared those words with me face to face in a classroom.

The place of education?

Just under the surface in our societies bubbling up is anger, hatred, violence.

The place of education?

We can not assume that polite conversation between ourselves or with momentarily polite students will be an answer to resolving deeper emotional issues.

We can not assume that people have the intellectual means to engage in constructive discussion.

Perhaps we must find the creative means to enable the expression of anger, hate, violence so that it may be at first recognised and then transformed into something positive for our communities.

What the hell is education for if it doesn't allow us to deal with all our humanity - red in tooth and claw? 

Polite discussion won't suffice.

There are arsonists in the house.

They are determined.

They aren't Guardian readers.

"I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter,
you're the firestarter, twisted firestarter.
I'm the bitch you hated, filth infatuated."

(Firestarter. The Prodigy)

EclosureDisclosureEnclosure

“Sì perché l'autorità dell'opinione di mille nelle scienze non val per una scintilla di ragione di un solo, sì perché le presenti osservazioni spogliano d'autorità i decreti de' passati scrittori, i quali se vedute l'avessero, avrebbono diversamente determinato."

Galileo Galilei

Eclosure.

I have been reflecting on relationships between learning, power, wisdom, patronage, and education.

I observed a heated discussion on Twitter the other day between Matt Gold, Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel.  On the surface it concerned the question of sponsorship of an academic journal.

.@lnakamur @Jessifer Really? Please. Academic "journals" don't need, and shouldn't have, corporate sponsors.

— Matt Gold (@mkgold) February 13, 2016

Disclosure

There seemed to be an argument going on about appropriate disclosure of funding sources.

.@slamteacher @Jessifer @lnakamur I fail to see how corporate sponsorship of @HybridPed is disclosed. Please: show me. Do contributors know?

— Matt Gold (@mkgold) February 13, 2016

As a contributor to Hybrid Pedagogy, I confess that I didn't see any mention of sponsorship. I didn't expect any payment.

I don't feel sorry for myself contributing to Hybrid Pedagogy now that I know that they get money from Canvas.  I hope that I might contribute in some way in the future.

.@slamteacher @Jessifer @jamesjbrownjr @lnakamur I have sympathy for them, because you have not disclosed the funding model of yr journal.

— Matt Gold (@mkgold) February 13, 2016

I would like to reassure Matt Gold. He needs to have no sympathy for me.

If Canvas finances the journal, it certainly hasn't made me want to invest in an LMS...
(if I had the funds)

It appears, as far as I can see that Canvas does not have a great deal of influence over the editorial line of the journal...

The funding that I receive from the French State enables me to work pretty freely.

I am happy to work for a public university.  I hope to use my voice to influence education.

I believe that it is very important to question what is considered 'standard academic practise'.

I was happy to read the second tweet here from Matt Gold.

.@allistelling @Jessifer @slamteacher And I truly, honestly, wholeheartedly believe academic journals need to move beyond standard practices

— Matt Gold (@mkgold) February 13, 2016

Nothing that I have read or seen changes my support for the work of this journal...au contraire.

I have accepted money to write for a French educational magazine whose publisher is part of a group that produces text books.

I wrote articles which I was happy to write which question the standard practices of educational publishers.

When they asked me to write an article about a subject which I did not want to write about, I refused.

I have had no news since...

I would like to thank Matt Gold for asking Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel questions about funding even if the dialogue at times went Twitter crazy.

I was pleased to read that Matt Gold apologised for going Twitter crazy.

.@Jessifer @slamteacher I have no wish to denigrate your work and realize that I did so. That was a mistake, and I am sorry.

— Matt Gold (@mkgold) February 14, 2016

I was pleased to read the open letter which Sean Michael Morris wrote to clarify the issue of Hybrid Pedagogy's funding.

Open Letters https://t.co/YxHOq7Xgju

— Hybrid Pedagogy (@HybridPed) February 13, 2016

Enclosure. 

There are vital questions to be asked about academic freedom, funding, democracy and the role of education in society.

I agree with Matt Gold that we must challenge the role of corporate funding in academia. We need to extend these questions to education and government...indeed all aspect of our societies.

"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." Benjamin Franklin #moocmooc pic.twitter.com/YRpBKMSuf7

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 14, 2016

Google Scholar.

We need to deeply question the role of corporations in our relational/informational/attentional/reputational/educational environments/economies/lives.

Learning is not education.

School's out. pic.twitter.com/wlabSGayHg

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 14, 2016

The 'free market' is no guarantee of our freedom, of our lives.

Science offers no guarantee to our well-being.

League tables for schools and universities, results-based pay for teachers, publication-based pay for academics, PISA, Pearson, Elsevier, standards testing...how did that happen?

Who asked us for our opinions?

I would suggest that we need to be concerned...actively.

What is the difference today in a 'State-less' society between Corporations and Government?

What is justice if it can be bought?


Scholarship

Hybrid Pedagogy questions whose voices should be heard and what constitutes scholarship.

I am not sure that I would call myself a writer, an academic, a scholar, I suppose I can accept to be called a teacher.

What is a scholar anyway and who decides?
Shall I let Matt Gold decide?

So what the hell is scholarship anyway and who decides? @Jessifer @slamteacher @HybridPed https://t.co/marnbjiZMv pic.twitter.com/vcPvLaYwrK

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 14, 2016

The definition of scholarship seems to be open to negotiation.

I prefer to be called Simon anyway.

If that name gives me no authority to be curious and to be heard...why?

Wasn't that the idea of democracy?

Whose authority should we respect?

Learned enclosure.

I return to reflecting on learning, on scholarship.

I think of Galileo.

I suspect we respect his authority as a scholar today.

His ideas weren't always accepted by those 'in authority.'

He had a poor peer review by some...

I think of an ongoing discussion with Dave Cormier about knowledge being negotiable.

Let's remember that knowledge is only ever negotiable. There is not one truth.

There are powerful corporations who would like us to believe otherwise...

For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.” 

― Galileo Galilei, Frammenti e lettere

In 1632 Galileo published his Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems of the World and immediately found himself in trouble with the Catholic Church. Summoned to Rome by the Inquisition on September 23 1632, he was put on trial and following the verdict of the Inquisition was forced to renounce his beliefs in Copernican theory and the motion of the earth. The original verdict condemned him to life in prison, but was amended the following day to house arrest, a sentence that remained in force until his death. His book (Dialogues) was banned by the Catholic Church and only in the 1990s did the Church recant its condemnation of Galileo.

Certainty is absolutely terrifying...

Thank God we can laugh about it...about ourselves.

We can can't we?

Learning enclosure.

Who are we learning for? Whose patronage will we accept? How shall we judge them?

How shall we look on Leondardo da Vinci's terrifying military schemes?

Leonardo da Vinci had a number of powerful patrons, including the King of France. He had, over the years, a large number of followers and pupils. His patrons included the Medici, Ludovico Sforza and Cesare Borgia, in whose service he spent the years 1502 and 1503, and King Francis I of France.

Love, faith, hope, charity.

How shall we judge our actions and those of others? Which patrons will we accept to deal with?

How shall we allow ourselves to be judged?

Is there any escape from 'our freedom'?

Thought for day. pic.twitter.com/DZ9giNd5LN

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) February 14, 2016

Or are we lost on the road to nowhere?

Or worse...on the road to hell?

Handle with care.

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) 18 Février 2014

There were questions my father found hard to answer:

"So God created everything?"

"Yes."

"And God created the Devil?"

"Yes."

"So God is responsible for all the evil in the world?"

"..."

I was never terribly convinced by my father's answer concerning God's responsiblility for evil.

 

I have long played Devil's advocate. 

I much prefer kindness to killing. 

I think it was Terry Elliott (him again) who introduced me to Voltaire.

I really must read Candide if I am going to quote from it. 

Candide, ou l'Optimisme (/ˌkænˈdiːd/; French: [kɑ̃did]) is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: or, Optimism (1947).^[5] It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply "optimism") by his mentor, Professor Pangloss.^[6] The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds".

That's it, that's what I believe:

"we must cultivate our garden."

I would say that I am intolerant of intolerance.

An easy catchprase...

An Englishman's garden.

I believe that we must enable people to find their way, to self-actualise...

This is all well and good. 

There is a problem with this.

What must be our response to those who would trample on our garden, on the garden of others?

What must be our response to fascism?

What must be our response to those who have a very particular interpretation of their place in the world which includes a belief that they have the right to carry out acts of violence towards those that they disagree with, or to seize the gardens of others that they envy?
 

There are those who justify their acts with words from books.

Those acts include horrific, unimaginable acts: execution, torture, rape, infanticide, genocide, surgical strikes...

There are questions that I find hard to answer:

Am I prepared to fight? 

"..."

What am I prepared to fight for?

" ..."

In what ways am I prepared to fight? 

" ..."

 

“any radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged” 

bell hooks

Image credits
Grenade lovegifs.net

Cartoon: David Pope http://www.boredpanda.com/charlie-hebdo-shooting-tribute-illustrators-cartoonists/

A little bird.

I can't help myself, for a reason I can't explain I keep hearing the little bird's trill from Peter and the Wolf. 

Can you hear it?

There it goes again.

No doubt about it, it's that trill again.

I didn't listen to all of Peter and the Wolf, there was just that little bird's refrain.

Strange isn't it?

I digress.

To be frank this is a bit of a messy flock of a post.

I apologise.

It all started with a comment on a blog.

Just a moment I shall go and find the link.

Ah yes here it is... on an Alan Levine Blog.  

"It's all about the Do."

Jon Becker says:

November 12, 2014 at 8:18 pm

I think it’s time for an honest look at participation in cMOOCs. I have a sneaking suspicion that participation wanes in ways that some wouldn’t want to admit, particularly for “courses” where there’s no *real* incentive (e.g. credit, PD points, etc.).

Also… how big is the group that carries on with #etmooc?

And, honestly, how many people really, truly continue to particpate in #ds106?

This got me to comment the following:

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(empty comment box)

Oops; the blog or a dog ate my comment in reply to Jon Becker. That is my excuse anyway.

Now for something completely different.

Well actually, that is a lie.

All of this is connected.

I have a thing about statistics.  I worry about them.

Participation statistics make me want to laugh or cry according to the moment.

A particular bug bear is 'Completion Statistics'.

I don't know about you but the word 'completion' worries me.

COMPLETE. FINAL. TOTAL. ONE. ZERO.

You only have to say those words and I am a cowering Wreck.

There is a W.... There is a W... There is a Wolf.?

They remind me of Wagner. 

They remind me of a Woody Allen quote.

“I just can't listen to any more Wagner, you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.”

There goes that little bird again.

Irritating isn't it?

We never get the whole piece that Prokofiev wrote, all the Woody Allen films, all the Wagner Opus, just the damned bird.

I am sorry.

Lies statistics.  

I remember a few years ago, working with what was called by some people e-learning or distance learning.

The computer guys spent hours poring over statistics.

They looked very seriously mathematical to me.

God this was power, this was 'learning management'.

To be honest they spent hours poring over clicks, numbers of clicks.

They presented the clicks at conferences.

The clicks looked marvellous on Powerpoint graphs.

The numbers of participants in the e-learning course were massive.

To be honest, and the computer guys were, the statistics couldn't tell the whole story.

If a 'learner' had clicked to log in and then spent nine hours watching trash on TV, we were lulled into the possible  and erroneous impression that they had spent nine hours working on English grammar.

We all know the limits of the stats, but what the hell, they sure look good at a conference.

Massive numbers speak.

People looking for justification to invest heavily in computer engineers, recording studios, and the whole e-learning kaboosh had all they needed to get financial investment.

So they did, the story clicked with people who were looking for 'learning management', hurrah!!

Massive Open Online Courses

Having followed Stephen Downes and crew since about 2007, I was aware that MOOC's or at least Connectivist courses were going on.

If I remember rightly, I signed onto a first MOOC CCKO8 , a second PLENK10, a third Change11, hovered around ETMOOC, and then landed in Rhizo14, before continuing with CLMOOC, and CCourses.

I logged in, I lurked, I pecked, I picked, I reflected, I lurked, I pecked, I picked and put stuff in my nest for another day.

Darn there goes that little bird again.

All of this brings me to school, Greek Mythology and Jesus Christ!  Jesus Christ?



How many people sailed in the Argonaut, hid in the horse of Troy?

How many people followed Jesus Christ around to all his parable gigs?

How many details of what you learnt at school (which you 'completed') do you remember?


How many people do you need connected to spread a virus?

How do social networks influence behaviour and to what extent are people aware of their connections?

To what extent are people aware of how a piece of a MOOC affects people outside a MOOC?

This is all brings me back to a book of Nicolas Christakis. There is a conference of his here.

Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives -- How Your Friends' Friends' Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do

Sorry I digress.

Massive Open Online Courses

It appears that the story of Massive had resonance for some people who envisioned Massive profits or at least Massive investment in their start ups.



You only need to sell a cool story and you get a rush of investor adrenaline.

GOLD  RUSH.

MOOC X.

I love a good X,  it hides forbidden, sexy, fatal, treasure, or a target.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX($)

Of course to make MASSIVE profits you need a big CHEST. A Coursera chest will do lovely.

Pesky completion statistics....

I digress.

Where was I? 

I have been learning much over the past few years online even when this is invisible.

What is completion of learning?

Ah yes completion of Learning is like when I get a driving licence - I am recognised as having the ability to drive.  I have to go to a recognised driving school for a set number of lessons before I can go to take a driving test.

It makes L profits for people who are RECOGNISED to be able to give you a CERTIFICATE.

Where am I?

I am in France, I miraculously speak and write and understand French.

I work for the French National Education system. HO HO.

I never took a course. I have no certification in French.

When I first started 'reading' French, I looked at the pictures. I recognised the pictures. If a text was too difficult I found one with pictures. Gradually I was able to see words and expressions and gestures repeated in a variety of different contexts.

The blur, the din became comprehensible to me.

I can clearly hear a little bird singing.

A course would have been completely inefficient for me because in a course they give you one text to concentrate on while the 'teacher' dissects it and gives you lists of words to learn.

That would have been hopeless for me.

I would have perhaps in the eyes of the teacher 'completed the text, the course'.

I have not completed my French learning...or my English learning for that matter.
I have not completed my learning about or in connectivist MOOC's.

Those two learning situations are connected...

I pick different things which interest me I turn them around, I connect them, I stock them for another day.

I speak with people, I map connections, I gradually get a clearer picture of networks in which I am living.

If we go back and read this blog post over, maybe we will get a clearer picture of how it is connected.

Franky writing it at the moment it feels a bit of a jumble.

Brilliant idea. Why didn't I think about it before? I shall run courses to understand this shifting network of nodes to reduce it down to one singular, standard, officially stampted interpretation and make money.

I could even train people to write this crap. (No that is a bad idea.)

Chicken Tikka Massala

Did you know this is the most popular dish in Britain today?

It is an adaptation of Indian cuisine to British tastes. It is in no way authentic Indian cuisine.  The British have picked one dish among thousands to cherish. They have not taken a complete course in Indian cuisine tasting to choose one that they identify with.

Chicken Tikka Massala tells a story about the transformation of British culture.
Maybe the image below tells a different story?

There has been a narrative shift. One little dish says much about the multi-ethnic melting pot that is Britain today.

Thank God that I am er completely English...

There is a X which says so.



A little bird is singing, warning us about a wolf.

Statistics generally nourish someone's story.

Massive movements, odds, heroic deeds.

A chirp, a click, a cross, a slash, a smash, a yell, a shot, a word, a splash of an oar, a mouthful.

How did I write this swarming mess of a story?

A little bird told me to...