Ahrashs Blog

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article on June 30 entitled, “Is Globally Democratized Learning Always a Good Thing?” by Ben Wildavsky of the Kauffman Foundation. The question is a good one. And while both Mr Wildavsky and the Kauffman Foundation have admirable records of engaging with and supporting educational innovation, I read his post with some dismay given the simplistic and stale straw-men that he used by way of addressing some of his concerns.

Many of my concerns were ably addressed by Geoff Cain in his comments, so I will just add a few more observations. I think Mr Wildavsky would be hard pressed to find anyone who simply dismisses expertise as irrelevant to the educational enterprise. Among the many colleagues I have who are actively seeking to democratize education at a global scale, expertise is highly valued and eagerly sought after. The problem with too much of our formal educational system is that the manner in which that expertise is tapped is inefficient at best and ineffective at worst. And we have decades of solid research pointing to the hierarchical nature of our classrooms, and the resulting pedagogies that we practice, as one of the most important culprits in perpetuating these sorry outcomes. For too long we have been operating on the assumption that education is something we do to people, rather than something we pursue together.

The new DIY, peer-learning, and/or tech-enabled educational opportunities do not eschew expertise; on the contrary, they provide the means for learners to assemble a body of expertise (as resources or people) which best meets their needs and preferences. There is no question that some people will need more guidance in this process than others. Indeed, some people will definitely have to be pushed through an educational program, especially when concerned with knowledge and skills that are deemed crucial to functioning in society (like basic reading and math). But for the majority of us, the democratization of education means that we can pursue and maintain our innate interests in learning, rather than have it denied to us outright or beaten out of us in stultifying educational settings that are out of touch, too expensive, and demeaning to all concerned, especially the experts.