Class 4: January 28, 2008

Applebee & Ellesworth

The presentations given by Angela and Michelle created the kind of class discussion that makes one appreciate the unique background of the particpants and the fine insights that can emerge when the group's awareness of content is high.

It is interesting to consider my judgement of the class discussion in light of the ideas proposed by Applebee and Ellsworth. Abblebee referred to discussion and conversation as being different, one short-term, the other long-term. Hence, class-by-class we have a discussion, but the converation occurs over the duration of the course. Fine.

Early in his paper (p 52), Applebee quotes H.P. Grice, who said conversations (and for the purpose of the point being made, discussions) are guided by "a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction." Further, Applebee states Grice's Cooperative Principle: "if the conversation is to be effective, all participants must honour a tacit agreement to cooperate in carrying the conversation forward rather than to obstruct or interrupt it."

In our class, the tacit agreement exists – defacto. Yet, Grice’s Principle suggests that if the right conditions for dialogue are not met, then it can fail. Applebee went on to say that there needs to be the right mix of quality, quantity, and relatedness of material, and the appropriate manner of material modulation, if dialogue is to succeed. Fine again.

The right mix of the right factors sounds like a formula for productive education, and Ellsworth should agree. But, the mysterious unknown, the difference, as Ellesworth's paper defined it, between who the curriculum/teacher thinks a student is and who a student really is, may still be a barrier to learning for some dialoguers. Can the difference ever be zero? Not likely, not even in our class. The impossibility of completely closing Elleworth's mode-of-addresss gap is like a calculus limit: you can come very close to the value, but never actually get there. As Ellsworth said, with the help of Donald, there is just too much horror and other “stuff” in people's lives that get in the way of a "perfect" fit between them and a curriculum.

Is such an observation about "fit" a paradox? Maybe, maybe not. Ellsworth's defined difference space is nothing more than a part of the human condition. She makes mention of the fact that teachers are always addressing the difference space when they plan contingencies for those students who may "not get it." What she ignores in her address argument, though she does talk about many characteristics of an audience (p. 45), is a person's will. Are student's willing to work with the material presented? Are they willing to try or allow themselves to change? What do they value? What a person holds dear can indeed influence a will to act. Does an MTV type environment really need to be supplied before students will engage? Apparently not in our class.

It has often been said that attitude is what can make or break one's situation. Are people willing to work with curriculum material "as is?" If a teacher supplies an environment wherein Applebee's four characteristics are well represented, then it is up to a student to make the most of the situation. We choose to value the material presented in our class. But, we also possess attitudes that orient us that way. Perhaps the difference Ellesworth discussed is not an impossible reality, but a simple choice. "To be or not to be, that is the question", said Hamlet.

In any case, what Ellsworth said is interesting. What Applebee said is just common sense.

McLuhan

Continuing with McLuhan got me thinking about the Tetrad and where curriculum might fit. The answer, the following four questions:

What does curriculum enhance?
What does curriculum obsolesce?
What does curriculum retrieve?
What does curriculum reverse?

Is there an easy answer to all four of those questions? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Curriculum can be said to enhance social (societal) control, or freedom. That was, I think, an easy one. Obsolesce? Not so easy. There has always been a curriculum of one form or another. McLuhan, supporting his “medium is the ‘massage’” aphorism would agree, because in his book The Medium is the Massage, he said that our environment shapes us (p. 157). Hence, the environment becomes the curriculum. Environment itself is never obsolesced, but the way it looks always changes. Maybe the environment obsolesces curriculum, if curriculum doesn’t evolve parallel to the environment.

Retrieve and reverse? Next time.

McLuhan's book, The Medium is the Massage, is really about the effects of electronic technology on society. An interesting comment made in the book is about television. McLuhan said that TV really projects it's images onto the screen of humanity, that each of us as we watch TV becomes it's screen (p. 125). In the same way, students are the screen for us teachers and our curriculum. About the book's title, I always thought it was The Medium is the 'Message', not 'Massage.' McLuhan said that the medium massages us; in other words, works us over.

Over the weekend (Feb 1st), I had the opportunity to speak with a TV producer. I asked him if he ever studied Marshall McLuhan when he did his media studies at university. He said McLuhan was for media like the Bible is for churches. I told him that in our class we were looking at McLuhan and curriculum and that I was reading the book The Medium is the Massage. He said that in teaching, the teacher (medium) is the message. He asked me to think back to what I remembered about my days in school, to what I remembered more, the content or the teacher. Interestingly, for me, it is content, but I also remember every teacher I had, and about them, the way they came across. I have to say there is validity in the teacher being the message. Our power to influence is tremendous, but it is also a function of our clientelle. For some, we are the message, but for others, it may be more about the content.