Movement
1:
Heaven's Gates
Movement
2:
You are Here!
Movement
3:
I Don't Want to be a Computer!
Movement
4:
A Cyborg Humanist's Vision
Chips from a Cyborg Workshop:
Cyborgs Can't be Educated, But They Can be Teachers/Learners
Cyborgs Can't be Educated: 2/5
Even the terms we use to refer to education demonstrate the historical depth of this mind set. Educate, from the Latin educatus, means to bring up, rear, train. It fosters paternalistic and authoritarian dynamics. Learn is from the Latin lira meaning a furrow or line. Delirium, for example, means to turn the furrow away in plowing. Learning thus means to stay in line (or in one’s seat), that is, to follow the upbringing of the educator.
Economically this hierarchy, this paternalism, this imbalance of power is demonstrated by the system in which learners pay educators to educate them. Education is then a transfer of power, usually understood as information, bought for a price. The economy demands authenticity and, since education is seen as a transfer, as though flowing through a conduit from educator to learner, authenticity is determined by measuring the success of the transfer. This requires a measuring instrument, an examination, a test that determines how much of the information sent through the conduit was received and replicable. State and national legislators, who have also convinced the bulk of the populace (or vice versa) that this is meaningful, devise instruments of accountability and closely watch the averages of standardized examinations to determine the success rate of education. Interestingly, in a counter measure, the same folks regularly complain about "grade inflation" disturbed that too many high grades are being given. This position appears to be based on the view that there must be a hierarchy in the learning society. Thus grading must determine the relative ranking among learners. This serves societal needs of making apparent objective decisions regarding learners (for example, for jobs and status and salary and prestige). Interestingly the ranking of learners is almost never a reflection of the success or worth of educators; indeed, there seems often a reverse correlation. Educators whose learners receive lower grades are often held as the better educators while those who teach classes in which students receive high grades are often thought to give high grades because they are trying to please or to be popular with students. The logic here seems to rest on the assumption of authoritarianism and paternalism. One might argue that the better educators are the ones who are best skilled at manipulating the conduit so that learners may replicate the knowledge to demonstrate successful transfer, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this argument even advanced.