Pedagogy is one of those ten-dollar-words that get tossed around in the world of schooling which help to make it hard to follow without a glossary at hand. What I think it means is “theory”… as in a certain pedagogy is a certain theory of schooling… a certain way of schooling… a certain approach. They are not, I believe, as individual as fingerprints, snowflakes or schoolers. Rather there are certain “accepted” ones, or “tried and true” approaches, which are generally understood, agreed upon and applied in the schooling industry (akin, perhaps, to application of approaches to financial planning or personal training).
Theories of schooling are ways of approaching the business to optimally apply the things you believe together with your resources at hand toward your desired end goal — applied in bulk to the children delivered up to you for teaching, be it a classroom, a school or a jurisdiction. Pedagogy, in large part, is a way of organizing and deploying the teachers. Not necessarily the learners. At least, not necessarily every single one of the learners.
Theories are helpful when you are managing the job of deploying broad resources to expansive challenges. Five billion dollar provincial government schooling to 600,000 Alberta schoolchildren, for example. When you don’t have encyclopedic and instant recall or availability of every resource at hand, and you similarly don’t have detailed, in-depth understanding of every nuance, preference and inclination of the learner. Application of theory helps bridge that gap.
It’s like painting a fence versus painting a portrait… the brushes are different… and the area you’re attempting to cover is different, too.
But what if you did have encyclopedic recall and instant availability of every resource at hand, and detailed analysis, understanding and appreciation for the individual learner? What if there was no gap in understanding/application?
You wouldn’t have to think about it. You could just do it.
That is the prospect raised in this month’s WIRED magazine, in an article titled “The End of Theory” (Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, July 2008, p. 108). It speculates on how things will be different in this present (and future) age of massive… and we’re talking MASSIVE… data processing. Why guess at or analyse why people do what they do, when you can just track it and do AS they do. Just watch it, then accomodate it.
This is how Google works. Google’s servers process, about every 30 minutes, data equivalent to all the digital weather data compiled by the U.S. national climatic data centre (or about all the videos on YouTube). “Google didn’t pretend to know anything about the culture and conventions of advertising — it just assumed that better data, with better analytical tools, would win the day. And Google was right.”
The author suggests we can stop looking for models — that “correlation is enough”.
“This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.”
And schooling… “Moneyball” schooling, as I’ve described it before… is mountains of data. Past and present. It’s just that in a 90% labour-cost industry, the data mostly piles up, unprocessed and untapped (and not a little bit disrespected).
Government schooling may never tap it. But with a Google This, and a Google That, how long before a “Google School” evolves (or a competitor equivalent) applying the tools of massive data processing to do away with theories and simply provide the learning that is best for THAT child the way he or she has been OBSERVED and MEASURED to learn best (in correlation with data on millions of other children in its massive databanks).
Insert child. Measure child “with unprecedented fidelity”. Apply schooling.
Why theorize how kids may or may not learn best (individually or in large groups)? Just measure each individual child, using a spectrum of methods of teaching and learning, tracking and recording the results, then deliver them their curricula in the “optimum” method — for THAT child. Every one. Individually. All at the same time.
Technology can do that sort of thing.
Insert child. Run a few tests. Try a few different things. Observe and measure. Apply learning. Continue to observe. Continue to try a few different things. Continue to measure. Continue to apply (somewhat altered) learning. Continue to fine tune.
How long until you’re focussed right in? Pinned right down? Got it pegged?
By the third grade? Fourth grade? Sixth?
By the six-hundredth child? Six-thousandth? Six-millionth?
Massive data. Correlating like crazy. In the blink of an eye.
Goodbye pedagogy. Hello Google School.
GLO
gordotto@parentsnschools.com
P.S. Early on in my involvement with government schooling, I asked the question (of myself and those around me at the time) “If education was available in pill form, what would schooling look like?” Substitute any variety of possible delivery mechanisms for “pill”, and think about what changes. Or what may stay the same.