Power of Community…

My first look for 2010 at pumpkins and turning of leaves…

Checking out of the Gand Hyatt in Dallas on Thursday, the desk attendant asked where I was going, and I told her, “Winnipeg.”  She said that she had no idea where that was. Outrageous! Winnipeg is the home of Neil Young and The Guess Who, whose songs helped to define part of my youth. Bands that I was a part of in high school performed These Eyes, American Woman, and No Time (left for you), and Neil Young’s songs were a staple for us young folkster wannabes, sitting around with guitars and belting out Southern Man , Down by the River, and Cowgirl in the Sand.

Alas, I didn’t get to visit the city, other than a drive through on my way back to the airport Hilton from my work in Oakbank, just a bit east of the city. It was a good day, though, where I keynoted their professional development day and got to meet and talk with Joan Badger, the division’s Literacy with ICT program leader and one of Canada’s many shining lights.

After the keynote, I facilitated two conversational sessions, on with the division’s trustees and the second with school administrators and a few teachers. They were both great fun with eager acceptance of many of the ideas that I shared and a healthy measure of grounded criticism. A certain amount of push back is an essential part of this conversation.

During the afternoon session, one of the division-level administrators shared an experience that I thought was interesting and perhaps even important — though I’m not absolutely sure why yet. She started off saying that she was one of those people who could not read a book or watch a movie a second time. Once she’s seen it, she has no interest in sitting through it again. But she said that this had recently changed for some movies and TV shows.

As an example, she mentioned the AMC TV show MAD MEN. She said that she watched the episodes that were available on DVD, and then started reading some of the blogs and discussion boards about the program — intrigued by what people were saying about it, the angles that they were taking, the perspectives that they viewed the show from — which were different from hers. After spending some time with this, she said that she was compelled to watch the show again and that this thoroughly surprised her because it was squarely against here nature.

This idea of having an information experience and then paying attention to a community conversation about the experience, and then wanting to go back intrigues me. What did she gain from the conversations that gave her a brand new desire? What did she carry with her into the second viewing of MAD MEN that she hadn’t had before?

Does this observation have any implications to formal education?

If we had learners participate in networked conversations about a unit of study, and then made parts (or all) of that conversation available to the next year’s learners, would next year’s learners have a more effective experience with the same unit of study?  Might the be more motivated?

Am I asking the right questions? 😉

7 thoughts on “Power of Community…”

  1. I think there are a couple of parts to your question. First, a show like Mad Men is not an “information experience”. It’s not designed to show how to be an advertising executive in the 60’s. It’s a piece of art with extraordinary layers of complexity that can be revealed if you know where to look.

    Second, the discussion that sparked her interest was because the participants had expertise in the art forms. I’ve seen these blogs. They discuss the significance of the camera angles, the historical context, the stylized language in the script — even the style of the title sequences. You want to go back and re-experience the art with the expert voice in your head.

    So the questions would be: is a unit of study interesting, complex, and layered enough to have an opinion about? Is there expertise available that would make a re-exploration interesting? And are there enough areas of expertise and interest to satisfy the multiple curiosities of the class? Not everyone is interested in the same thing.

    To me, this kind of idea would work only if the study was about something valuable and complex – a primary source for example, where there already exists expert critique or you could engage current expertise. If that sparks interest, then your beginning critics get two benefits – that voice in their head of the expert, plus a model of what critique looks like.

    Only reading other beginner thoughts does not seems like it would be enough. If you took a class to see the Mona Lisa, would you only show them what last year’s class said about the painting?

    1. It’s not mentioned in the article that reading comments and “beginner thoughts” are enough for evaluating some notion – it’s about re-evaluating. I bet if there would be an experiment to prove David’s theory, it would be a successful one.
      I practice it in my literature classes – we read a poem and discuss it in the class, then at home students write their views on analyzing this poem, present it in class and it becomes obvious that each of us notices different detail and links it to a certain literature phenomena in his own way. We chose a direction of literature analysis we consider the most interesting and then another homework for all students is to analyze the poem in particularly this direction, or according to a particular literature theory. Re-thinking helps avoid patterns in our minds – you go far beyond the borders of ordinary seeing the things if you try different concepts of looking.

  2. David,

    The question or thought that popped up in my mind when reading this was: relevance. The relevance she felt was compelling enough to change a well established behavior. Personally, this is the issue I struggle with when working with teachers and administrators regarding infusing technology into curriculum. Many are intrigued, but too busy or involved to immere themselves in change. However, months or years can go by and suddenly they NEED to learn the extensible possibilities of this or that. This is frustrating and invigorating at the same time.

    Regarding a course. I believe that almost all benefit from the acceleration of thoughts from others on a similar topic.

  3. Mr. Warlick,

    My name is Tierra Dinkins and I am an education student at the University of South AL in Mobile, AL. You may visit my Class Blog. My teacher Dr. Strange assigns the class a teacher’s blog to comment on every two weeks and you are my new teacher. I look forward to reading and commenting on your blog post. If you would like to read my blog post feel free to visit My Blog.

    I think you are asking the right questions about this woman’s experience. If reading and communicating with others makes her want to go back and re-watch the show then the same methods could be used in a classroom. If students were to read other students comments on the subject they are studying they would probably be more interested in the subject. I believe this could be effectively used in the classroom as long as the teacher is willing to try.

  4. Great question. We want our students to look at things in a different way. We have discussions in our classes so we can share different opinions and ideas to help others gain more understanding about different topics. When we talk about history, science, or a social issue, we want our students to look at them in a different way so eventually they can come up with ideas themselves that will one day move society forward. We want them to see what we have not seen before. To find the answers to the questions we have been asking for years. How else are they going to be prepared to make this world a better place? That is education.

  5. Mr. Warlick,
    I do not think you can compare the two. The woman may have gone against what her nature was and watched the shows a second time after the reading other’s opinions but it was her experiences she is dealing with. As far as relating this to one year of students to another year I do not feel it is the same. Yes you can use students comments and share them with the next year’s class but it will not change them but it can give them a different perspective on the subject. The discussions and readings I feel changed her.

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