The Consumption of Post-Secondary Education

The following entry owes much to discussions I've had over with the folks at The Daily Wenzel and has been cross-posted with them.


Let us begin by acknowledging that the following rests somewhat on the ideas of Thorstein Veblen, Theodor Adorno, and Max Weber. You would also be correct to guess that the conversation revolves around "class", ie. "working-class", "middle-class", and "upper-class", though such labels bring to mind specific occupations and our talk deals more with social outlooks, values, or beliefs, independent of specific occupation.

To begin with, we believe in the value of studying popular culture. We believe that popular culture is an important vehicle for the exchange of ideas. We subscribe to the Journal of Popular Culture, although we are increasingly disappointed with the approach that the journal is taking to the study of popular culture. For years though, we have been unable to describe just what it is that makes us unsatisfied with it. Perhaps now we are a little closer.

Thorstein Veblen is noted for his ideas about the consumption pattern of social classes, specifically that people tend to follow their social betters. For example, in the nineteenth century, the houses of the rich had large rooms for receiving guest, while middle-class homes developed the parlour. Working class structures attempted to mimic this to the best of their abilities, given their often cramped floor space. Or, take kitchenware. The upper classes, it is assumed, eat meals off of expensive plates, and many families (of middle and working-class status) have special dinnerware (china) that they save for "fancy" occassions, where family members are dressed up, and elaborate, and sometimes expensive, food is served.

There is a crucial difference in the consumption trends between the social classes though, and that is the degree to which each class is able to make their wealth "work", that is, function as capital. For working-class families, much of the wealth is tied up in the family home, and generally not available as ready capital. Middle-class families tend to be to convert some of their wealth into capital in the form of stocks, bonds, etc., while the upper-class is assumed to have ready supplies of capital on hand not just for stocks, bonds, but also for business start-ups and such.

According to Theodor Adorno, there is also a difference in the relationship of these groups to popular culture. If we allow the division of popular culture into so-called "high-brow", tending to carry with it moral messages, or intellectual overtones, and "low-brow", popular culture that tends to satisfy emotional needs, it is generally assumed that the upper-classes favour popular culture that is "high-brow" and working classes favour "low brow", with the middle-classes enjoying a spectrum of both. Adorno was also one of the first to articulate the belief that popular culture (or what we might term "mass commercial culture" as opposed to "folk culture" both of which tend to be wrapped up in "popular culture"), could also function as a method of pacifying the working classes. Later writers on consumption, such as Conquest of Cool author Thomas Frank, and even in his own way, John Leland, author of Hip: The History, have suggested that richess of popular culture's emotional experience and the desire of novelty on the part of the working-classes, are effective ways of bleeding off wealth from that same class.

At it's heart, this kind of argument rests on the same sort of self-denial premise that Max Weber put forth. The so-called middle-class thrives under capitalism because capitalism reward self-denial in favour of disciplined investment. The working-class on the otherhand, fails to "get ahead" because it is too interested in self-pleasure. This is also typically the premise behind many of our rags-to-riches stories.

So, our question becomes, do these two social groups have different viewpoints on the purpose of post-secondary education? We would argue that there are (at least) two different social groups present in post-secondary institutions, those who view it in terms of self-denial and self-investment, and those who do not. To reference Veblen, for this second group, post-secondary education is not seen as a utility, but as a social goal attained by higher social classes. The proliferation of courses dealing with topics of popular culture, that treat it as an area of relativistic meanings and interpretations (a sort of atomizing of the audience) and not as the basis of praxis, enable post-secondary education to be consumed as novelty items and effectively bleeding off the wealth of students and student families.

Thus, the attainment of post-secondary education has generally been seen as one of the most effectives of social mobility, but we are increasinly wondering whether or not this remains the case, and whether more and more courses about popular culture are in fact undermining this effectiveness?

Those Who Can Teach, Those Who Teach Do

There is a very interesting conversation going on at Weblogg-ED, concerning the role of teachers as experts in light of a new term called, "produsage" from Axel Bruns' Blogs, Wikis, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. From the synopsis provided, and the ensuing conversation, one of the main points being made is that if students are to view teachers as experts in Web 2.0 tools, then teachers need to be actively engaged in using those tools themselves. This led to much discussion around the general notion of teachers as experts, a term many teachers appear to be uncomfortable with using to describe themselves, as well as to some debate regarding just what a teacher is an expert in - is it content area, information transfer, or both?

We would submit, at the secondary level at least, that teachers are, or need to be experts in both. Clearly, the difference between a scientist and a science educator is the expertise that the educator has in allowing/facillitating the transfer/gaining of science knowledge in someone else. Part of this process involves understanding not just what consitutes "knowledge" in a particular discipline, but also what "knowledge" is worth transferring in a socially constructed process, and what can be left for self-discovery. To do this, one needs a certain level of expertise in the content area one teaches. Modern staffing though, that only deals with full-time or half-time equivalents, makes this problematic and occassionally leads to scenarios where teachers end up teaching subjects they have no expertise in, solely because the timetable needs a teacher in a classroom.

Another wrinkle in this problem is that teachers need to viewed as experts in their content area by students, so that students can trust that the knowledge they are receiving is accurate and authentic. This becomes highly problematic in certain subject areas. As science teachers, we are very impressed with our colleagues in music, drama, art, and phys. ed, in that they are always talking about the non-teaching community activities they are involved with; ie. so-and-so is playing on this sports team, appearing in this production, or performing with that group, all of which grants them a degree of authenticity that it is hard for science teachers currently to match. When was the last time any of us was engaged in scientific research, production, or other activity related to our field?

One the ideas that we've been trying to develop and shop around here at Exploding Beakers is the idea of the Summer Teacher Internship, that would see teachers placed in science organizations for a week or two over the summer. So far it's just a dream . . .

Schooling is a Social Function

Supposedly, Mark Twain once wrote, "Don't let school get in the way of your education," suggesting that there is a difference between "school" and "education" even though most schools and school districts would define themselves as "learning" or "educational" institutions. Perhaps though, the idea that Twain had in mind, was that an education revolved around personal interests and experiences (a la "my education"), whereas a bureaucratic institution such as a school, has always carried with it certain top-down notions (i.e., the increasingly popular and derogatory "You got schooled"). A school, typically, exposes all students to a pre-defined set of experiences and information, while an education is a unique result of the personal reaction to those experiences and information.

As spring break draws to a close and the school year gears up for its final thrust, we have been thinking a lot about the role that social networks can play in "21st Century Learning". In the course of our research, second generation terms like "Web 2.0", "School 2.0" and "Classroom 2.0" have cropped up time and time again. Here are three good links that provide some interesting points on the whole idea:

David Warlick, "I'm getting Diigo"

Working Toward Excellence, "A Glossary of Classroom 2.0 Terms"

Now Is Gone, "The Four C's of Social Engagement"


We would agree with Warlick that the future of the textbook ought to be as some sort of nexus where students could engage with each other over. However, we would extend this idea a little farther, as we personally question the need for a textbook at all. In our opinion, Warlick's key idea is that students engage around the course content, which is usually contained within the textbook. The user experience within a social network, gives emphasis on personal choice to direct, and help co-create experiences, something more in line with Mark Twain's take on schooling and education mentioned above. The article, "The Four C's of Social Engagement" describes some fairly typical ways that businesses and marketing agencies are using social networks, and the question that we find ourselves asking is, what is stopping us as educators from doing the same thing?

Shifting Cultural Touchstones?

It would be very interesting to us here at Exploding Beakers to try an unearth commentaries from those who lived through the last major media shift - that is people who were around for the shift from an oral culture to a print culture. Did they moan and groan about how "those kids today with their books just don't understand the workings of Druidic culture like they used to? Why can't anyone recite Homer anymore?" By the very nature of the shift in medium, comments of the champions of the old guard are very hard to find nowadays. How many of us would be able to "read" the impassioned defense of the BetaMAX format its users probably made and recorded- on BetaMAX?

There is a story here, from USAToday about the general disconnectedness teenagers exhibit from their cultural antecedents. As an aside, we are intrigued by the timing of this discovery, as we were shocked by one of the questions directed to OSCAR-winning actress Marie Cotillard, while on the red carpet. The (very) young American journalist asked Cotillard, who later that evening won Best Actress for her portrayl of famed French singer Edith Piaf, that (and we're paraphrasing) since she [Piaf] had died before you [Cotillard] were born, did you know anything about her before beginning the film? However, this is also the central issue raised by the author of the article - that American youth are starting to live more and more in a cultural vaccuum, where the only history they are exposed to is in school history curricula.

In light of some of our earlier posts about the shift we are currently experiencing away from print and towards visual mediums like television and the movies, it would interest us greatly to see how these same students would have fared on subjects that are equally represented in both print and visual cultures. Much has been written about what was gained and lost in the change from an oral to print culture (primarily by authors like Marshall McLuhan), but it remains to be seen how the current process will unfold.

Stealing Ideas

If you talk to us long enough, or hang around long enough, eventually you'll realize that one of the things we are prone to doing is stealing ideas from one context and applying them in another. Today is no exception.

A few moments ago, our friends at The Daily Wenzel, posted a comment and article on the nature of criticism, made within the context of computer gaming. However, within that posted article was a link to another article on how to analyze computer games from a game designers' perspective.

What we found inspiring was the brief discussion on pacing and interest (page 3). We have long been fascinated with the way games such as World of Warcraft or even MySims contain segments of the game designed solely to instruct players in how to play the game. We've argued that teachers need to explore this more in terms of creating more student-centred classroom activities with a greater degree of independence. Furthermore, the way that these games give their players the illusion of unlimited choice (go anywhere, do anything), but actually constrain them to a few options based on prior accomplishments is again something teachers can learn from.

Thus, James Portnow's simple act of describing the methodical rising and falling action of pacing and interest in games offers a similar discussion point. As Portnow suggests, the pace and interest is design to climb steadily over the length of a game. A game is broken down into levels, and a graph of the pace and interest would be mirrored for levels as well, with a peak just before the conclusion. Overall, as each level gets harder, the graph would steadily advance higher.

Imagine you are planning your course for the year: how do you take into account the pacing and interest for your students. Typically we find it easy to imagine that for science classes, the pacing and interest graphs would be relatively flat, day in and day out, punctuated only by the occassional lab, and rising with the advent of the unit exam.

What we would like to propose is something that follows more a levelled game approach. Students are informed at the beginning of the year of some kind of problem to investigate or solve, that would combine elements of all of the various units that make of the course. Then, within each unit, students would engage in a variety of problem-solving activities that could ultimately be applied to their year-end problem. These activities could provide the near-end interest spike that Portnow says game levels should have - what we do feel is certain though, is that this spike should not (and could argue could not) come from a unit end exam.

More on unsupervised spaces

This is a follow-up to yesterday, as we didn't think we explained as much as we could have.

Students, especially high school students (who we have the most experience with), are very experienced and literate in the educational process, even if they rarely articulate it. However, by the time they reach high school, they understand a lot of the unspoken expectations and rules. for example, when students in a science class are instructed to follow a lab exercise in a textbook or set of worksheets, their expectations about the nature of school fall in place as such:

1. A teacher is not allowed to engage in any activity that could deliberately hurt me. All activities must be "safe".
2. An activity or lab would not appear in a textbook if it didn't work.
3. A teacher would not waste time choosing an activity to do if it didn't work.
4. If I follow the instructions, the lab will work.

These beliefs often operate to shortcut any critical thinking a student does as to whether or not the lab has actually worked. Time and again, we have seen students use the wrong material, or miss a step in the instructions, and therefore unknowingly contravening #4, but still expecting the result they achieved to be consisted with the one expected. In a way, this is similar to the teacher's presence on the playground, to whom the students defer for all of their problem solving and conflict resolution tasks. When the teacher outlines a standard problem and proceedure, the students expect the result they achieve to be the standard, regardless of whether it is or not.

When individual student lab groups develop individual lab problems, assumptions #2-4 do not come into play. Furthermore, a teacher who deliberately cultivates an impression of aloofness regarding the students' lab proceedures, can even undermine #1. More importantly is taking advantage of the following student misconceptions:

1. The teacher has a limited set of knowledge relating to scientific principles and experiments, but this set includes all principles and experiments related to the current course.
2. Student creativity is infinite.
3. It is easy for students to come up with problems or investigations not anticipated by their teacher.

Belief in #3 is not universal, in fact a lot of students have trouble with the independence implied in #3, for a variety of reasons. Conversely, a lot of new teachers believe in #3 and are afraid of turning students loose in a lab for fear it will highlight the teacher's shortcomings as per #1. However, while #1 is mostly true, #2 and #3 are conditioned heavily by student experience - hence the importance of talking to students about what they have done in past courses with different teachers. We have found that when given the chance to develop their own problems, independently of each other, most student groups come up with a range of only three or four problems, owing to the fact that they have a limited range of related experience to draw upon, and in most cases these problems a fairly predictable by the teacher. However, because the students have developed them on their own, their belief that the teacher can help them solve their problem is greatly diminished, increasing the need for them to engage in their own critical thinking.

All Work and No Play?

Thanks to BBartel, of Exploding Sink fame, who alerted us to this article via Twitter. It deals with the role of play in the development of young people (although it draws primarily on research of young animals). In reading this, we were reminded of an earlier post by our colleagues at The Daily Wenzel concerning a childhood game of theirs called "Murderball". In it, they attempt to highlight the importance (they feel) of unsupervised places for children to occupy and control.

We have always been somewhat sympathetic to this view, and in part, it fits in with some of our own (unresearched) notions of play. The presence of a teacher or parent on a playground or in a room, simultaneously reinforces notions of power (discipline and rules) as well as safety. Part of the point in the Murderball piece was the way in which children use unsupervised places to develop conflict resolution skills and teamwork. Another aspect of these places that intrigues us, is the opportunity it provides for problem-solving.

The article posted above explores a theory that unstructured play is a rehearsal of future skill sets, such as playing house or firefighter. Although some research calls into question play's ability to hone a specific future skill set, many seem to accept that it can enhance a general problem-solving ability (ie. mental agility).

One of our many (again unresearched) theories on student learning is that students are more likely to "learn better" when they find themselves in territory they can believe is unfamiliar and unique to them. While the creation of unsupervised spaces is a legal no-no, situations that minimize the teacher's role whether as safety-provider or rule-enforcer, do much to emphasize this. Just as students are forced to problem solve in unsupervised spaces, lab situations that are not developed by the teacher or textbook but student generated, can help to develop a sense of separation from the teacher, or other student groups if the problems are unique to each student.