Learning, Education and Schooling

This post is in response the blog post by Dave Cormier “Planning for educational change: what is education for?”  

(http://davecormier.com/edblog/2016/10/24/planning-for-educational-change-what-is-education-for/)

This was followed up by Jon Dron and the comments on his blog at “What is education for?” and thesubsequent comments.

(https://landing.athabascau.ca/bookmarks/view/2025347/what-is-education-for_)

The posts by Dave and Jon are excellent, as are the comments and I thank them for the thinking and reflection that they have stimulated in me.

I guess at one time my position used to be similar to that of Dave’s and I saw learning as an individual process that happens throughout life and education as a systemic process that is ‘done’ to people. For sure I also understand what Jon is writing about and the comment from Derek Briton and his quote from Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

However recently my thinking has started to shift based on the writing of Mark K Smith on the Infed website (http://infed.org/mobi/)

He has a rather different 'take' on this and seems to argue that it is “schooling” we are describing as the systemic process of, I quote, “trying to drill learning into people according to some plan often drawn up by others” and that education can in fact be (to also quote)–

• Deliberate and hopeful.
• Informed, respectful and wise.
• Grounded in a desire that at all may flourish and share in life.

His definition-

“Education is the wise, hopeful and respectful cultivation of learning undertaken in the belief that all should have the chance to share in life.”

This article is, in my opinion, really worth reading and thinking about.

What is education? A definition and discussion

(http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-education-a-definition-and-discussion/)

You may also in interested in the discussions about teaching and pedagogy by the same author.

I found the discussion around pedagogy and the comparison of the role of a pedagogue and that of a teacher that Mark discusses in these articles, really stimulating.   

These have led me to spend time investing the works of Nel Noddings and a ‘pedagogy of care’ and how we might better develop pedagogies of care in online learning contexts and in higher education in general.

I think using the definition of education that Mark describes we come closer to some of the ideas of Rhizomatic learning, if I have understood both your work and Mark Smith’s correctly.

I hope that this contributes to the discussion.