I also didn’t say it was impossible, I said I find that concept difficult to imagine on the TEACHER side.

I work in a VERY large district that is namely title I…I can’t imagine the majority of our parents affording that, especially since I know personally how many can’t afford uniforms, much less school supplies. Just because there is technology included, that wouldn’t make the education system any better…

Catie D.

No one is arguing to devalue a Harvard education or an education at one of the great K-12 districts across this nation. But rather that improving formal schooling will do less to improve education than will improving education by moving beyond the formal bounds of the “school”.

The very idea of “intellectual superiority” runs counter to the democratic ideals of one person, one vote. Intellectual superiority runs counter to the notion of the public intellectual; one who seeks to share and build on what he/she knows vs. demonstrate his/her knowledge (as if that knowledge is a permanent state that one can achieve).

Does anyone care that some writer at Time tells us that they are told to write down to the audience? Do you think one of the many blogs out there written by public intellectuals on any topic under the sun is written down to the readers perceived level?

I find that I have never learned as much as I have the last few years from having a network on Twitter and via the blogs, and it has energized my thinking and teaching.

On the other hand, it’s made me even more keenly aware of things I need to know and can primarily gain through a more formal education model.

So my own answer lies somewhere in the middle I think.

I wrote a blog post yesterday riffing off of a blog post by Jon Becker about the formal distribution channels of academia and about an article that Will picked up from the NYTimes a few days ago about peer reviewed journal processes becoming more open. Both of those articles/posts emphasize to me the continued need for more give and take between those of us in informal networks and those in academic networks. I applaud you and others who participate in both and as Will said, have discussions around the issues that concern all of us.

I didn’t mean to offend. I was speaking in generalities and didn’t accuse you of anything.

You do raise the issues about higher-ed frequently and others equate info access with school transformation.

What do you think about expertise and dues paying?

I’m asking what I think are legitimate questions about what changes in light of an increasingly connected world of people and information, and to what extent traditional forms of education need to be rethought. And, how relevant and or effective can non-traditional structures become from an education standpoint because of what these technologies afford. Are those questions not worth considering? You’re right, access to information is no substitute for education. But the “EduWeb 2.0″ community isn’t just talking about information access. You’ve educated me a great deal over the years, not just by sharing information but by engaging in the conversations around these ideas. Is that part of my education less valid than what I learned in the college classrooms I attended? I might argue it’s more relevant, in fact.

To suggest that I don’t want people to be educated or to strive to be intellectual is just ridiculous.

So, knowing that people in his world now would be devastated to lose him, I asked him if I could post his e-mail address here so you all can contact him if you want to. Although he’s too modest to write here himself naturally he said, “Of course!!” So if you want to find Freddie directly, write him at fred.dignazio@gmail.com.

How grateful are we all that the rumors of Freddie’s “demise” are greatly exaggerated.

“When you get a school assignment, the point is not to understand anything, the point is to jump through the hoop and get marked on it and go on to the next assignment.”

The system is now sophisticated enough to deal with that, though. We anticipate that that’s what kids will do, so we give them additional hoops to jump through, which are carefully and thoughtfully designed to reward behavior that looks more like understanding and punish behavior that looks more like hoop-jumping.

Unfortunately I think the 10-year-olds have figured us out, and now know how to mimic the understanding-like behavior we’ve trained them to perform without achieving any actual understanding.

Thanks for sharing this video. I may have my students watch and deconstruct it.