Just a brief note -- in many US states there are dialectically speaking, some
strong tensions between democracy and education -- representation and
majority rule seem thrown out when high stakes standardized tests are imposed
by the state. Yet there are long standing claims that these are skills
necessary for effective citizenship and employment in a democracy, i.e.
america 2000 initiative. What I see in the 5th grade class I observe when i
can is an increasing emphasis on passing the state test in the spring, on
what one needs to know for the state, and less time on diverse approaches to
knowledge. Technology is (arguably) both the means to make the mastery of
new skills happen and also a new set of skills to be mastered. I see a
company giving a grant to the local middle school so that teachers can learn
CAD (computer aided design) software -- not to create new insights, but to
learn and hence teach more employable skills. The schools reproduce the
functions of society.
Given what Nate posted on boundary objects, a state test does not exactly fit
the criteria for a boundary object, unless the category is stretched and
distorted beyond L*'s definition. There are dimensions of power, of one
system's influence on another (state-->school). But there are certainly
different ways of knowing that are "stimulated" by the test, as the teachers
and administrators in the school i visit are talking in ways about the test
that seem quite different than the way the available state documents describe
the test.
On the flip side, I observe my teenage son taking apart his computer and
bringing it to a friend's house, where he and 5-6 friends set up their own
LAN (local area network) to share files and play multiplayer videogames. He
once set up a VPN (virtual private network -- an encrypted secure connection)
between his computer at home and a friend's across town, because the 2nd
generation of napster genre software became virus laden. I can't easily
relate democracy and multiple ways of knowing to these accomplishments. But i
bet if it was on the test these kids wouldn't do it!
bb
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Aug 01 2002 - 01:00:10 PDT