Does our education system focus too much on the individual? Do we prize self expression (I) over group awareness (we)? What is the role of the collective in the education process? Can we substitute group student success for the more narrow individual student success? Do we glorify (petty) self expression in the guise of autobiographical writings over the group learning as expressed through group exercises or group identity? And, at what cost do we train one when society really relies more on the success of multitude of voices working together?
Mark Nowak, labor poet and writing teacher, helps activate the personal voice through group writing workshops that help workers with little formal education create powerful tapestries of their experience. He runs writers workshops that have people write down individual experiences and weave them into a communal poem, with a recitation of individual insights combine with a group chorus. This is video-taped and this can be shared between groups as a form of building solidarity. I think this is great example of teaching the first person plural helping people move from individual learning, which is by necessity vulnerable and often resists the headlines, into a collective expression, which supplies the power and societal relevance. I saw Mark in action and he is a master teacher, helping give people a voice.
In many ways, the segmented way that learning is approached might lead to the increase in the personal over the group or universal learning. Universities/colleges and their faculty, although often unionized, might be thought of a group of individual contractors, as each is responsible for their own classes, although they do collaborate with governance issues and selection of textbook and curriculum, etc.
We are, in theory, brought together for the common purpose of education, but our roles are stratified because of different subject matter and skill sets are unique and not generally transferable. We do, as individual teachers want to retain our individual strengths and do not want to be viewed as interchangeable. This works against the cooperative spirit that might increase student success.
Faculty and others have their individual agendas (both literal--curriculum and theoretical-- political) as with other business organizations and the collectivist mentality meant to increase student success is marginalized.
Of course, academia is not just made up the individual actors that are faculty brought together under a union, but also include administrators and staff, who each have their own roles and agendas, which also must be harmonized.
It is difficult for small groups of shared interests to come together, including students organizing, and when these occur/emerge, this might be driven by personal persuasion rather than true shared interests.
So these market influences become systematic (uniqueness, individuality) and in that way work against the cooperative framework that would ensure greatest success for our students.
Perhaps this is the reason that unions do not want to be replaced by charter schools? But, still there are some inherent conditions of production of knowledge that mitigate student success.
This is a way for blended learning to create a bridge between the solidarity and thereby help grow the circle. People can build something together and can help turn academics from the search of lonely citations to a more collective activity of sharing knowledge and learning. This community learning and learning community can be more effective in turning authentic learning into not only personal expression by a pressure vehicle for communal change.
Blended learning is truly a community endeavor, especially as it struggles for respectability and understanding among the general public. For example, many times we might view use of the computer away from work as time spend on entertainment (netflixs, gaming, etc.). My wife might ask me why I am spending so much time on the computer, although she knows that I teach online. This points out the reality that we must often educate our family and friends about what we are doing on the computer while engaged in online learning. Because if people are questioning why we are on the computer, they probably don't understand that we are developing intellectual capital. I doubt my wife would ask me why I was spending so much time attending f2f classes, so I must remind her that what I am doing is learning/working.
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