Should educators share? What does that even mean?
Post Two - Let's See How This Works
So, let’s talk about sharing. I’ve been trying to figure out
my thoughts about this topic for a couple days now.
In tech class last week, we watched a video presented by Dean Shareski on what he
claims is our “Moral Imperative” to share. Not knowing Mr. Shareski, I have
no idea what his intentions were, but I know that I got a bit ticked off. My
first thought was “how dare you speak to me about morals,” since you don’t know
me, my world view or my moral code. Besides that, what gives you the right to
pass moral judgment on me about what I do? I’m not much into the Judeo-Christian
beliefs, but I’m pretty sure there’s a few things in there about “judge not
lest ye be judged” and the like.
Then I calmed down, a bit. I still was ticked though, because
he seems to be saying that the only way to share is in the world online social
media. While this is an amazing tool, I think he is doing a disservice to some
by implying if you don’t jump into the online sharing world you are immoral.
So, I pretty much got to the point where I tried to
eliminate his view from my mind and thought “Do I think I need to share things
as a teacher, or even as a professional?” From this point, it was easy. Of
course I do. In my engineering career, I have been members of professional
societies where I have learned more than I could imagine from people willingly
sharing their knowledge with me. (Sure, some of them were doing it to promote their
consulting businesses, but that was the formal stuff. If anybody has been to a
professional conference or trade association technical committee meeting, you
know that much of the real work happens through social and informal interactions
after the meetings. That’s when colleagues really share what they know.) These associates
(many who I’m honored to call friends) allowed me to further my career by
standing on their shoulders. I have always hoped that what I gave back to the
group was just a stabilizing hand as others climbed up. While I don’t want to
sound braggadocios, I think I have a pretty good history of helping others in
my past life – I ran an internship program and have trained several young
engineers in my previous life.
With all this background, why am I still ticked about Mr.
Shareski’s premise? I think there are two points in Amy Burvall’s video Iste2014 Ignite:
#daretoshare that I can use to help explain. At one point, she talks about pushing
something to the top of Google. As a cynic and skeptic, I am very concerned about
the ways that people can be manipulated by the algorithms behind “news feeds”
and “search results.” (Lest you think I’m sitting here wearing a tinfoil hat, I’m
not so much concerned that people are trying to manipulate us online as that as
a society we’re not very good at dealing with it. As long as people exist, some
of us will try to take advantage of others. Education is part of the process of
steeling future citizens against these schemes.) Are we, as individuals in a
society, more concerned about the number of views and likes our posts get than
the positive impact they make (Think Kardashian here)? Is it more important that 1000 people see our
post than 1 person gets something from it? Ms. Burvall also mentions “knowing what to
share.” This is where many sharers fall down (Again, think Kardashian here).
Oversharing leads to noise and we as people and members of our society are very
poor at filtering said noise.
So, where do I stand?
I don’t want to bring morality into the
topic, but sharing is at the heart of any educator. That’s what we do. Whether
it is in close groups (lunch rooms, staff meetings and yes, maybe even happy
hour) or whether it is online, teachers helping each other is as basic as
teachers helping students. The focus should be on the message, not the medium
(Maybe I’ll use a
future post about writing styles. I heard a bit of a story on the radio about an
English teacher that hates style books. I tried to write this post without
obsessing about form and style. I hope anybody who reads it can understand it.)
Thanks,
Kevin
Sorry i made you mad. ;) But challengjng assumptions and beliefs can be a good thing. However it seems you indeed are committed to being open about sharing. I don't really care where how when or what. The Why is that you are where you are because others chose to share. It would be selfish for an educator to do otherwise. In fact, it's very hard not to.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn’t you, it was just the heavy emphasis on online sharing as opposed to any other type. I agree entirely that anybody who shuts themselves off from others does a disservice to the teaching profession, but more importantly to the kids.
DeleteMaybe it’s just me being a dinosaur, but I’m not sold on the Social Media revolution. Yes, obviously many good things can happen, but so can many bad things. The pessimist in me has seen people use SM to reinforce their preconceptions and further isolate themselves by self-selecting information regarding politics and social issues. I worry that too many will continue this and create professional echo chambers as they exist in the other areas. With this backdrop, I see your initial skepticism about the Ewan McInstosh quote you show early in your post (2:55 in this video, if anybody else is reading this ). I’m just not ready to move past that skepticism.
When do you know when your ideas are good enough to share? (And yes, the fact that I’m writing this on a public blog is not lost on me). I don’t want to add to the cyber-noise we all deal with. Equally importantly, when do you know when somebody else’s ideas have merit? As part of my education, Dr. Savery presented your video to me. His role as my professor informs my view of the information he curates for me. I have worked with far too many people in my professional life that I would not feel comfortable trusting any source they put forward. Of all the people sharing, how do I know who and what to trust. It certainly can’t be by likes or re-tweets – anybody that follows the news knows what can happen there.
I’m not adverse to trying new things, it’s just that I want them to have a chance of working. Picking anything other than that would waste my time and would be unfair to the kids. And at this stage of my development as an educator, I’m not sure if I can make that evaluation. I need guidance. To me, guidance requires curated sharing, not just sharing.
BTW, thanks for reminding me to laugh every day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd-Nk2sB-vA). I’ll work on silly, but laughing should be like breathing.
I appreciate you replying to a random grad student’s second blog post. That is good supporting evidence for my fears I tried to express in my first post about how can you tailor a message if you don’t know the audience. Or maybe it supports the questions about your free time from your Joy TED talk. Or maybe, it just shows how deeply you believe. I’d bet it’s the latter.
Kevin-there is an old expression - 'to thine own self be true'. It is clear that you are engaging with this topic and articulating your thinking clearly. What a great use of the blog platform! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic.
ReplyDelete