Eye2TheWorld Ezine, Issue 13, article 6, Educating the Tribal Culture, by Peter Kline

An Ezine with information and resources for 21st century education

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Issue:13

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Article:6

Educating The New Tribal Culture By Peter Kline

You have probably noticed the way that today’s teenagers organize themselves into informal tribes. Using cell phones as an adhesive, they travel about, shifting locales and plans as they go, keeping in touch with each other, looking for common activities and shared pleasures.

I suspect that this way of living goes back to the earliest stages of human culture. It may have arisen in response to a need for seeing ourselves as part of a group that can always respond well to the shifting realities that all must deal with.

The intelligence of crowds
I believe that as an educator you should study the following observations. They will inspire you to create a new approach to teaching that can incorporate the new behaviors noted above. It is likely that this way of living will soon dominate the world. It already underlies the organizational power structure of some of the more advanced, enlightened and forward-thinking corporations. The following text is from the December 23, 2005 issue of Publisher’s Weekly:

While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist [James] Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." To support this almost counterintuitive proposition, Surowiecki explores problems involving cognition (we're all trying to identify a correct answer), coordination (we need to synchronize our individual activities with others) and cooperation (we have to act together despite our self-interest). His rubric, then, covers a range of problems, including driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS and designing Internet search engines like Google. If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. The diversity brings in different information; independence keeps people from being swayed by a single opinion leader; people's errors balance each other out; and including all opinions guarantees that the results are "smarter" than if a single expert had been in charge. Surowiecki's style is pleasantly informal; a tactical disguise for what might otherwise be rather dense material. He offers a great introduction to applied behavioral economics and game theory.[1]

The information explosion implies needs for educational transformation
We must keep in mind that the amount of information around these days is several billion times the amount that was available back in the days when the current methods of education were first introduced. That means there has been a gigantic increase in the amount of information each person is forced to respond to. That’s why old tried and true methods of presenting information to students in classrooms no longer make sense. Teachers should begin transforming their classrooms into work sites for team projects. They should establish processes and protocols that make it possible for these teams of students to find the information they need on the Internet. They also need to develop a context for understanding it. Then they can create finished projects that put that information to some good use. That is how they will be spending their lives.

New skills, new games for learning
To support such a structure, students need access to the skills and knowledge that will help them understand whatever information they need to respond to. Since much of the content of basic skills and knowledge is standardized, programmed learning courses in the form of computer games can be used to present it. That way students can learn whatever they need to learn at their own rate. Teachers and information systems would then be aware of each student’s qualifications for participating in whatever projects they are interested in. Whenever needed skills are missing, they would counsel students about what they need to fill in the gaps so they can qualify for those activities.

Teachers need new approaches to instruction
To handle all this, teachers need to learn the skills of teambuilding and process management that are currently widely used in corporations. By developing their classes into successfully functioning teams, they will on the one hand respond to the way their students have already decided they like to do things, and on the other hand prepared them both to build careers that allow them to do useful work in the world, and continuously develop whatever skills they need so they can meet their specific career objectives. They will also need to learn about the background history, culture and thought processes of the world so they can function well in it.

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