The Ed non-Tech (EnT) Podcast

Thanks for joining us for this episode of EnT, everyone! This time around we’re talking about approaches to education, and how these have changed over the centuries and decades. We’re all in on a discussion which involves curriculum, apprenticeships, and alternative approaches to teaching and learning!

We’re on video, with conviction! #ednnotech

This audio may change your views on education, as well as having other effects! #ednontech

This topic puts me in the mind of travel.

Even as we discussed travel and education explicitly in our previous episode, Doug’s framing of approaches to education caused me to think about the distance between what is and what could be, between ideas and actions, and between curriculum and how it taught to students.

Lately, as I try and make sense of my own personal and professional context, I often find myself thinking of the ancient Greeks and Romans, particularly the stoic philosophers. Heraclitus was a significant pre-Socratic philosopher (circa 500 BC) who is noted for, among other things, his concept of the universe being in a constant state of flux. He famously stated: “No man ever steps in the same river twice”. The stoics based much of their cosmology on this concept of universal flux, which I find expressed most meaningfully by Marcus Aurelias in his Meditations.

This statement resonates for me on a personal level. I find this idea that both ourselves and the world around us are always changing profound, particularly as I grow older. Education is a river of sorts which can lead to experiences unique to the moment and the individual. Every day is an opportunity to learn something new, and to test yourself as an older, presumably wiser person against the currents of time and events.

In the recordings, we discuss various approaches to education which by its wording implies travel. To come to somewhere new through a highly personal path is a function of life which our structures for teaching and learning are meant to help accommodate. The value which we as a society place on certain aspects and types of curricula is expressed in the kinds of programs and teaching methods offered by institutions of learning, whether K-12 or post-secondary. These curricular choices have serious, tangible effects on our quality of life. When one approach is chosen, it is by definition at the exclusion of all other possibilities.

As educators we grow ourselves, even as we have the privilege of helping others through their growth. Ours is a helping profession, and it is an honor to be able to do so. This calling, and I do think of it as a calling or vocation, can be personally and professionally challenging. As Doug and I have said variously across these episodes, we wouldn’t recommend our respective paths to anyone else. But for those who are willing to make the effort, the personal rewards can be significant.

Speaking from my personal history, I can definitely say that my journey has led me places which would have been impossible to predict at the outset. The tumult and the instability and downright insecurity of my present circumstances can be mentally and emotionally draining at times. I have been known to wonder at my own past decisions, particularly in regards to certain career choices. And while I sometimes look back at my former self with curiosity, it is also with appreciation for what the past person went through to lead to the mentality to make those decisions. I try and regard my past self with care and empathy. And I try and view my future, unknown as it is, optimistically. While other kinds of work may have provided more material stability, the inner benefits of having helped someone else in some way or other, even if simply through serving as a cautionary example, more than make up for it.

It’s never the same river twice.

What did the ancients fix upon as the course of study in their schools? In what way have we varied from the curriculum?

Music had originally included all the branches of intellectual and moral education – all departments presided over by the Nine Muses.

Laurie, S. S. (1887). The rise and early constitution of universities: with a survey of mediaeval education (No. 91). D. Appleton.

…throughout human history, the majority of occupational preparation has been premised upon apprenticeship as a mode of learning, that is, as preparation and ongoing learning arising mainly through active and interdependent engagement by apprentices in their work, rather than their being taught or directly guided by more experienced practitioners. 

Apprenticeships are usually seen, in contemporary times, as a model of education focused on occupational preparation

Billett, S. (2016). Apprenticeship as a mode of learning and model of education. Education+ Training, 58(6), 613-628.

Reader’s Note: This article is so direct with its points, I loved it. It was such an enjoyable read.

The author starts from Einstein’s thesis that everybody is a genius, but reaches the conclusion that genius is not supported by modern education. The model “to teach everyone everything” is still the predominant model of education. Schools of today kill the creativity of students.

Around 80% of teaching materials in schools are dedicated to the past or to coping skills to get through a school maze. 

Suzić, N. (2017). Traditional schools in the modern age. INOVAEDUCATION 2017, 24.

 In the first half of the twentieth century, characterized by the development of remote and sparsely populated areas, the governments of Canada, the USSR and Australia tested various educational models for the local population. 

Such a situation with the education in the sparsely populated areas of Siberia and the North turned out to be quite lasting. Boarding schools used old approaches or their elements, which proved to be inefficient or even harmful for children.

Nevskaya, M. V. (2018). Schools of the air in Australia. The modern distant learning prototype.

Alternative schools such as Montessori, Reggio Emilia or Waldorf emerged on the educational scene over a century ago but have proliferated internationally in the last 15–20 years.

Overall, the results show a better performance in children from alternative schools or no differences with their counterparts in conventional schools.

Guerrero, S., Valenciano-Valcárcel, J., & Rodríguez, A. (2024). Unveiling alternative schools: A systematic review of cognitive and social-emotional development in different educational approaches. Children and Youth Services Review, 158, 107480.

Traditional

How did we end up with “traditional” education and how traditional is it actually?

Anything you are going to plan on, is probably not going to happen.

I know we don’t talk much but you’re but you’re such a good talker,
Well I know we should take a walk but you’re such a fast walker #ednontech

Welcome to our fourth episode of season four here at the EnT! We’re grateful you’ve joined us for this discussion on learning away from our home communities! Doug and I have both spent significant time overseas in our careers thus far, and it’s fair to say that this topic also has much to do with the current educational context here in Canada, as well as distance education generally!

From our respective communities to yours with #ednontech!

You can be assured this audio has travelled far and wide to land here! #ednontech

This was a compelling topic for me for any number of reasons.

As we discuss in the recording, there are many benefits to studying and/or teaching anywhere other than your home community. As per Ruperti (2009) whom Doug cites below, there seems to be a positive correlation between studying abroad and academic benefits, including going on to further study. My earliest experiences as a teacher are tied to travel, and similarly are tied to my further education. For example, when my then-spouse and I went to South Korea, it was specifically so that I could gain experience as a teacher so as to be able to gain entry into a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) program. Upon completion of the program, I then went to Qatar while at the same time working on a Masters of Education (M.Ed) from one of my local institutions of higher learning in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The fact that I was able to complete the University of New Brunswick (UNB’s) M.Ed through a primarily distance-based format was valuable from the standpoint enhancing my interest in e-learning and distance-based learning generally. This experience, in turn, led directly to my decision to focus on e-learning within the context of an education doctorate (Ed.D) in educational technology. The Ed.D was delivered through a blended format, which allowed me to start the program in Qatar and finish it in Oshawa, Ontario.

Throughout my adult life I’ve lived in Fredericton, NB; Halifax, NS; Montreal, QC; Seoul, South Korea; Doha, Qatar; Oshawa, ON; Kamloops, BC; Saint John, NB; and Fort McMurray, AB. In all these places I learned things about myself and about the world which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. As Doug pointed out in the recording, once you start to travel you will find new and unique opportunities for personal and professional growth. Sometimes that growth will be painful. The immediate analogy which comes to mind when I consider this is of muscle tissue being broken during exercise in order to grow back stronger. As Google AI has it, this is “a process sometimes referred to as micro-tears, which triggers a repair and rebuilding process called muscle hypertrophy”. Constantly going outside your comfort zone, as you must when travelling, builds up flexibility of mind, situational awareness, cultural literacy, and a whole host of other benefits over time.

Inasmuch as travelling for education and work has been part of my life since I was twenty years old, I am now looking ahead to a future which may include going elsewhere in Canada or returning to Asia or possibly other locales which I can only guess at. While my strongest desire is to be in BC close to my kids, I recognize that my history is of going other places to work and study, and that the greater good from a professional and financial standpoint may be to present myself somewhere far away for the benefit of potential employers, wherever they may be. This greater financial and professional good has direct material connection to my kids’ opportunities and well-being generally.

Once you have travelled for a significant time the habits of that passage, the adjustments you need to make, the constant tests while moving from one location and experience to another, all inform who you are when you are back in your home community. You are a different person than when you left and the value you bring to any interactions with others, whether in a teaching and learning context or otherwise, is informed by that experience.

Thanks to Doug for a choosing a topic that resonates across the decades and across the continents!

There is no longer the same necessity for crossing the Atlantic for an education that existed some years ago … To such, especially if women, a few notes, suggestions, and addresses will prove useful in simplifying the modus operandi of settling in a foreign city. 

Nieriker, M. A. M. A. (1879). Studying Art Abroad, and how to do it cheaply. Roberts Brothers.

Most participants reported that they enjoyed living and studying in Australia and they were appreciative of freedom of living alone, being relatively less controlled in their everyday life, being in a friendly environment, and acquiring a quality education. They also took advantage of a diverse range of opportunities that were not readily available in their home countries.

Han, G. S., Jamieson, M. I., & Young, A. E. (2000). Schooling in rural New South Wales: The experience of overseas students. Journal of Family Studies, 6(2), 272-279.

Ruperti, B. (2009). Tanizaki and the Way of Art (Geido): Traditional Arts and Performance Skills. The Grand Old Man and the Great Tradition, 97.

Three main themes emerged when participants were asked what they had learnt from their time away. 

Fox, T. A., Byrne, G., & Byrne‐Davis, L. M. (2018). The educational impact of experience overseas. The Clinical Teacher, 15 (4), 298-303.

… effective strategies for flourishing while overseas provide preliminary data which suggest that acculturation phenomena provide growth opportunities. …Flourishing can be linked with acculturation. The participants who set goals for themselves felt proud when they accomplished them, and served to reinforce their sense of belonging

Stasel, R. S. (2021). Educator acculturation while living and working overseas: Stories from seventeen sojourning teachers and school leaders at international schools (Doctoral dissertation, Queen’s University (Canada)).

I let the quokkas in 🙂

Rottnest Island, Western Australia

Overseas / International

How can more people get the opportunity to embrace teaching and learning opportunities away from their home communities?

Became Canadian

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe #ednontech

Thank you for checking out this, the third episode in our fourth season!

We are going into new territory with this outing, as we talk about book bans and book burning and how they fit into the wider culture of contemporary education generally! Please give it a view or listen!

It’s just us, Garfield, and maybe Billy Joel! #ednontech

It’s audio that’s too hot to hold! #ednontech

I have to admit I was more than a bit curious when Doug suggested book bans and book burning as a topic for this episode. Perhaps even more so when I saw “morale” as one of the categories, or metadata, for the post. And while I’ll leave the audio and video recordings to speak for themselves, from the outside looking in, that is, as I write this before we record in a few days, I can see a connection between book bans and a reactionary kind of mindset which may exist in some areas of contemporary education.

Thus far, I’ve had the privilege to work in three different settings as an English teacher for roughly half my career thus far, plus putting in countless hours volunteering as a college writing tutor.

Back in April, we in Canada were facing a federal election which was essentially a referendum on whether or not our country would align with the policies of the populist American president who took office earlier this year. At the time, and in the run-up to the election, I was employed as a college English instructor teaching Media Studies, Class and Literature, as well as science and business writing. In those classes, we talked about the singularity taking place in Washington, DC, particularly as this had significant repercussions for Canadian politics and economy, and our sovereignty. The proclamations of Canada being a “fifty-first US state” from our southerly neighbours were particularly vexing. And so we discussed these things in class, as part of an historical perspective on the subjects we were exploring. You can go back and check out some of our winter Ed non-Tech episodes where we got into those and associated topics.

Exactly three days after the election, my position teaching English was ended a year early as part of cost-saving measures across the college. Despite my expressed interest in returning, I’ve yet to hear back from my former employer about filling positions that were subsequently advertised in the mid-late summer period in the wake of the institution’s reorganization. It begs the question: why did I come to Fort McMurray, Alberta in the first place?

I know that Alberta is, historically and presently, a deeply conservative province. I know that my educational practice and associated social media activities over the winter drew attention to reactionary tendencies in the American conservative movement in order to highlight long-standing Canadian narratives of cultural survival, particularly against the backdrop of our federal election. All my colleagues at my former institution are open-minded, hardworking, intellectually curious people who embrace diversity of thought and opinion. Nobody that I’m personally aware of has every condoned book burning or otherwise limiting a literary curriculum.

At the same time, as a person, the loneliest I’ve ever felt has been in Fort MacMurray. Not just from the standpoint of being away from family and friends for a prolonged period, but in the sense of being personally out of sync with the wider culture in the local area. The extreme conservative rhetoric of the provincial and federal political classes representing this place has a tangible effect on actions in classrooms and in meeting rooms and other venues across college and university campuses. Not only am I am unemployed, I am somebody who by personality and values lacks alignment with the prevailing sensibility of the place where they currently live. At the moment, I have no idea if and when I will ever work as an educator again. With nineteen years and four months in since starting as a teacher in Seoul, South Korea, I’m as without a home institutionally and intellectually as I was at the very beginning of my career. Being removed from a role ostensibly due to factors outside my control has made me feel powerless and without agency. And those are the kinds of destabilizing feelings which those who burn books or ban books or support those who do those things are trying to inspire.

This Ed non-Tech Podcast is a way of reaching out. It’s a way of making contact and inviting critique and engagement. And to that extent, I hope we’re making a positive difference in these highly-fraught political times, however small and nascent those efforts may feel at any given moment.

There’s something acting on this body
Something goes in when nothing comes out
And someone’s acting on this information
But, nothing’s registered from this location
From this site that I sense that I am
In asking, “What is burning in my eyes?” #ednontech

Over 10000 articles in Google Scholar about this … which really surprised me.

A work of the kind, from the hand of Confucius, was destroyed at the great book burning b.c. 220, and only some few fragments of it are retained in the present compilation. 

Tagore, G. M. (1863). On Buddhism. Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, 2, 182-201.

The people whose judgment should count concerning books are of course those who through study have knowledge of their character.

Hamilton, G. L. (1907). The Censorship of the Church of Rome and Its Influence upon the Production and Distribution of Literature. Volume I.

THE LIBRARIAN AS A CENSOR 

“Some are born great; some achieve greatness; some have greatness thrust upon them.’* It is in this last way that the librarian has become a censor of literature.

Let us admit at the outset that there is absolutely no book that may not find its place on the shelves of some library and perform there its appointed function.

Bostwick, A. E. (1908). Address of the president: The librarian as a censor. Bulletin of the American Library Association, 2(5), 113-121.

… books are the targets because they “are the embodiment of ideas and if you hold extreme beliefs you cannot tolerate anything that contradicts those beliefs or is in competition with them.” Book burnings “are highly symbolic. When you destroy a book you are destroying your enemy and your enemy’s beliefs”

Schwartz, D. (2010). The books have been burning. CBC News, 10.

The phenomenon of book burning has been occurring worldwide for thousands of years, and as a longstanding tradition that has always drawn visceral reactions from spectators, it is still happening with alarming frequency. In America, book burning walks the fine line between censorship and free speech. It remains, however, an attack on knowledge and culture and is consequently a threat to the information management field.

Book burning in the United States is an ineffective form of censorship as it tends to lead to an increase in sales and “near immortality” for the book in question.

Olson, L. (2021). “Moral Bonfires”: An Exploration of Book Burning in American Society. Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 16.

Here is a list of some of the book burnings that have happened since the end of the Second World War. 

Iran, 1946 In December 1946, Iranian forces burned all the Kurdish language books they could find. They also banned the teaching of Kurdish and closed Kurdish presses. 

United States, 1948 That year residents in Binghamton, N.Y., burning comic books they feared would spread moral depravity among American youth.  

United States, 1956 In 1956 psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich had six tonnes of his books and papers burned, including The Sexual Revolution, Character Analysis, and The Mass Psychology of Fascism. 

China, 1966-1976 Books were burned in China as part of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. 

Chile, 1973 After their violent overthrow of Chile’s elected government, the military conducted public book burnings of works they considered subversive. 

United States, 1973  In Drake, North Dakota the school board had “objectionable” books thrown into the school furnace. After learning about the burning, Vonnegut wrote to the school board chairman, “If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.” 

Sri Lanka, 1981 In 1981 the Jaffna Public Library in northern Sri Lanka was considered one of the best libraries in Asia. Following the shooting deaths of three Sinhalese policemen in the majority Tamil city, Sinhalese security forces went on a brutal rampage and burned down the library. More than 95,000 books were destroyed. 

United Kingdom, 1988 As soon as it was published, Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was under attack by people who considered it anti-Islamic. The first British burning was at a protest in Bolton. The burning books “The burning of books publicly and ceremonially is a bizarre subtext of history, repeated constantly. It’s an act of violence, a punishment, a deterrent, a death by proxy. To assume this is a futile act, a deluded, empty ritual, to think of it as something that has only happened at other times, to other people, in other places, is wrong. Books were burning thousands of years ago, in other countries, and books are burning, here and now.” 

Abkhazia, Georgia, 1992 During the Abkhazian-Georgian war following the end of the Soviet Union, Georgian paramilitaries broke into the Institute of the Abkhazian Language, Literature and History in Sukhumi and set it ablaze. Neighbours, including Georgians, immediately extinguished the blaze but paramilitaries returned and set the archive on fire again and prevented neighbours and firefighters from fighting it. The fire destroyed 95 per cent of the collection. 

Bosnia, 1992 Serbian nationalist forces started a fire in the national library of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo by bombing the building. When it started burning they shot anybody who tried to save the books. About 1.5 million books were destroyed. 

United States, 2001 Harry Potter books were a “flashpoint” for book burners in the U.S. in 2001. One of those burnings was in the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Pennsylvania. “We got some people mad at us, but it’s good to have publicity,” said Rev. George Bender. Besides the Potter series by J.K. Rowling, books by actress Shirley MacLaine and psychic Edgar Cayce were also torched. There have been at least six book burnings involving Potter books in the U.S. 

Iraq, 2003 Following the allied takeover of Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, almost all the books in both the national library and a nearby Islamic library were destroyed by fire.

Canada, 2004 The United Talmud Torah school library in the St. Laurent neighbourhood of Montreal was set on fire, destroying about 15,000 books.  The burning was carried out by Sleiman El Merhebi. The 18-year-old said he was motivated by events in the Middle East.  

Italy, 2006 In Ceccano, a small town near Rome, two local councillors, from different conservative parties, burned a copy of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. They called the book “blasphemous.”  A film based on Brown’s bestseller had just opened in India. 

Germany, 2006 The Diary of Anne Frank was burned on June 24 in Pretzien, Germany, at a far-right summer festival. Five men in their 20s were convicted of inciting racial hatred and disparaging the dead, according to Deutsche Welle, a German broadcaster. 

Israel, 2008 Orthodox Jewish students burned hundreds of copies of the New Testament in Or Yehuda, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The texts had been distributed by the group Jews for Jesus. The campaign was organized by the town’s deputy mayor, Uzi Aharon. “All the books went up in fire … in Or Yehuda, where the residents observed the commandment to ‘purge the evil from your midst,'” he said. There had been earlier burnings of New Testaments in Israel. 

United States, 2011 burnings did go ahead in Springfield, Tenn., and Topeka, Kan.  Those burnings led to protests in Kashmir and elsewhere.  Eighteen people died in the Kashmir protests. On March 20, this time away from the media glare, Jones did burn a Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, at his church. In April 1, after Afghan President Hamid Karzai mentioned the burning, at least 30 people died in protests in Afghanistan, including seven UN staff. 

The Netherlands, 2011 Upset with the use of the word ‘Negroes’ in the title of Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, a group staged a public burning of  the book’s cover in Amsterdam on June 22. The group, Foundation Honor and Restore Victims of Slavery in Surinam, had said they would burn the Canadian author’s novel unless the title was changed. The award-winning book came out in 2007 but was only recently published in the Netherlands. A group member said the cover alone was torched because only the title offended them.

Those are just some of the book burnings over the last 75 years. 

Schwartz, D. (2010). The books have been burning. CBC News, 10.

Morale

How can censorship in schools be addressed using educational technology?

Very prescient examples

Anytime but now
Anywhere but here
Anyone but me
I’ve got to think about my own life #ednontech

Thanks for visiting the Ed non-Tech for our second episode of the season! We are continuing our discussion on morale in education, particularly for teachers! Please watch and/or listen as per your preferences!

We are as stoked as it gets to be back with the #ednontech!

It’s been an (audio) slice, if you must know! #ednontech

I’ve spent a good deal of time as a teacher over nearly twenty years at this point.

Education is an endeavor that both Doug and I have committed ourselves to, for me beginning in 2006 and perhaps even a bit longer ago for Doug.

As I’ve described in our previous episode’s notes, I’m in a quandary when it comes to speaking about morale in education. Specifically I have to acknowledge that although I love being an educator, it may be the case that I’m not very good at it. I am, at this exact moment in time, suffering from a significant lack of self-efficacy. My self-confidence is at rock bottom. After all these years in various roles, professional development sessions and workshops, meetings, publications, and all other related activities, I am at the same professional level as a first-year teacher coming out of a B.Ed program. In fact, the hypothetical B.Ed grad is potentially a good deal ahead being absent a significant work history in the field.

The past 42 months since leaving my last multi-year position have been humbling to say the least. At this point, I am hoping for stability. I’m hoping to find a role where I can pass the probationary period and settle in for the long-term. I’m hopeful of being able to sign a contract for work confidently, without the worry of layoffs. These are things anyone wants for their work.

So what can I do to stay professionally viable? Looking for a limited number of jobs and participating in any and all interviews that emerge from that process like back in September, 2022 when we first began this podcasting enterprise. This podcast lets me feel a sense of purpose through activities that are at least somewhat related to my chosen field. Writing about music, books, and technology at the 506 Report Substack is part of it. Educational consulting has been part of it in the past, and may prove to be something going forward: English lessons offered through Zoom. Volunteer work with newcomers to Canada. Working on the Ed non-Tech book.

Of what value is an un-monetized educator? How do you try and ameliorate precarious professional and financial circumstances? Why should anyone listen to my views on teaching and learning, or e-learning, or anything else when I clearly struggle with navigating the professional spaces which determine if I have a paid position from which to practice?

These are the kinds of questions which I’ve spent the summer trying to deal with as I do my best to remain positive in the face of a future I can only guess at. I know that there are many others in similar circumstances, or who would prefer to be in my circumstances rather than their own. I am grateful for colleagues who are willing to provide professional references, and to Doug for being on this Ed non-Tech journey with me.

And that is what keeps me going at the moment. Any day you get to spend as a teacher or any other kind of educator in any capacity is, in fact, a major privilege.

Means Currently Available For The Encouragement Of Teacher Growth And Morale 

Morrison, I. B. (1949). An evaluation of means for promoting teacher growth and morale.

“How does one compensate professionals for inadequate books and supplies, large classes, disruptive students, public criticism, limited assistance, increased duties, and the lowest salaries paid to highly educated personnel in the nation? How does one lead a group in which morale is so low that over 40 percent of survey respondents would not again select teaching as a profession and 57 percent are definitely planning to leave, will leave if something better comes along, or are undecided about staying?”

Parks, D. J. (1983). Leadership in Times of Austerity. Educational leadership, 40(5), 11-13.

Teachers are being stretched to the limit. Expectations placed on them seem to be expanding exponentially. Increasingly their role encompasses not only teaching specific content and mentoring students in the love of learning, but functioning as frontline social workers.

Lumsden, L. (1998). Teacher Morale. ERIC Digest, Number 120.

… that teacher morale is at an all time low in Australia with teachers feeling undervalued, frustrated, unappreciated and demoralized. 

A decline over the past 30 years [currently 48 years] in the morale of teachers is identified within the literature, along with recognition of teaching having become an increasingly more demanding profession. The drop in morale has been accompanied by a shift in public attitude towards education and a suggestion that education in Australia is losing its place on ‘the international comparison ladder’ 

Mackenzie, N. (2007). Teacher morale: More complex than we think?. The Australian Educational Researcher, 34(1), 89-104.

Historically, the research on teacher morale and its affect on student achievement has been positively correlated. 

(The following is Doug experimenting with AI summaries. 

Ugh, this is a skill I do not have much desire to improve upon)

The factors that impact teacher morale include:

Willis, M., & Varner, L. (2010). Factors that affect teacher morale. Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012), 8(4), 24.

Morale

How can the teaching profession continue without reaching a breaking point?

Triple Ps: Panicked pandemic pivot

I see people on the floor
They slide into the sea
Can’t stay here anymore
We’re turning into fiends
If I stay here, trouble will find me #ednontech

Welcome, one and most, to the final regular episode for this THIRD season of the EnT! Academic year 2024/25 has been one for the books… and not just geopolitically, either! This episode sees us talking about marking… and a whole host of associated issues! Please check it out, as per your preferences!

I guess it (the end of the term) hasn’t really hit us yet! #ednontech

77 episodes in, and we’re just getting started! #ednontech

And that is it!

Time, gentlemen! Gentlewomen! Gentlefolk!

It’s time. Exams are over! Classes, too! Piles were created, eliminated, recreated, shifted into numerical and alphabeticized data formats… from rich to flat… from multimodal to binary!

We’ve been given our orders, and boy did we march!

I’m doing my best to stay general here! After the marking done, what else is there? For this itinerant educator fella… a repositioning, of sorts! From one rich, significant context to another! Severance will ease the transition!

My point remains: it is better to be an educator in Canada than anywhere else in the world! It’s my dumb luck to be of this place! And especially the Maritime place(s)! What’s to stop anyone with a desire to self-improve to take that 10,000 hours and turn it into a thing for life… beyond the commercial applications!

Writing, for me, is life stuff. It’s DNA stuff. It’s what I think about, and it’s how I think! It’s well prior to the educational endeavor chronologically, mentally, and spiritually! Teaching is a thing of the spirit. So is music. So is writing.

I’d like to think we try to give that creative spirit, writ large, some space and some exploration through this show and our various and sundry and associated and non-mutually-exclusive other endeavors!

This is all to say: education is freedom! We are pursuing this with commitment and conviction! And we are grateful to you, or anyone, who takes an interest in this for any reason whatsoever!

We’ll see you again in the fall!

Out of the discussion of the last fifteen years we find one point of absolute agreement, namely, that we should overhaul thoroughly the methods by which we measure the outcome of instruction in the public schools. 

Rugg, H. O. (1918). Teachers’ marks and the reconstruction of the marking system. The Elementary School Journal, 18(9), 701-719.

Secondary school teachers reported an average workload of 47.6 hours per week, made up of:

A number of teachers highlighted the cyclical nature of their marking workload, confirming that the hours spent on marking increased at certain peak points during the school year such as assessment, examination and reporting periods. As one teacher remarked, ‘These times change throughout the year. During musical time, reporting periods, senior marking, these hours double if not triple’

Manuel, J., Carter, D., & Dutton, J. (2018). ‘As much as I love being in the classroom…’: Understanding secondary English teachers’ workload. English in Australia, 53(3), 5-22.

Without considering the 21st Century teaching and learning activities, there are factors that are often left out in teaching workload calculation. Among of those factors are: 

… the assessment of student learning was the single most important contributor to the academic workload which taking on average 2.5 hours per student per semester.

Ujir, H., Salleh, S. F., Marzuki, A. S. W., Hashim, H. F., & Alias, A. A. (2020). Teaching Workload in 21st Century Higher Education Learning Setting. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 9(1), 221-227.

Overall pupil attainment and progress remained constant or improved. In some cases (such as certain alternative marking and feedback strategies), reducing workload outside of class may in fact improve attainment. 

Churches, R. (2020). Supporting teachers through the school workload reduction toolkit. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f08d616d3bf7f0416418520/Supporting_teachers_through_the_school_workload_reduction_toolkit_March_2020.pdf

Discussion categories:

With ever increasing student focused assessment there is an increase in required marking time, which has not been reflected in workload adjustments and may not be economically achievable for universities.

Henderson-Brooks, C. (2021). Marking as emotional labour: A discussion of the affective impact of assessment feedback on enabling educators. Access: Critical explorations of equity in higher education, 8(1), 110-121.

Marking

How can educators complete cyclical grading with less of an emotional toll?

It puts you in a false sense of competition with those around you

&

Grading is the pez dispenser of education

Hey there, hither and yon! We are most def gratitudinal (sic) to see you here and now! In this episode, Doug went way in the way back machine and brought out a topic and possibly the start of his part of these notes back in fall of 2023! We’re always trying to fully use what we create on the way to these notes, and it’s always great to be able to go back and rescue topics and ideas that had perhaps fallen to the side!

Folks, we are talking loss & grief in education… and it does get heavy!

We are committed to these discussions! And we are excruciatingly handsome! #ednontech

Unsurprisingly, we have some exceedingly handsome audio hereabouts as well! #ednontech

Listen, I’d be remiss here not to observe the following that have been shaping my viewpoint on certain aspects of how communication works in our new Trumpian, post-social media shitshow that is passing for culture!

The Pope died on Easter Sunday the day after meeting a senior executive from one of the most chaotic, problematic US administrations in modern history.

This same Easter weekend has also coincided with the normal 4/20 stoner fest to celebrate legal weed.

As far as significant rock things go, we are also this same weekend with Easter, the death of the Pope, and 4/20… today, as I write this, Easter Monday of 2025… is the fifth anniversary of the passing of Prince, the legendary genius generational musician and cultural icon… and, at bottom, basketball-loving Minneapolis homebody! They’re a type, actually!

It’s also Iggy Pop’s birthday today, cause why the fuck not?

In the times of MAGA and the complete annihilation of economic, cultural, and political norms… people are feeling stressed, angry, exhausted!

I know this because I’ve made an intentional effort to reach an American audience for podcasts and other media offerings vis-à-vis the “adding friend” feature on FB! Here are the points that I made this afternoon when somebody reached out! It seems best to share these verbatim! Honestly, I think this says it all!

I have a PhD in a thing called educational technology! I teach English at a college here in Alberta! I’ve been doing somewhat of a multifaceted social media experiment.

I’m using 5 different social media platforms with pretty specific purposes in order to amplify content that I produce related to: an education podcast, a music podcast, a literary interview series, plus bespoke indie media production.

As of 6 weeks ago, I had around 115 followers… a normal, selective amount for a middle-aged separated educator guy.

Then, after your president fucked over the world economy, I decided to start poking back through very specific and disruptive techniques equating to spam, but with advanced cultural and technological messaging behind it.

Cause you know, 4 university degrees, temporary English contract, away from my kids, single, basic bored sober dude.

I’m trying to be as transparent as possible to anyone who asks.

I have a very legitimate 20 year practice as PhD level educator in the language, learning technology, training and development spaces.

I have seen MAGA use very basic features and approaches through Meta tools, largely FB and IG but also Whatsapp.

The Democrats are utterly fucked at running counter messaging.

I am a basic overeducated Canadian dude whose Grandfather fought in Korea alongside American troops in the first conflict against Soviet-Russian backed forces following WWII.

I take this bullshit from your fucked up bigoted dictator personally.

I am using very basic counter propaganda techniques to put out messaging which is educationally and cultural valid, while also causing the other side to scramble with my advanced writing skills and my basic ability to use media creation tools and web marketing techniques to disrupt some very bogus and lazy narratives being propagated by very very lazy, mid, mostly male, mostly white privileged assholes

Thanks for attending my TED talk, lol

And thanks, as ever, to Doug for being such an outstanding partner in this endeavor! It would literally not exist in any way, shape or form without him! Thanks, pal! And thanks to all/any new pals checking out this podcast and associated media and notes for the first time!

The use of the arts and humanities, as a teaching and learning strategy, is achievable through the bringing together of different art and media by a skilled educator to facilitate reflection.  

Johnson, A., & Jackson, D. (2005). Using the arts and humanities to support learning about loss, suffering and death. International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 11(8), 438-443.

There is minimal research relating to grief and loss education in the field of counseling or other helping professions.

… a grief and loss course specific to death and dying concerns: 

Doughty Horn, E. A., Crews, J. A., & Harrawood, L. K. (2013). Grief and loss education: Recommendations for curricular inclusion. Counselor Education and Supervision, 52(1), 70-80.

Loss, impermanence, and death are facts of life difficult to face squarely. Our own mortality and that of loved ones feels painful and threatening, the mortality of the biosphere unthinkable.  Consequently, we do our best to dodge these thoughts, and the current globalizing culture supports and colludes in our evasiveness. 

Affifi, R., & Christie, B. (2019). Facing loss: Pedagogy of death. Environmental Education Research, 25(8), 1143-1157.

Loss

How can education help with the loss of important people in educator lives?

Seneca knows what he is talking about.

Hey there! Welcome one and most to this uh… dual-purpose episode of the EnT, falling as the recording session did… on both Easter Sunday and also 4/20! To get full stunt production value out of this convergence, we are releasing two different but in some ways thematically overlapping issues within a short timespan! First up is our chat on repossessing education from the throes of bad jargon and the accompanying lack of attendant conceptual clarity!

Video capable, if you’ve gumption enough! #ednontech

We’ve got your (semantic) back, Jack! #ednontech

To my mind, any conversation that I get to have with Dr. Doug Reid is pure gold!

Let’s be really real here for a moment! Due to the incessant deluge of chaos from certain significant geopolitical entities, it’s hard to believe how much things have changed in many of our lives since the beginning of 2025!

I’ve said for months now that mental health and wellness are vital! You have to be proactive, in my opinion! Those who have observed my recent pivot in terms of my very specific and intentional uses of Meta apps, particularly Facebook, may have some questions at what some of the actions there signify on a wider scale! Let me say first that anyone who has asked directly has received a proper explanation! These parties include my mom, my dad, my students at Keyano, my kids, my best friend, and my podcasting partners!

In full transparency, I am engaged in a valid form of peaceful protest of what I perceive as propagandistic tactics and approaches by various state and non-state entities by emulating social media’s algorithmic content sharing practices and exponential reach through a highly porous and ad hoc social networking “outer layer”. This porous outer layer of social interactions is actually a small subset of how Meta makes money off secondary and tertiary marketing of aggregated heaps of mega-data to various other commercial and noncommercial enterprises and entities and actors.

As such…

I’m essentially using the features of Facebook to offer a critique of the platform and problems associated with rendering significant cultural issues down to clickbait in between highly problematic ads, with a user ecosystem rife with malicious, dishonest user accounts… and a great, great many bots!

At some point, a wider and deeper explanation of the mindset that led to this, the practices, and lessons learned may be warranted! At the moment it is simply interesting to discover new areas of practice within the ed tech endeavor which I have been participating in for nearly twenty years!

Thanks as ever to Doug for a compelling topic and a great conversation!

For my educational non-dollar, I’d strongly recommend this interview with one of the greatest actors of his, or any, generation!

What is the youthful mind curious about – at least till we deaden it with our preposterous schools – but about these very marvels of creation which we do our best to spoil for him with our learned jargon and our grammar rules?

Atkinson, W. (1872). Primary School Education. (2), 46-46.

The use of jargon in education is a problem where it is not used consistently. This inconsistency limits how people within the profession communicate with each other and also how those professionals communicate with others.

Hollingshead, S. L. P. (1994). The use of jargon in education, 1920-1990. University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

This book is good reading when you have just a few flee moments and when you have had a conversation with a teacher and are not quite sure about the terminology mentioned. Bottom line: Essential.

Jargon book is a terminology book through which preservice language teachers keep significant terms and methods that are related to language teaching.

Özkan, Y. (2018). Fostering reflectivity through jargon books in a teacher education context. PASAA, 55(1), 32-56.

… the use of jargon may be confusing to individuals without similar training, which could be a hindrance to successful interdisciplinary work, such as in consultation with schoolteachers.
Martin, S. (2022). The Effects of Jargon on School-Based Consultation (Master’s thesis, University of Kansas).

https://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html

Jargon

How can educators engage with jargon that welcomes others to this discipline?

MCAA – Make competence awesome again

Thanks for joining us here at the EnT! We take a deep dive into personnel and/or personal factors associated with the educational endeavour, writ large! We hope you will be as stoked about this as we are!

When we started all we had were our handsomeness, talent, and experience! Then we started to figure out what we’re doing! #ednontech

It’s yours to keep, this audio, if you want! #ednontech

Here we are! In the past 28 or so hours since recording this episode, we’ve put 3 new episodes of the new Writers on Writing series of interviews associated with my role as an English prof! Plus putting together this here EnT! As such, I’ve precious, precious little to add here… as I’m teaching in a few hours and have a lecture still to prepare!

I am grateful to Doug for this topic! Personality, personal integrity, accountability, and other considerations of the person as a whole are significant to the educational endeavour, generally! Looking back on it now, I see that the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model and particularly the construct of social presence— which I studied as part of my University of Calgary Education Doctorate (Ed.D)— informs my perspective on much of what we discussed today! And, further, the case study research method as well!

Given these outstanding areas yet to be fully explored, I’m hopeful we’ll be able to revisit this topic again before too long… and possibly further explorations may be warranted!

My reading list at the moment is veering towards the texts I’m teaching for my classes this term, and also lately a collection of Nietzsche’s essays On Truth and Untruth… I am finding this somewhat bracing, and even strengthening in the… uh… rather unique economic and political times we find ourselves entangled in! And of course, taking into account the effects these can have on a person’s general sense of wellness and wellbeing!

As such, my real last word for now is: take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Make adjustments to your plans or activities as needed. Wellness first, in all things, pals!

Much appreciation and respect to Doug for leading this stellar convo!

Note that these posts are NOT meant to be deeply researched historical accounts, but how I saw and encountered developments in my personal life.

Trying to develop a vision for teaching and learning

Bates, Tony. “Https://www.tonybates.ca/2025/03/25/a-personal-history-29-strategic-planning-for-e-learning-a-personal-case-study/.” Online Learning and Distance Education Resources, edited by Tony Bates, Contact North, 25 Mar. 2025, www.tonybates.ca/2025/03/25/a-personal-history-29-strategic-planning-for-e-learning-a-personal-case-study/

Recently, theorists have argued for a cultural dimension in the design process and the need to provide culturally sensitive learning environments.

McLoughlin, C., & Oliver, R. (2000). Designing learning environments for cultural inclusivity: A case study of indigenous online learning at tertiary level. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 16(1).

Edtech is also an area to which people come from other disciplines, so there is no shared set of concepts or history. This can be liberating but also infuriating. I’m sure I was not alone in emitting the occasional sigh when during the MOOC rush of 2012, so many “new” discoveries about online learning were reported—discoveries that were already tired concepts in the edtech field.

Weller, M. (2018). Twenty years of EdTech. Educause Review Online, 53(4), 34-48.

“But government rarely acts on the basis of need, want, fact, or logic.”

Teillet, J. (2019). The North-West is our Mother: The story of Louis Riel’s people, the Métis Nation. HarperCollins.

In this special issue, “A New Era for Educational Technology: Opportunities and Conversations,” we invited eight teams to share insights from their research on innovative uses of educational technologies. As we hope you will see throughout this issue, these papers address crucial and interconnected issues and develop shared insight into EdTech.

We hope that this special issue sparks further conversation among researchers, educators, policymakers, and EdTech developers regarding the growing and diversifying roles of educational technology at all levels.

Kim, D., Borowiec, K., & Wortham, S. (2024). A New Era in EdTech: Emerging Challenges and Opportunities. ECNU Review of Education, 7(2), 252-257.

Join us as we delve into these subjects and more, sharing our perspectives and experiences along the way.

https://oyos.ca/ENT/

Please visit the Ed non-Tech Sandbox for examples, experiments, memes, and other ephemera discussed during the podcast!

Stranach, Matt, and Doug Reid. “Conversations about education, technology, and culture.” #Ed non-Tech (EnT) Podcast, edited by Matt Stranach, 506 Consulting NB, 22 Mar. 2025, analogue-trope.ca/podcast/.

Narrative

How can the personal narratives of educators help inform how we move forward?

Emitted an occasional sigh

Welcome to the EnT on disruption in education! This is the first time we’ve addressed this full-on, somehow! Please join us!

This video widget isn’t going to click itself! Or is it? #ednontech

Sound, meet radness! #Ednontech

These are the weeks where the sun is well and truly out!

We are well and truly into the torrents of spring, despite all the grimness of *ahem* certain GEOPOLITICAL GOINGS-ON (Editor: Easy now, fella).

I, myself, personally, and speaking only, solely, individually on my own behalf could stand somewhat LESS disruption across the board, generally! As much as the English teacher in me abhors using a negative statement to frame a point, it’s perfectly true to say: I wish things would stop bumping the fuck around so much, generally! Societal disruption is, effectively, the new norm! These are the headwinds we are navigating as a society!

This when the mental fortress Marcus writes of becomes paramount! You step into your calm place. You find your few simple doctrines. You find perfect calm. You return to the world. This is what Stoicism provides me, particularly through Marcus, but the other writers are all there too!

My experience is that kindness, care, mindfulness, respect for students’ lives as a whole all set the preconditions for successful learning. Ideally the class will be an island of calm, of sorts. The Stoics have a Greek word: εὐδαιμονία; Eudaimonia which I am always after and which I try as much as I can to encourage in others… in the Stoic sense, rather than the Greek colloquial, of perfect calm from being untroubled.

Untroubledness (new word alert!) is something I’ve come to greatly value over the years and weeks and hours and decades, particularly in middle age! As such, I would like to propose that wellness, self-care, looking out for yourselves and those around you proactively… can all be considered disruptive acts! Inasmuch as the current public spaces are designed in format and messaging to flatten and trivialize anything with a whiff of nuance or emotional resonance! I could go on! I have! I will! But not here, and not now!

Thanks as ever to Doug for being such a rad friend and collaborator! Thanks to you(s) for checking out this here EnT!

Some countries have governmental problems in allowing the import of transistors or radios for use by the populace.

Some characteristics and uses of radio identified in the review include:

In fact, radio has been shown to be as effective as “conventional methods.”

Grise Jr, P. J. (1974). Educational Radio: A Review of the Literature.

I’m not sure we always notice: sometimes when mainstreaming happens we don’t recognise it. When did e-learning become part of the fabric of education?

—Amber Thomas

van Mourik Broekman, P., Hall, G., Byfield, T., Hides, S., & Worthington, S. (2014). Open education: A study in disruption. Rowman & Littlefield.

Crisis requires society to renew itself, albeit in a disruptive way.

This sudden change has required universities to evolve toward online teaching in record time, implementing and adapting the technological resources available and involving professors and researchers who lack innate technological capacities for online teaching. The university system must be able to provide quality education in a scenario of digital transformation, disruptive technological innovation, and accelerated change in the educational framework.

García-Morales, V. J., Garrido-Moreno, A., & Martín-Rojas, R. (2021). The transformation of higher education after the COVID disruption: Emerging challenges in an online learning scenario. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 616059.

… wars disrupt the educational process making it harder for the

population in schooling age to achieve the desired level of education.

Ichino, A., & Winter-Ebmer, R. (2004). The long-run educational cost of World War II. Journal of Labor Economics, 22(1), 57-87.

The past century witnessed a dramatic expansion of mass education (Boli et al. 1985, Meyer et al. 1992a). Yet, the expansion of educational opportunities has not been accompanied by the corresponding expansion of equality of educational opportunities.

The reliance on exogenous, episodic periods of crisis or subsequent transformative adaptation does not leave much room for the agency in the discussion of change.

Toubeau, S. The Politics of Educational Reform in Great Britain (1945-2010). The process and implementation policy change and its consequence for educational inequality. MIROSLAV BEBLAVÝ AND MARCELA VESELKOVÁ, 116.

Radio Education

RAC Youth Education program

Educational Broadcasting

voicEd Radio

Disrupt

The AI disruption to education is just one in a long list of edtech impacts on education. How do you think we can weather this storm of change this time?

When that has been thwarted, you can not rebuild that lost trust.

Hey there all y’all! We’ve located, mixed-and-matched, calibrated, curated and brought to the fore… this here EnT on universal education! In multiple formats, as is the custom of these here times!

Where this video has been depends your deets, pardner(s)! #ednontech

This radio works fine! It’s just recontextualized! #ednontech

So it turns out, I’m writing these notes on the first day of spring!

It wasn’t intended thus, but here we are! I could… I have… I will… say that about a lot of things lately! And indeed, you can visit my Substack, or any of my social media, for much of that!

In the true spirit of this here WordPress, and the EnT… I’ll say that given the times we’re in, I’m grateful to be in the role of English and social studies-adjacent professor at an awesome publicly-funded college in an awesome community in a really cool part of a dynamic, surprising province*

*For now! (Editor: oh come on)

Anyway, there will be a time when I catch my breath and speak in a somewhat linear, comprehensive way to the tech interventions and approaches and whatnot for the past semester and, indeed, the entire preceding academic year. At the moment, my purposes are more immediate! To wit… getting this EnT out the door before the weekend and, presumably, recording EnT 73… but… as far as timelines and the topics and so forth… that all falls squarely within Dr. Doug’s purview!

In my opinion, this episode jumps not leastly cause of Doug’s significant travel anecdotes of his significant travels to Egypt a few weeks back! It was Doug’s first time visiting the MENA region, which I called home for 6.5 years a good long time ago back in the Qatar days of my career!

Once you visit the Middle East, you’re a different person… beyond in merely obvious ways!

And so… a brief scan of the preceding confirms that indeed we have enough *premium educational content* hereabouts for me to hit publish on this for the day! Here’s hoping that the spring blasts forth with radness in all the right ways for you despite the uh… WIDESPREAD MAGA FUCKERY (Editor: this is your only warning, bruh).

Universal education in the modern meaning of the term has been closely bound up with three great movements in social evolution.

The first of these was the Protestant Reformation. Luther and Melanchthon laid great stress upon universal literacy as a prime essential if everyone were to read and interpret the Bible for himself.

The second great force in the development of the universal school was the first Industrial Revolution. Power-driven machinery, the growth of urban populations, and the evolution of the factory system combined to make the demand for universal literacy far more compelling than were the religious sanctions of an earlier time.

The third great movement in favor of the universal school was undergoing a marked development, namely, political democracy, with its gradual extension of the suffrage and the consequent demand for an electorate of trained and informed intelligence.

——

The universal school and universal literacy, however, are very recent exemplars of social progress.

Bagley, W. C. (1937). A century of the universal school.

According to the understanding of the process of education, Comenius considered that the school should be in the function of the well-being of the people, and that all knowledge and all scientific achievements belong to all people and all nations.

——

With his reformist views on the process of upbringing and education, recognizing the need for egalitarianism and the development of education based on the knowledge of the characteristics of children’s development

Maksimović, J., & Sretić, S. (2019). Principle of evidence of John Amos Comenius as a basis for the development of pedagogical research techniques and instruments. Siedleckie Zeszyty Komeniologiczne seria Pedagogika, 6, 243-256.

The suggested school system following the principle of graduality had the following structure:

1. School of infancy – in each home that was blessed by children where external senses are exercised;

2. Maternal school – (general school) – found in each municipality and encourages internal senses, imagination and memory;

3. Latin school (grammar school) –in bigger towns, develops understanding and reasoning and

4. Academy – raises the will, each country has one

Lukaš, M., & Munjiza, E. (2014). Education system of John Amos Comenius and its implications in modern didactics. Život i škola: časopis za teoriju i praksu odgoja i obrazovanja, 50(1), 32-44.

While it still costs a university time and money to produce a course, technology has made reproduction and distribution costs almost non-existent. A course can be sent electronically, or placed online, and any number of students can access the material. This marked decrease in costs has significant implications and allows distance educators to play an important role in the fulfillment of the promise of the right to universal education.

Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open educational resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 9(1), 1-11.

The universal right to education has been enshrined in a range of international rights instruments. Yet despite the considerable secondary literature on the subject, there has been little discussion of the notion of education underpinning the right.

——

The unjust distribution of educational opportunities worldwide, and the perceived importance of education for national development generally, have led to sustained international attention.

McCowan, T. (2010). Reframing the universal right to education. Comparative Education, 46(4), 509-525.

Universal education

Does the quality of the education count?

I confuse most people when I talk.