A major challenge facing today's professional is: What happens when the client, the customer, the student, gains access to more data and information - and in a real sense knows more about a given subject - than the professional?
The question would once have applied to a mere handful of young geniuses, but today it is not uncommon for a very young student to surf the Net or skim a CD-ROM, cut and paste, reformat, print in vivid color and present an assignment of very high quality.
How is a teacher to respond? Who or what is being graded? By what standard? We see cases of students being reprimanded for having their assignments done mainly by their parents - yet what if the work is done, in a sense, mainly by the technology? Is that a problem or an opportunity? The point I'm trying to make is that changed access to information has always led to profound shifts in power and authority.
Recently, I injured my knee when I was in an unfamiliar city on a weekend. A quick trip around the Internet yielded details on a fairly large number of new anti-inflammatories, along with instructive comments on side effects and other interesting facts. With this new-found information I called my family doc, at which time I faithfully relayed everything I'd learned. The doctor listened patiently and then said, "I've never heard of them, why not take XX (an over-the-counter generic product)?"
Perhaps his prescription was right. I wasn't in any great pain (though my knee looked like a balloon); ice, rest, elevation was probably all that was needed. I knew all that and perhaps I shouldn't have bothered a doctor. But that's not my point. I was crushed, because I had done what any good student does. I did some research, I considered the options, and then I checked with a pro. But alas, I was brushed aside. I became discouraged because I had surpassed the master, at least at a level of data or information, on a topic of current interest to me, and it did no good. In fact, I likely angered my friendly doctor.
Access to some specific information doesn't make me a doctor. Nor do I want to become a doctor. I certainly don't question the know-how of my doctor. But when will the day come when the doctor will invite me into the office, open an Internet file, and we, together, can discuss what's current. If I had a role to play in evaluating, with the doctor, the options before us and then we made a decision together, it's just possible good things would happen.
Historically, professionals have held the only keys to the sources of vital information. Like a Bible chained to the lectern in a mediaeval cathedral, the "book" was off limits to those without security clearance. Leaders spoke, we listened. Few of us could understand, and the language was secret and mysterious. Even the ideas were so erudite that we had to accept a lot on face value without serious comment or criticism. Have you ever understood a prescription?
So we grew accustomed to relying on "filters" to interpret for us. For centuries, we relied on churches and governments, armies and institutions such as schools and businesses, our families, and above all, the printed word. Now, we're faced with a barrage of data, perhaps even a bit of information, and no reliable filter to help us. For the better part of the last century, we have experienced a worldwide push to make information accessible and understandable. The technologies speak for themselves: the rotary press, the telegraph, telephone, newspapers, magazines, radio. We can look back with considerable pride at what has happened. But, along with the blessings of technology, we have seen a quantum leap in the volume of dissemination, and have been inundated by TV, junk mail, movies by the score, videos, pulp fiction and sensational journalism.
At the same time, we have lost faith in our "filters." We have become skeptics, not only in a healthy sense, but we are cynics, often in despair. The personal computer, cheap communication and a vehicle like the Internet are dramatic reminders of the phenomenal opportunity to further expand information access and sharing.
It's time we devote energy to ways of integrating this overwhelming mass of data. In the past, that was what the professional did for us. In ancient times, it was the storyteller who set the framework, who made sense out of the jumble. The storyteller had tremendous power. Perhaps this is what professionals have to think about doing again. If a teacher is not the primary source of data, or even information, perhaps the true job for a teacher is to help set the context, to spin out the background material so that a student can attain knowledge. That's what a doctor or a lawyer might well consider as well. Let the client dig out the data. Then, as a professional, add value, based on experience and a lot of "know-how."
How we prepare for such a fundamental shift in what we do and how we are rewarded, are both matters that ought to occupy the thoughts of those in charge as well as those who are in the trenches every day.
Norman Wagner is president emeritus of The University of Calgary, president of The Corporate Higher Education Forum in Canada, and founder and CEO of knowledge@work. [email protected]
Beyond the Classroom
by Steven E. Miller
While computer literacy alone is not enough to overcome the barriers of poverty, racism, sexism or ageism, our public school system, for all its failings, is one of the few remaining inclusive institutions in our society. As the rest of our lives get increasingly rationed by wealth and segregated by class and race, the schools are one of the last bastions of universality. Infusing the schools with advanced communications technology - and then making sure that the facilities are open to the entire community during off-hours - is one of the best methods available for ensuring that everyone has access.
But access to "bandwidth" and equipment is not enough. We also need to ensure that appropriate training is available. Despite the oft-repeated promises of user friendliness, computers are complex and telecommunication is even more so. Most Internet users did not gain proficiency in individual isolation. Most of them were given access, training and on-going support in an institutional context: their school or workplace. Helping additional newbies climb cyberspace's learning curve will require institutional support. While there are alternatives, the schools (and their parent involvement or adult education programs) are the most ubiquitous and available resource.
Life-Long Learning and Citizenship
Fifty years ago, people assumed that they'd spend most of their adult lives working for the same organization, even if the reality didn't end up exactly that way. Today, in the words of Langdon Winner (Technology Today, 8/95):
"'Lean' corporations of the 1990s demand flexibility and rapid turnover, business gurus urge us to enjoy living on the edge of chaos, creatively confronting the challenge of each day's profit-making opportunities. . . . People are judged by nearly minute-to-minute calculations of their value in the marketplace and sent packing if someone finds their productivity inadequate."
To achieve under these conditions, we are urged to become life-long learners, constantly upgrading our human capital in order to retain our competitive edge in the job market. But in addition to maintaining our livelihood, there are two other compelling reasons for continuing to learn: citizenship and self-development.
In these days of market realism, the classical ideal of a liberal education may sound quaint. But there is still enormous personal satisfaction and meaning to be found in exploring those topics and questions that spark our curiosity or demand our attention - from sports to art, from medical information to historical facts. Human minds tend to wither and ossify if intellectual curiosity goes unnurtured. Life-long learning is a way for the rest of us to do what good teachers have always done - remain open to new ideas and explore the new worlds that those ideas reveal.
Life-long learning is also important for citizenship. We live in a rapidly changing world in which the public sector plays an increasingly complex role and protecting the public interest has become more difficult. Preserving our democracy requires sophisticated citizen oversight, in which telecommunications can play a key role. Online discussions are a radically new method of many-to-many communication. While much online traffic is trivial (or even annoying) with a high noise-to-signal ratio, much of it is focused and useful. Electronic networks allow people to overcome the barriers of time and distance, so they can talk with each other, learn from each other, come to know and trust each other, and begin working together in the type of voluntary groups that are the basis of civil society.
At a minimum, networks can help strengthen geographic neighborhoods, letting people connect with each other even if they can't always be in the same place at the same time. At best, networks may lead to the creation of "virtual communities" where people's online connection is the primary focus of the relationship.
Our society is in the process of dismantling many of the institutions and policies that bring us together, that create "common space." The new telecommunications deregulation law recently passed by Congress explicitly ignores the demand by public interest advocates that we create a "public right of way" in cyberspace for non-commercial communication.
The schools are one of the key remaining institutional spaces where we come together around a general set of common issues - children and adults, rich and poor, business and social service, government and private citizens. We need to take advantage of this strategic placement and make sure that the advancing information superhighway runs through our educational system.