Going Bedouin: Creating Passionate Classrooms
I just read this post over at think:lab and immediatly thought to myself: oooooohhhhh, now this is cool!
think:lab: When Business and Education Goes All Bedouin On Ya
My two second definition of "Going Bedouin" is about being completely mobile, yet connected via the net or cell phone. Say goodbye to having to have a classroom. Learning goes informal, and no, that does not mean it ceases to be "good learning."
Christian goes on to ask a few million dollar questions, well worth your thinking time:
"As more and more businesses tip over the edge of this "go lean" paradigm, what prevents learners from taking control of their educational portfolio in the same way?
What prevents schools from becoming loose associations of learners who acts in a "bedouin" manner, working and learning and collaborating and questioning and researching and solving in a nomadic and virtual manner? "(When Business and Education Goes All Bedouin On Ya, Long)
I’ve blogged this before, and for some reason I simply cannot let go of the idea: a virtual classroom. Just a few nights ago, I heard a conference call on MSN messenger. It was between my wife and one of her uncles. He lives in a different part of Mexico, far to the north of us, but their conversation sounded like they were in the same room. No echoes. No distortion. Perfect quality.
As I sat there, I found myself thinking about the virtual classroom again. The technology is here for it to happen. All that is missing is for a daring soul to launch out, hunt down a few like-minded students, and go bedouin.
I think bedouin style just makes really good sense for the ESL classroom. If the student really decided to buy into the idea, their work on and exposure to English would not be done in a block of 1.5 hours in the morning or afternoon. It wouldn’t happen just once or twice a week either. It would be nomadic.
I wonder if bedouin style English classes would be more effective than the present way we do things? Would it foster more realistic engagement with English? Would there be a rise of passionate students and teachers, or would they, robbed of their four walls and regimented 1.5 window of English, just disengage and aimlessly wander the wastelands? (And how often does this happen anyway, even with the four walls and blocks of "English time?")
It would mean a different kind of student and teacher. The walls are not there to contain and box in. The block of "English learning time" is also vaporized. In its place there is free flowing information. Networked connections. Instant communication. Classes where I am, when I want them - but "classes" no more. Instead, classes as we know them today become a conversation. Anywhere. Anytime, and maybe student and teacher are in the same location for that conversation, or maybe not. Maybe the conversation is among peers, and has no "teacher."
Regardless of how it happens, I think students will be different. Teachers will be to.
Students will need to learn how to function autonomously, and teachers will need to learn how to allow it. We’ll have to learn that it’s not what we know now that matters, but out ability to connect to relevant sources of information to learn more - when we need it, and what we need it about. Teachers need to learn how to do this in front of their students, modeling what you should do and how you should do it.
Teachers will need to teach metacognition for facilitating learner autonomy, in other words: they’ll have to teach how to learn vocabulary instead of just feeding word lists to their classes. (The whole give a man a fish and he’ll come back hungry the next meal. Teach him how to fish and he’ll not go hungry again.)
Perhaps this is turning into a rant, but I find the whole bedouin idea to be very interesting, but it’s so far out there on the bleeding edge of education that I think it will take a while to get "bedouin style" teachers and students, not to mention institutions. What do you think?
Is it far off on the horizon, shimmering like a mirage? Or is it far off, but quickly coming closer?
My guess is the latter. What do you think? And if it’s the latter, what are we doing today to break our four walled classrooms and teaching styles down into something far more portable? Someday, you might thank yourself for thinking about such things…
Your idea of a classroom without walls is one of the “Big Ideas” that I like to play with, too. Granted, it’s so far out there that the concept of education and even learning will have to change. I can’t imagine what would prompt such a change, but like you, I can imagine how it might look: Loose associations of teachers and students in which teachers and students work with other teachers and students. These networks would become school communities. They would be dedicated to some kind of real work, possibly commercial but not necessarily. Like a guild, maybe.
It’s interesting to think about. I wonder what the timeline for the future of brick and mortar schools looks like. How long will they remain relevant? Will they become more open, or more like jails before they disappear?
Thanks for sharing this thought. You might be interested in letting some of this spill over into The Classroom Change Wiki that Clarence Fisher just put up.
Comment by Doug Noon — May 29, 2006 @ 10:31 am
i think brick and mortar schools will go the way of radio, movie theaters, printed books and monogamous marriages between males and females…oh,wait. we still have those don’t we? um…nevermind.
;)
Comment by daniel — May 30, 2006 @ 4:36 am
oh my goodness. It is funny that you think that your concept of teaching via the internet, with no walls, should be described by the concept ‘Bedouin’. I have just spent time in the desert with real ‘Bedouin’ - and total lack of access to the internet and mobile phone signal - is exactly what the Bedouin experience is all about.
Technological wilderness.
Forgetting about wires and gadgets.
The concept of ‘free flowing and open communication networks though between teachers and pupils’, does relate, but it is more connected with the experience of being somewhere and thinking some-one will turn up one day, and then having to wait until the next day for them to turn up, and of course, with no explanation.
So, you have to accept it, as part of a natural ‘open free flowing communication network’.
Patience is required.
As for the concept of ‘no walls’, there is the ‘open desert’ ‘out there’ but actually, the Bedouin are ‘fiercely protective’ within their own defined parameters and they are well known for being a ‘closed society’….
so there you go.
Comment by lili — February 16, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
I believe we need to strengthen our definition of passion. One’s passion is something one values more than oneself. When something is concerned with her (or his)passion she or he forget herself.
I realised the ultimate of passion-based learning recently, in India - probably the land of passion!
You know Indians are passionate about cricket, movies etc. There is a product called “Smarten Your English through Cricket”. From School English to GRE / GMAT / IELTS English is explained through Cricket alone! 700 Hours of passioante cricketing topics is taught in cricketing language alone! I beleive this is passion-based-learning. You are in fact getting seduced to learn. Your passion pulls you.
Go to their website www.espoirtech.com and you will realise.
I think the same publisher has another innovative product called Learn English through Kama Sutra! The ultiamte in passion based learning!
Comment by Shilpi Maheswari — April 16, 2009 @ 5:09 am