LibraryRemix

In his post, The Web as Human Development, Will Richardson  writes:

The Web and the social connections and learning it affords is moving us, I think, to a different type of consciousness, a different way of being in the world. While the way we interact with people in our personal spaces will always be crucial to our personal development and well being, we are in many ways being asked to recreate ourselves in virtual spaces, sometimes multiple spaces.

Drawing attention to the concept of “author-ity,” as it pertains to how being (or becoming?) online makes us vulnerable to the direction of others, he quotes Doc Searles:  “We are all authors of each other. What we call authority is the right we give others to author us, to make us who we are… That right is one we no longer give only to our newspapers, our magazines, our TV and radio stations. We give it to anybody who helps us learn and understand What’s Going On in the world.”

As I read, Parker Palmer’s “The Courage to Teach” came to mind. Palmer’s work explores the trend in modern schools where the teacher has move daway from the social nature of being a teacher (isolating themselves to classroom teaching, avoiding socialization with collegues and students alike).  It’s a shift that assures the teacher of  anonymity/personal safety at the cost of the school, as a community place. Palmer calls on teachers to re-engage in the community…to put heart into the classroom as well as intellectual capital…to effect educational change through connection with student and colleague.

In reading Richardson, it occurs to me that at a time when online society is expanding, our physical worlds (as secondary school teachers, in particular) may be becoming more insular (sitting in my kitchen, on my computer, rather than interacting with my neighbor). Teachers, in response to the increasing stress at work, may be withdrawing both physically and online. I know many who avoid any use of social media as diligently as they avoid staff  or extra-curricular activities. Does this avoidance behavior, in the end, place teachers in a particularly vulnerable place, socially?   Are we, as professionals, unwittingly contributing to our own irrelevance, both in the physical communities where we work and in the online spaces where our students roam?

Tags: anonymity, Richardson

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