I just read William Chamberlain’s post and subsequent comments about Education Reform and Technology, in which he ponders this idea:

There are not enough teachers in my community with a large enough audience to drive education reform toward student-centered learning and away from high-stakes test driven curriculum.

and I feel a like a bit of a hypocrite because much of the conversation revolves around the inability of the Ed-tech community through their (our?) involvement in conferences to make much of a difference. And here I am in Hong Kong getting ready to give a workshop at an international school conference. I am reading through the comments, by people I respect and agree with on many issues, and wondering if my session is too focused on sharing tools or if it is based in pedagogy. I ask myself if David Wees would cross my session off his list. Am I focusing too much on tools or actually sharing student led ideas? More importantly am I presenting this information in a learner focused manner or am I like John said, “Acting like the expert.” All very important questions for sure, but not important when it comes to the question of what the Ed-Tech community is doing to reform education.

There is no doubt that there are thousands of passionate teachers working tirelessly worldwide to create new educational environments, but I agree with Will, “So why is nothing happening?” My answer is that  reform is not an educational issue, but a political one. We do not need Ed-Reform, we need an educational revolution. Before you shake your head, and brand me an idealist ineffectual revolutionay clad in a Che Guevara shirt, let me explain.

I think we need to shift the question from what or how do we educate people to why do we educate them. What is the purpose of compulsory education for most of the world? Do we want kids to take over and control society or to be passive participants? I think there is a great gap between what we say and what we do. We have known for a century what we should do: John Dewey, and Paulo Freire believed:

A strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.

Education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change

Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption

The oppressors must also be willing to rethink their way of life and to examine their own role in the oppression if true liberation is to occur; “those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly”

Freire believed education to be a political act that could not be divorced from pedagogy. Freire defined this as a main tenet of critical pedagogy. Teachers and students must be made aware of the “politics” that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are taught serves a political agenda. Teachers, themselves, have political notions, they bring into the classroom.

Now read most missions statements from schools around the world and you will see terms like: global citizen, critical thinker, change makers, caring, collaborative etc…This all sounds well and good, I think most teachers participating in the Ed-tech movement would agree that they got into education as way a to help move the world forward in some way. To help arm the next generation with the tools to be more kind, responsive and responsible than past generations have been. To guide students to understand these values we must understand that, “Teachers and students must be made aware of the “politics” that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are taught serves a political agenda. Teachers, themselves, have political notions, they bring into the classroom.” So what is going on? Dewey was saying these things a hundred years ago, we still can’t educate children to educate themselves? With all the “tools” and community creators, why are we sill left asking them say questions? Why are we no closer than Dewey was a century ago? I think this is the crux of Will’s question, and the answer is that Ed-Reform is not yet a political movement anywhere in the world.

We need to ask ourself who would suffer from such a truly educated society? Who would lose power should poor kids from Missouri connect to Mexican immigrants in Arizona, to young people in Egypt, to Iran, to Africa, to The Bronx? Who has the most to lose should the oppressed gain a voice, have a vote, get a piece of the power? Another question: who has gained the most from the traditional educational system? Who controls the wealth, the media, the arms, the airwaves, the text books, the technology, your school boards, the lobbies, our congress? Would these forces gain from a generation of educated revolutionaries with a collaborative, empathetic awareness? Next time you are at a conference ask the corporate sponsors what they think? Email your textbook companies and ask them? Next time you are at a school board meeting ask the chair of the meeting? Ask the people bankrupting schools systems so they can sell your gym to Coca-Cola and privatize your school? Ask the people deconstructing your teacher’s union? Ask the Secretary of Education if he is truly ready for the oppressed to be educated. To storm the streets and demand a piece of them pie. Tell them to look to Egypt if they are still not convinced that things will change soon enough. Ask your students if they would prefer to wait another hundred years while we go to Tech conferences, or if maybe organizing themselves and taking to the streets may be more effective?

Power never relinquishes power and educational reform is no different. Education is the most powerful tool of oppression and the people who have the most to lose will not give it up without a fight. We can go to conferences till our faces turn blue, we can blog and tweet, and struggle in our individual classrooms, but until we educate ourselves, our peers and most importantly our students to  stand up and be heard, nothing will change.

But I am sitting in a nice corporate hotel room in Hong Kong wearing a plush white robe as I type on my shiny MacBook getting ready to share how Google Docs is “revolutionizing” my classroom , which happens to be in a for-profit school run by a corporation in Indonesia. So what the hell do I know?