Becky Hargrove
Defining Work Spaces as Students of Life
Initial Publication, 24 August 2020, The Intentional Marketplace,
monetaryequivalence.blogspot.com
Chapter 6 Intro
While writing The Rights of Man centuries earlier, Thomas Paine mused, "It is to my advantage that I have served an apprenticeship to life." I certainly relate to his appreciation of learning as processes of doing and experiencing - all the more so since I did not complete a college degree. Even though I returned for occasional classes during decades of (mostly) full time work, the college experiences afterward felt quite different from those first two years on campus. Not long after that last full semester, I returned to the college town of my hoped for alma mater, and worked near campus for a short time. However I already had an inkling that instead of becoming a college graduate, I would instead experience the world as a student of life.
Even though there are exceptions, many I've known over the years have lived life by rather practical means. When young I was not very practical at all, hence not surprisingly I fell in love with college life. Now, with old age fast approaching, and despite those early pleasant memories, some skepticism on my part is starting to show. Are college campuses the most logical home, for those who explore knowledge for the pure pleasure of doing so?
There's something about how people tend to approach intellectual curiosity, which doesn't quite fit the college narrative. After all, it's generally not a love of learning which compels students to make extensive commitments in time and money, but rather, good pay and a secure future. Oddly, during my years as a bookseller, I became better acquainted with people who were intellectually curious than was the case in college classrooms.
It almost seems a shame that so many avenues involving love of learning, exist in an intellectual environment which mostly serves as a backdrop for getting ahead. On occasion I even observed clashes in this differing approach in classroom discussions. While it is entirely logical that college should serve as means to secure good income and a stable life, something has been lost in the translation.
Part of what made managing a (mostly) used non fiction book store so fulfilling, was how I could nurture settings where people were free to explore a wide array of knowledge and information on their own terms. Yet bookstores are often no longer a viable community option. Is it still possible to create local work spaces which nurture intellectual curiosity and practical endeavour - spaces where people will not be overwhelmed by cultural identity wars, an inexplicable need for campus security, or political struggles over what students "supposedly" should learn? As we consider what work spaces might become in the near future, I wholeheartedly hope that greater freedom in learning can take center stage.
Even though I question some experiential areas in the college experience, I do so because of the heavy expectations associated with these areas in monetary terms. Some will be able to go on afterward and build career in these areas, but many others will either be left in limbo due to their not so practical emphasis, or else transition into more practical challenges afterward.
However, there is another aspect of this reality which makes it difficult to determine what is actually practical for making a living, and what is not. In all areas of life, when it comes to applied knowledge, the practical and the experiential constantly overlap! In particular, once economies rely heavily on experiential consumption, there are also some producers in these areas who are not only able to make a living at their passions, they are able to do so on exponential terms. Indeed, when we observe a vast differentiation of income in artistic endeavour, it is because a relative few have achieved production success in terms of what a networked digital realm makes possible.
If it is so easy for people to tap into a vast realm of artistic offerings, what, exactly, is missing? For most individuals, local markets in experiential endeavour have retreated into the background. Even many local schools which once offered music and art in their curriculum, no longer have the necessary budgets to do so. Part of defining our work spaces on personal terms, is finding new means to promote local markets of personal interaction. Otherwise, there may be too few ways to carry forward our artistic inclinations beyond our computer screens.
One reason my college years felt so special, was the extent to which students were able to live out their aspirations in the presence of others. However, we need to be able to recreate settings such as these in ways which don't require extensive resource capacity. Options to college life are particularly important in the U.S. for instance, where approximately two thirds of the population lacks a bachelor's degree. These are also the workers whose wages have stagnated, even as the wages of those with college degrees continues to rise. One of the biggest challenges of our time, is convincing the 21st century workplaces of our prosperous regions to plant seeds for workplace vitality in average communities, for average individuals. We can no longer afford to funnel all education into the narrow gateway of our existing systems for applied knowledge. If modern day economies are to succeed, learning must become direct means of participation, so that applied knowledge can hold real value for every citizen.
Education Bridges are More Useful than Political Bridges
Even if this wasn't always the case, it appears to be so presently. In times of increasing political division, even respectable think tanks struggle to successfully influence public policy. How might local education forge new social connections, contribute to local economies and help reduce political unrest? Especially since political turbulence is a likely contributor to higher levels of anxiety, than was once the case among young citizens. For instance, in the first study of its kind, researchers found that among different age groups, "Anxiety increased most rapidly among young adults ages 18-25 years old."
It could prove beneficial for all concerned, should local communities become able to promote lifelong learning among their own populations. Part of such efforts would - fortunately - include less emphasis on cultural struggle over textbook interpretations, and more emphasis on giving students the freedom to choose their own learning materials, especially those from original sources.
For many small communities, local learning could ultimately change the status quo - not only in terms of organizational capacity for education, but also what locals expect to be able to accomplish on a routine basis. Indeed, small towns have the most to gain, since public and private schools are one of the few remaining traditional institutions in a good position to actively apply knowledge and skill in order to get things done. However, just the same, K-12 schools would need to evolve beyond their present role, in order achieve better economic and social integration.
Bridges become important once they are capable of creating tangible results. That said, educational bridges may not be any more likely to succeed than has been the case for political bridges, if they don't lead to more hopeful economic outcomes. In other words, communities would need records of ongoing economic activities which can be positively verified, rather than the usual excessive reliance on political suasion and moral arguments. And those records would need to be established so as to make them available to the entirety of a community's population.
What's more, these activities would need to be open to individuals with a full range of ability and social circumstance. Fortunately, learning possibilities extend so far beyond what one expects to find in present day school curriculum, that social inclusion should not be so difficult to implement. Achievements in this regard would be all the more meaningful, since they can transpire regardless of how budgetary limitations would normally affect learning possibilities.
"Just in Time" Techniques Still Include Production Value
Recently, those just in time techniques now utilized by many companies, have gotten a bad rap. In some instances this is understandable, especially since supply side networks were largely unable to quickly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. As it turns out, there are some areas of life where people need plenty of supply side duplication. I believe this also holds true for applied knowledge in a long term framing, for extensive duplication in skilled services could help prevent crucial knowledge losses in times of severe societal disruption.
Given this need for greater duplication in applied knowledge, why would just in time techniques be useful for time based services as well? Again, it helps to consider what's at stake in broader context, given what has become necessary to master a growing list of disciplines. Throughout much of the 20th century, we expected a limited number of specific knowledge providers to absorb more and more information. Not only has this become increasingly difficult to accomplish, but some of these requirements are not readily put to good use. Some of what transpires turns out to be "just in case" information happens to be needed, which is not an efficient use of scarce time.
Hence in many circumstance, many aspects of knowledge could be accessed as needed on short notice, often via digital means. Production value derives from the fact this process requires fewer time commitments in order to acquire knowledge inputs, in relation to one's total output in time based services. This input to output factor helps explain why just in time knowledge methods could add considerable productivity to services, which otherwise would not be time efficient enough to prove affordable for smaller communities.
Personal Attention and Freely Chosen Goals
Freely chosen goals are not just something that should be reserved for adults. Some have also observed that when children are personally responsible for task logistics and goal setting, they are more likely to follow through. Unfortunately, in recent decades, many young people lost the personal autonomy to assume greater roles for their own decision making processes.
How might a greater level of freedom be restored to young people, so that personal obligations become better aligned with natural inclinations? When children's schedules and studies are mostly determined by adults, they may consequently suffer from lack of personal motivation or interest in their studies. For that matter, when students perform according to other's expectations, their efforts are probably less likely to translate into long term memory retention. As it turns out, studies have shown that when children have greater freedom to set their own agendas, they become more inclined to pay close attention to everything involved. Fortunately, their parents also realized that giving them sufficient autonomy was actually the best way to keep them motivated.
However, part of the problem when it comes to agenda setting, stems directly from how automotive transportation has affected the structure of our physical environments. A wide range of activities are now so spread out, that it is no longer feasible for children to walk where needed for chores and activities in the course of a day. Indeed, in the above mentioned studies, children with greater autonomy also lived in less spread out environments, not unlike what once existed in the United States. Ultimately, however, restoring walkable community cores in new communities, would once again give children a chance to assume greater responsibility for their daily activities.
Positioning Learning as Direct Wealth Creation
Can learning processes become more closely associated with wealth creation? If so, local education would be less of a societal obligation in the form of taxes - especially those levied on personal property. Lower property tax obligations could especially help individuals with limited or fixed income. What's more, via time arbitrage, these property owners could opt to mentor or otherwise assist local learners, via their own abilities and skills. In other words, where money is short, those with limited income would often be able to profitably substitute time value.
Community learning patterns would become more closely associated with local workplace activity in general. What's more, matched time allows participants to envision experiential time spent with others as valid service product. Wealth creation in services takes place whether mutual employment is of a mostly practical nature, or whether it seeks to inspire through discovery in knowledge.
Granted, students and lifetime learners would also set aside time to pursue personal challenges via their own purposes and means. Recall however, this aspect of human capital improvement - much as what one gains from family members and close associates - is different from interchange between participants (who often start out as strangers) which clearly count as economic gains. The most important economic activities for captured time value and recognizable wealth creation, encourage people to come together for purposeful activity which otherwise might not take place. It's these added positives which serve as verifiable means that a society is indeed moving forward.
Peer to Peer Networks as Means to Transcend Core Education
Peer to peer learning learning doesn't have the same budgetary concerns which often prevent formal schooling offerings beyond core curriculum. Since participants are budgeting their time, instead of attempting to do "more with less" in local budgets, they gain additional options for practical and tacit learning which is useful in daily life.
Plus, students gain the ability to explore interesting subject matter while they are still young, subjects which many classrooms lack funds (or perhaps educational focus) to provide. Indeed, once students become well versed in various areas, their matched time would contribute to a unique continuum for learning options that are associated with specific groups and communities.
Transcending core curriculum has other advantages as well. As students contribute to learning processes which make room for personal perceptions and reasoning, they would likely be less compelled to take at face value, group opinions or cultural struggle regarding the learning materials at their disposal. One's ability to tap original source material across the ideological spectrum, could assist in this process as well.
Networks among young peers might also encourage lifelong friendships, for more students would gain opportunities to discover common interests with others. Often, shared experiences and their associated feedback, can reinforce what we find interesting in life. As Charles Handy emphasized in regard to personal studies: "Learning is alienating if you do it all by yourself."
Work Life Balance and Optimal Learning
Work life balance is about much more, than simply making room for both leisure and work commitments. Learning processes also need to be part of the equation - all the more when rapidly changing circumstance requires lifelong learning just to to keep up. However, present day institutions can only do so much in this regard. Given the lack of options for balance in work and learning, societies have ended up setting aside lengthy periods early in life for learning.
Alas, this uneven approach makes it difficult for young people to enjoy their lives during these important years. The lives of young students are now so dominated to by educational expectations that other aspects of life are disrupted - particularly those of work and play. Not only have children largely forgotten the spontaneous nature of play, they also lack work opportunities in childhood which allow them to gradually prepare much needed resources for adulthood. A need for monetary compensation is particularly acute for the millions of youth who otherwise lack resources to complete college degrees in early adulthood.
For young students in particular, time arbitrage could function as a reliable bridge between mutual employment and personal learning processes. Not only could it compensate peer to peer learning, it could help relieve tax burdens for formal education and create financial relief for families which lack resources to help their children beyond basic needs. What's more, compensated peer to peer learning could send a message that there is a place in the world for today's youth, whoever and wherever they happen to be.
In the meantime, formal education is also caught up in curriculum requirements which don't take personal inclinations and/or readiness into account. Many students struggle to achieve educational goals in these one size fits all constructs. Charles Handy has also observed how it is unrealistic for students of a given age to be assigned curriculum subjects at the same grade level, or be expected to learn curriculum subjects at the same speed.
Given the work/life divisions of the present, by the time many students gain sufficient maturity and life experience to pursue intellectual challenges on their own, life's larger responsibilities already intervene. Hence mature students may unfortunately react by abandoning intellectual challenges altogether. Doubtless this all or nothing approach to work and life, has contributed to the downfall of countless beneficial bookstores in towns and cities across the United States.
Not only could we use institutional settings which combine early learning with monetarily backed personal responsibility, but greater relevance for lifetime learning as well. What we especially need to overcome, is the inexplicable societal abandonment of countless individuals who find it rewarding to learn based on their own practical inclinations and intellectual passions.
More than anything, formal education requirements should cease to be a mechanism which imposes hard limits on personal potential. Half a century has already passed since Ivan Illich, in Deschooling Society, realized how learning with intent of active participation was being disrupted by school attendance and curriculum requirements. Illich explains: "The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing and caring."
Fortunately, at least some of what Ivan Illich hoped for in regard to learning potential, has come to pass. The digital realm has made it possible for many to voluntarily contribute to learning processes which include doing and experiencing. Countless individuals have contributed to these now networked patterns - not because they were compelled to do so, but out of inspiration and personal motivation. Wikipedia is one fortunate result, and a more recent example are the countless uploaded videos which can actually scale up the transmission of tacit knowledge. Even though such transmission person to person is just as important as ever, it is quite a benefit indeed, for people to be able to learn via video when they do not have other opportunities for hands on learning which often requires being in the presence of others. What's needed now, are economic options to ensure that person to person interaction for tacit learning can be further strengthened.
There's another aspect of optimal learning which deserves consideration. Part of what continues to discourage individuals from intellectual challenge, is the understandable perception their own efforts are not needed. This reality particularly bothered Ivan Illich, for he saw how rationale for well compensated services, also meant assigning them artificial scarcities which they did not deserve.
By far the most fundamental problem with today's formal education, is its embrace of an unfortunate ideal of services work scarcity, so as to generate ample monetary compensation. Even though the best teachers will always seek to inspire students, they do so in an environment of winners and losers which offers little escape. Intense competition for the well paying job has taken the place of what was once a fruitful processes of sharing and applying knowledge. Alas, it has never been a simple matter to address the education paradox directly, and there are some who have tried in decades past. Perhaps the best that can be done, is to reclaim the ideal of applied knowledge as capable of creating societies abundant in intellectual desire and passion, rather than the standard hope for an abundant group of middle class citizens.
Service Requirement Expectations vs Keyne's Economic Hopes
Something else from Deschooling Society deserves a mention, for Ivan Illich's concerns regarding excessive services requirements could help explain an economic mystery of sorts. What happened to a once imagined future, where work burdens would be relieved, freeing citizens to live more meaningful lives? As it turns out, work responsibilities - whatever they may be - are as important as ever, if one expects to pay the bills.
Yet John Maynard Keynes, in a 1930 essay, "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren", envisioned an altogether different scenario. Despite the war torn and trying times he lived in, he held high hopes that a bright and prosperous future could be in store for future generations. Would not technology advance to the point of making human toil unnecessary? Lives of leisure might finally be possible, allowing individuals to pursue their artistic and intellectual challenges. Keynes explains:
I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite differently from the way in which the rich use it to-day, and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs.Alas, the present is no age of leisure, even if the well to do have changed considerably from the rich of the thirties. Perhaps the last paragraph from Ivan Illich's introduction provides a clue, as to what has transpired since then. For what he hoped to accomplish in his work at that time, recalls a historical moment a half century earlier, when the modern economy was just beginning to shift towards a closely held services dominance:
I intend to discuss some perplexing issues which are raised once we embrace the hypothesis that society can be deschooled; to search for criteria which may help us distinguish institutions which merit development because they support learning in a deschooled milieu; and to clarify those personal goals which would foster the advent of an Age of Leisure (schole) as opposed to an economy dominated by service industries.Illich hoped that crucial aspects of learning could be returned to those who took life's experiences as their learning grounds for thought and action. He wanted to prevent the use of knowledge from becoming restricted to the domain of university participants, not to mention the similarly guarded workplace dialogue they would ultimately reinforce.
Just the same, formal schooling - initially rationalized as means for creating good citizens - has inadvertently become an arena which mostly functions to separate the winners from the losers. Ivan Illich was right to be concerned, that too many aspects of mutual assistance would disappear into organizations which flourished by restricting knowledge dispersal as a natural extension of human freedom.
Today, the rival conceptualization of knowledge contributes to divisions and polarization between individuals, communities, cities and states. But, while it is simple enough for high skill services to command a premium in prosperous regions, professional services associations have made it more difficult for similar intellectual challenges to function, where local places lack the wealth to reimburse knowledge providers on terms now deemed necessary. Were it still possible for small communities to take part in applied knowledge, this might not be such a problem. Yet this is not the case, because as the work of the mind has supplanted the work of physical drudgery, would be participants are routinely dismayed upon discovery that society is not structured for full inclusion in a knowledge based economy.
When professionals made quality requirements a part of their craft, formal schooling in many instances codified the process. And elsewhere in curriculum, the dialogue of formal schooling is increasingly caught in the middle of cultural war. The challenge now for the student of life, is to not get caught in these whirlwinds which threaten to undo the gains and positive attributes of the formal schooling of our time. Fortunately, there are ways to bypass these battles which can hopefully diffuse them safely. But doing so, means reaching out to the millions who cannot understand why they are being denied entry to the process.
And some aspects of today's organizational procedures are starting to collapse under their own weight. At stake is the preservation of knowledge in its vast dimension and diversity. At stake is retaining the idea of moving ahead, of progress which includes the progress and ever present journey of the mind. Until learning is once again framed as capable of uplifting all of humanity, there is danger that formal schooling will remain an ideological battleground.
Local vs Global Factors for Educational Prospects
Why do global considerations continue to matter for communities of all sizes? For one, many rural communities benefit from connections with the larger world through the commodities they produce. And these are just the forms of product which create output via traditional scale. After all, many aspects of useful knowledge know no bounds. Even though we can't duplicate the scarcity of the time we hold in common, we can enrich its value, by using it as a torch to spread knowledge and inspiration. We can share our experiences not only locally in applied context, but also globally, so as to seek out the material and intellectual gains of all global citizens.
Even when we find ourselves closed off from the use of rival knowledge in our own midst, there remains tremendous wealth in global non rival knowledge - applied knowledge which knows no institutional or national boundaries. Indeed, this multitude of light reflects the collective wisdom of all who have gone before us. Regardless of the political divisions world leaders too often encourage, global economic and knowledge based connections remain important for the long term growth prospects of all communities.
Where We Already Are is the Best Place to Begin.
Starting from what we are already familiar with, is a good way to begin participating in time arbitrage, no matter one's age. Even traditional educational material poses possibilities, for those who seek to profitably match time with others. Once time arbitrage is established and familiar, learners and students can explore further in shared studies via peer to peer roles. Insofar as the need for adult instruction for young students, time matching in this capacity could be approached on an as needed basis - depending on the extent to which other students are familiar with material and activities under consideration.
Part of the spontaneity of learning comes from its association with daily routines as well. In his time, Henry David Thoreau reinforced the need for practicality, by stressing that education not be separated from normal life circumstance: "How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?"
Hopefully, markets in time value - especially those which broaden learning horizons - can encourage people to envision free markets as beneficial and meaningful for all citizens, not just the well to do. As a baby boomer, while still young I was able to enjoy shopping in local downtown stores which have long since transformed into other retail capacities. How might we recreate the downtowns of our future? With a little luck, markets which stimulate both mind and personal interaction, can help restore the positive roles that local markets once so aptly provided.
AI Could Become Our Personal Assistants
Artificial intelligence holds far more possibilities for the workplace potential of average individuals and communities than is presently recognized. Not only would digital memory prove useful for more practical aspects of getting things done, but also how we perceive shared time on experiential terms. Many who now lack resources for extensive human capital investment, could still use artificial intelligence to augment their own skill levels. AI could make it simpler to function with enhanced levels of skill at the outset, often in the early stages of learning processes.
AI potentially adds value to our workplace contributions by bringing "just in time" applied knowledge and information to our own efforts - not only for personal problem solving, but particularly how we go about helping others. Presently, this kind of human capital augmentation remains mostly associated with professionals and specialists. However, what artificial intelligence currently makes feasible for professionals, is only the beginning of economic potential - especially for communities which lack the necessary resources to compensate a full range of professional services capacity.
In all of this, future potential for AI is about much more than GDP growth gains. Consider what makes this potential different from earlier gains in technology, however, since AI augmented time scarcity does not necessarily add to greater income potential. What it can accomplish, however, are considerable reductions in the time people otherwise need in their studies to acquire useful knowledge and skill. Only consider how this could increase time value for those who lack college degrees, as well. Once AI can contribute to human capital gains in communities of all sizes, the greater the chance that millions more communities will finally assume meaningful roles in a modern day economy.
Learning Options and the Charisma Factor
The charisma factor is something communities may wish to consider in time arbitrage, before making long term commitments for particular versions of applied knowledge. Recall how one's time value creates a direct signal for supply and demand in time based services, which in turn influences group decision making for important learning options. However, are there occasions when apparent demand for certain skills might not be reliably accurate?
Occasionally, the charisma of certain local individuals could factor in skills which are being sought to a greater degree than they can actually be met, at least in the short term. While some of these individuals would be likely to provide instruction in these sought after skills as well, it still helps to know: When might local citizens seek out individuals not so much because of special ability or knowledge, but due to other factors in one's identity?
Nevertheless, charisma has always contributed to societal acceptance of ideas and talents which otherwise may not be noticed. Some who hold considerable charisma, also have the ability to influence others in ways which may extend beyond their own lifetime. In such instances, personality does function as a price signal which affects supply and demand for local service potential, going forward. In other words, charisma is also connected to human capital in ways which can have long term effects.
Calendaring Roles for Time Arbitrage
In some respects, calendaring for time arbitrage between peers would be similar to the calendaring of present day workplace obligations. When students make time commitments, they nonetheless do so while understanding how other time constraints affect whether schedules might be cancelled or changed. Much in this regard depends on individual circumstance and also what planned activities entail. In short, calendaring for individuals and groups involves a fair amount of flexibility. Tim Harford explains how the best laid plans of time management can sometimes be waylaid:
Commitments do not become easier to manage simply because you decide in advance when it is all going to happen. Life has a habit of producing surprises; the boss has an urgent task; the car won't start; an old friend texts to tell you she is on a flying visit from Australia. The most inevitable surprise of all is that everything always takes longer than you think it will.There's another important aspect of calendaring which young students share with adults as well. When people calendar large groups of activities in sync with one another, it becomes easier for all concerned to share some of life's more important moments. In particular, common weekend times can be important, since without them shared families activities can be quite difficult to arrange. As Judith Shulevitz explains, "A calendar is more than the organization of days and months. It's the blueprint for a shared life". When students share responsibility for organizing activities with friends and neighbors, they can do their own part in reestablishing common workweeks which makes more shared activities feasible.
Divisions of Labour, Learning, and Services Potential
As business organizations simplified manufacturing processes via further divisions of labour, recent centuries have brought a shared prosperity which continues to expand across the globe. Fortunately, additional divisions of labour could eventually augment the output of human capital, so that service markets are more broadly shared among citizens of all income levels.
In the meantime, important aspects of quality services remain limited by design, due to the extent of knowledge students must learn before practicing their disciplines. Alas, these requirements also come with extensive human capital requirements and decades of preparation with little or no monetary compensation. By the time many professionals assume their economic roles, their human capital investment costs can only be compensated via time commitments to groups with relatively high income levels. This leaves little professional time left over for other groups. What time remains available on their part (at least in the U.S.) is partitioned to groups deemed "most deserving", via government subsidies.
Can society remain stable when the use of advanced knowledge is mostly reserved for the best and the brightest? While meritocracy and its associated skills arbitrage are logical organizational patterns, they nonetheless result in an incomplete and unstable equilibrium. As we work to recreate divisions of labour for the future, the labour divisions of merit will likely remain. Fortunately, however, these patterns could be strengthened with additional organizational capacity which applies knowledge more broadly. While merit would still matter to some extent in these divisions, it would become apportioned in ways that allow individuals and communities with limited resources, to assume their rightful roles in a knowledge based economy.
The Value of the Tutoring Role
Peer to peer learning relationships in the form of time arbitrage, can also be thought of as mutual employment. One benefit of this arrangement is that when students are familiar enough with the subject at hand, they would be encouraged to assist other students via tutoring roles. As more students become increasingly proficient in various subjects, the local community would greatly benefit, in that tutors would become available to many more students than might otherwise be the case.
Not only does tutoring include many advantages for participants, it has proven to be one of the most useful teaching roles as well. In these settings, students can gain better command of the relevant material, hence a better chance of committing it to long term memory. Tutoring also challenges students to explain concepts via their own viewpoint and perceptions. What's more, once students are able to assume tutoring roles, the material they impart to others is more likely to become a part of their long term memory as well.
Tutoring roles would give many students to opportunity to assume greater responsibility for themselves and for others, from a young age. Indeed, it's one thing in life to insist that others "be responsible", versus providing ways by which personal responsibility might be a tangible outcome. The more possibilities students have while young for assuming important social roles, the easier it becomes to transition to adulthood with fewer stumbling blocks in this regard. Encouragement of broader tutoring roles provides a natural way to approach mutual respect from an early age, in educational settings. Once students assume more responsibility, it is but a short step further to responsibility in work place roles. As Thomas Geoghegan notes "education is only the answer if we start with changing the narrow role of people in the workplace, and give them more responsibility...so long as there is no agency in the workplace, education can only serve a few."
A Place and Time in the Sun, for Students of Life
Can our learning environments become places where the freedom to explore personal challenges is fully restored? How one chooses to teach others, offers many clues as to what learning might become. Phillip Howard explains:
The efficacy of organizational systems, industrial psychologists tell us, varies dramatically with the activity. At one end of the spectrum are assembly lines, artificial closed environments designed for standard inputs and standard products. On the other end are unique personal endeavors, such as the arts; trying to put those uniquely human tasks into a standard mold generally just causes them to fail. A performer doesn't succeed merely by regurgitating a script. Teaching is far down the spectrum toward the arts, where standardized protocols generally get in the way of effectiveness.Learning environments could be a lot more multi faceted than is presently the case, especially once students become able to assume teaching roles for one another. The informal learning processes involved would ultimately be carried over into more flexible and democratic workplaces as well, where practical and experiential elements could be readily combined.
In the meantime, formal learning remains segregated in school environments which needlessly separate youth from their local communities. What's more, these separations take place during formative years when community interaction is particularly important for lifetime development. Walkable communities and time arbitrage could help restore early life community activities which make lifelong connections between generations more likely.
Classrooms are not always conducive environments for those with learning styles which venture from the straight and narrow of what is expected. How much genius potential is consequently missed or even discouraged? Decades earlier, Buckminster Fuller wrote: "We may soon discover that all babies are born geniuses and only become degeniused by the erosive effects of unthinkingly maintained false assumptions of the grown-ups, with their conventional ways of "bringing up" and "educating" their young."
Likewise, Brittany Hunter, in a remembrance of John Taylor Gatti, explains how his legacy inspired so many to challenge some of education's most basis premises. She elaborates:
He concluded that 'genius' was common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.Fortunately, time arbitrage has the potential to expand what learning consists of. Peer to peer efforts would bring new sources of practicality and inspiration back into the life of communities, as a valid part of the marketplace. No longer would students of life be compelled to take the loneliest road, when they seek to explore the reaches of their own voice and interpretations. As students of life, we could grant one another the right to create work which includes our core identity and purpose.
Notes
Chapter 6 Intro
Paine, Thomas, Rights of Man, (London, Coventry House, 1791)
Education Bridges are More Useful Than Political Bridges
Goodwin, Renee D, Weinberger, Andrea H, Kim, June H, Wu, Melody, Galea, Sandro, 'Trends in anxiety among adults in the United States, 2008 - 2018: Rapid increases among young adults', Journal of Psychiatric Research, 21 August 2020.
Personal Attention and Freely Chosen Goals
Doucleff, Michaeleen, 'A Lost Secret: How to Get Kids to Pay Attention', npr.org, 21 June 2018.
Doucleff, Michaeleen, 'A Lost Secret: How to Get Kids to Pay Attention', npr.org, 21 June 2018.
Peer to Peer Networks as Means to Transcend Core Education
Handy, Charles, The Age of Paradox, (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 1995)
Work Life Balance and Optimal Learning
Handy, Charles, Ibid.
Illich, Ivan, Deschooling Society, (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1970)
Burja, Samo, 'The YouTube Revolution in Knowledge Transfer', Medium, 17 September 2019.
Did Formal Schooling "Ruin" Keyne's Hopes for Future Generations?
Illich, Ivan, Ibid.
Keynes, John Maynard, 'Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren', 1930.
Where We Already Are Is The Best Place to Begin
Thoreau, Henry David, Walden, (Boston, MA: Ticknor and Fields, 1854)
Calendaring Roles for Time Arbitrage
Harford, Tim, 'When it comes to productivity hacks, are you an Arnie or an Elon?', The Undercover Economist, 9 September 2019.
Shulevitz, Judith, 'Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore', The Atlantic, November 2019.
The Value of the Tutoring Role
Geoghegan, Thomas, 'Educated Fools: Why Democratic Leaders Still Misunderstand the Politics of Social Class', The New Republic, 20 January 2020.
A Place And Time in the Sun, for Students of Life
Howard, Phillip K., Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans From Too Much Law, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009, (page 109).
Fuller, R. Buckminster, Critical Path, (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1981)
Hunter, Brittany, 'John Taylor Gatti (1935 - 2018): Remembering America's Most Courageous Teacher', Foundation for Economic Education, 29 October 2018.
