Knowledges Interchange
Recognizing the plurality of our knowledges, and anticipating the positive outcomes from the interchangeArchive for June, 2008
STLHE as a forum for Knowledges Interchange – Post #1
This blog has been silent for the past week because I was at the 2008 STLHE Conference in Windsor Ontario. It was a very good event, and I will be posting some comments about ways in which STLHE (The Society for Teaching and Learing in Higher Education) provides a forum for Knowledges Interchange.
First of all I’d like to re-state what everyone already knows — the best exchanges occur during lunch, on the walk between sessions or in the bar at the end of the day. I’m just starting to write follow-up notes, and then to actually follow up, but given that the conference was in Ontario, and I live in BC, I’m still recovering from the travel.
And the experience of travel itself is, of course, an opportunity to experience interchanges, whether it’s driving on Route 66 or chatting with other travellers. The STLHE conference was attended by people from all over the world, even though the society is actually meant for Canadian educators. Australians, Belgians, British and Americans enriched the gathering. And we also celebrated Canada’s regional differences (and accents). The animated discussion among participants was KI in action, and the power of it was very evident. In later posts, I’ll talk about some of the activities in more detail, and describe some of the ways I benefitted from the interaction.
Tony Ward on The Body of Knowledge Post #2
I am always delighted when I discover a discussion about a form of knowledge that I had not thought about before. For that reason, I really appreciate Tony’s discussion about the knowledge of the body, or the “body of knowledge” as he cleverly describes it in his 1995 article: The Body of Knowledge: An Investigation into Indigenous Ways of Knowing, published in the Proceedings of the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education.
In Western European culture “knowing” has come to be associated with a particular kind of knowledge, specifically that which is verbal, linear, and rational. We think of knowing in the same sense that we think of thinking, and we think of thinking primarily as a kind of silent verbal behaviour. But there are many ways of knowing, and not all of them are associated with verbal or rational processes. The body has its own store of knowledge and wisdom – the accumulated flotsam and jetsam of lived experience – which is no less real, and which determines, perhaps to a greater extent, what else we can see, know and experience.
Tony Ward on The Body of Knowledge Post #1
Tony Ward posted a comment in response to one of my postings, and through that I found his website and began to find out more about him and his work. I have the site listed as a permanent link on the right hand column of this blog, and I encourage anyone who is interested in critical theory to visit it: http://www.tonywardedu.com/
The site is far more than a rich resource on critical theory, what he calls critical education, and critical theories of design drawn from Tony’s years of study and practice in the field of architecture. I will be writing a series of blog postings as I explore the elements of his site that relate to my interests, and I’d like to begin with referring to his 1995 article entitled: The Body of Knowledge: An Investigation into Indigenous Ways of Knowing, published in the Proceedings of the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education.
Of particular significance to me is his mention of the “ontological insecurity” of feminist writer Irene Payne, as she experienced the difference between her working class home in Northern England and the environment of the grammar school. I experienced a similar cultural shock when I, too, passed the infamous Eleven Plus exam (actually I was only 10) and began to travel from my parents’ working class in Wales to the other world that I found in a girls’ grammar school.
This experience and resulting condition has been described by many women, and I have adopted the description of myself that many others have used before me: I am an educated working class woman, who finds herself forever caught between two classes divided by perceived levels of knowing.
Cultural Interchanges…and Not
A few days ago I attended an honouring ceremony for First Nations students graduating from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. On the off-chance that someone reading this blog is not familiar with the term First Nations, I should explain that it is the term that Canadians use for the aboriginal peoples (aside from the Inuit) who are recognized as the first to populate these northern lands.
I was struck, as before, by the way that storytelling is so fundamental to the traditions of First Nations. Introductions invariably begin by an exchange of information about the origins of the speaker. Speakers tell lengthy stories of their ancestors, and the spirits who have guided them. For those who choose to listen, it is a wonderful opportunity to learn.
After the ceremony, I sat and talked to some of the participants over food. I spoke to a young graduate with whom I had worked, and who was the main reason I attended. I spoke to one of the chiefs and to a woman who had been forced to attend a residential school. I took a moment to explain my Welsh heritage to them, and discussed the way colonialism had almost eliminated the Welsh language, as it did so many other native languages. I sought out a Chinese woman I’d seen enter, and she explained she was there to learn, as I was. These were all examples of intercultural exchanges.
However, there was at least one lost opportunity. Outside the area where the ceremonies were taking place there was a Bubble Tea café. It was doing steady business, with a constant stream of Asian students, and it was quite noisy. As the graduation proceeded, barriers were rolled across to separate those students from those of us attending the celebration. The Asian peoples had no chance to learn from the First Nations peoples, or from me, for that matter. There was no interchange of our knowledges. What a pity.
ETUG as a Forum for Knowledges Interchange
Last week I was fortunate to be part of an event which exemplifies KI. The Educational Technology Users’ Group (ETUG) is a network of BC educators who are committed to the integration of technologies into teaching/learning. This group has been meeting since the 1990s, and most of the members work in the post-secondary institutions in the province to support a variety of technologies.
The emphasis is on educational uses, and although some of them are geeks who love gadgets and innovation, they are focused on finding ways of applying technologies to help teachers teach and students learn. The collegiality is remarkable. The willingness to share and help each other is remarkable. ETUG members are undoubtedly some of the most generous people I have ever met. They create ideal environments for the interchange of knowledges.
One of those environments is the ETUG wiki . It cannot completely capture the spirit of exchange but it mirrors some of the activities of the community. Visit and observe the interchange of knowledges among the participants: http://etug.pbwiki.com
