Old Hierarchy–in the micro, the macro, and the everywhere in between-o

A centuries-old capitalist agenda has long made itself manifest in every single hierarchy of human relating.  From the unparalleled intimacy of household relationships, patriarchy crouched in dimly lit corners whispering of roles, whose literacy was eligible to earn coin or sign land contracts, of who could sit at the head of the table as chair-man versus the benches at its sides. In the regional classist construct of European feudalism, it was the sociopolitical mortar cementing peasants together like human blocks to form the foundations on which their literate lords built their fortunes. It was the men of letters and shippable transcriptions, by which the white supremacist Doctrine of Discovery that co-signed systematic global invasion and colonization, was enabled.

Buried Treasure

Throughout human history, people have intentionally sequestered knowledge, have intentionally maintained inequitable access to it, as a means to the end of that which it alone can generate: power. In the last century alone, and the last half of it in particular, every action to broaden access to knowledge through the experiment of public education has created an equal but opposite reaction to reconfigure whatever structures had previously been working to keep others out. Grade school welcomed white girls, white boys got secondary schools. De jure segregation became illegal, private schools became fortresses for the wealthy’s progeny. Bussing thwarted de facto segregation, everybody and literally their moms started homeschooling their children or opening charter schools.  The legality of such exclusive institutions was questioned. Lawmakers started selling the story that redistributing public tax dollars out of public schools and into these for-profit schools–in the form of vouchers–would actually be all about removing barriers, increasing choice, guaranteeing that precious freedom America, alone, holds so supposedly close to its brave, brave heart. And people are buying. A lot of people are buying.

The Great Democratizer

The internet and online learning therein has been heralded as the single greatest democratizer in human history, removing centuries of inequitable knowledge access. From digital public libraries and databases like Wikipedia to the unparalleled omniscience of the search engine and the crowd-sourced learning opportunities afforded by social media platforms like Reddit, Facebook, and TikTok, seemingly every nook and cranny of the internet offers access to more than anyone could ever possibly see, hear, read, or know. Likewise, these affordances have empowered people whose voices were previously silenced to speak, publish, share, model, and teach. In the nearly infinite ubiquity of internet access, much of what can be known is published, legally or otherwise, for seemingly unfettered public access.

The Broligarchy, though

This is, however, an illusion, a known lie, a mirage of some kind of virtual utopian garden wherein all humanity can come for a bite of the digital Apple. Because, as it turns out, most of the low hanging fruit has been envenomed by The Old Deluder in the form of malware, cookies, disinformation, trackers, and uncircumventable service agreements containing meters of legalese crafted precisely to obscure the price of this seeming-free fruit. In less than a quarter century, a handful of men have built a coalescing system that effectively monetizes virtually all human knowledge, digitally monopolizes that knowledge, and sells it back to the humanity from which it came at a profit. The resultant concentration of power they now wield would make Nestle jealous were it not already running the same scam with water.

Counterfeits

Knowingly trafficking in access to inauthentic, ineffective learning as well as the sale of outright disinformation is the new way to leverage power. For-profit colleges and universities, flimsy bootcamps, worthless certification programs, and other such unconscionable gimmicks are raking in small, and not so small, fortunes by means of capitalizing on peoples’ fears of being powerless by way of being uneducated, uncertified, of being not learned.  But this is obviously unsustainable. As I write this, the infinitely compounding interest of a wealthy few having successfully hoodwinked the masses into believing the limitless growth of capitalism is infinitely sustainable is signaling that it is past due. The math does not lie. Our forests are burning, our lands are flooding, our ice caps are melting, our oceans are dying, our rain and blood are filled with microplastics. We, as a species of under-, un-, or mis-informed, billions clearly will not survive our current trajectory.

The questioning of design is all.

Therefore, a critical approach to online teaching is more indispensable right now than it has ever been. In a turn of events perhaps few ever imagined, our collective fate is now inexorably tied to teachers. Who else can or would be interested in designing digital spaces wherein all our unprecedented literacy and all our near-infinite access to knowledge can be brought to bear on one another. To whom else can we turn as we arrive at the collective realization that the problem has never been whether or not we could read words, whether or not we could know this or that, but rather, whether or not we can actually learn how to apply our literacy to our current knowledge critically? Furthermore, if teachers, whether designing for kindergartners or corporate executives, cannot rise to this challenge by means of approaching every single digital learning design choice with tenderest empathy for the learner and coldest indifference toward previously held beliefs regarding best practices, previously esteemed digital tools, or what learner outcomes even means, will they really be teachers anymore anyway?

Because humans

Because humans are social animals, human knowledge has never not been a collaborative construction. Because humans are capable of language, human knowledge has never not been uniquely available to our abstract critical consciousness. Because humans are interdependent, human knowledge has never not been most valuable only to the extent that it is most accessible. As a means to the end of humanity’s reclamation of its collective intellectual property–and all agency supplied therein–online teaching must rise to this occasion, to this moment. To do otherwise, to pretend we need only upload content onto the shiniest new LMS and call it a day, is to betray our vocation and ourselves. Learning cannot be surrendered to those short-sighted opportunists who would operationalize its inequitable access as a means to the end of momentary control. To do so is tantamount to surrendering our freedom to be fully human, to hand over our humanity, itself.