The question concerning technology and geographical education

In the post Heidegger and Technology we saw how, for Heidegger, it wasn't particular items of technology, nor even technology in and of itself that had led us to the nihilistic modern era but rather the essence that lies behind technology, that metaphysics of Enframing that wills to order everything and challenges things forth, including ultimately humans themselves, as resources to be exploited. Heidegger saw the work of art, such as the work of Van Gogh or of the poet Hölderlin for instance, to occasion a different, more authentic kind of world disclosure that allows things to shine forth and show themselves, free from the calculative and reductive tendencies of modern, technological, thinking. So, what consequences might all this have for our ideas about education? Is education also implicated in the technological mode of revealing and if so is there the possibility of an alternative?

From the emphasis put on examinations and 'teaching to the test' through to justifications of education that accentuate efficiency and 'economic competitiveness', it appears that there may be various reasons for thinking that education might indeed be under the insidious grip of Enframing. Fitzsimons (2002) writes that education itself has been reconceptualised as a key 'technology' for the projects of economic development and globalisation. In this vision, all the components of the educational enterprise, including students, teachers and knowledge are all seen as resources to be utilised as efficiently as possible. In addition, Dwyer et al (1988) have argued that 'schools are exemplars of inauthentic existence, and we can see it in many of their practices, such as the emphasis on rote memorization and unreflective praise of contemporary norms'.

So, if schools are indeed fully caught up in and actively perpetuate the technological mode of revealing things, is there any possibility at all for a more poietic mode of attunement to take place in the classroom? In an article that is as yet unpublished, James Magrini (2010) puts forward the case that there are windows of opportunity, particularly in the arts and humanities, to create 'small worlds apart from the oppressive effect of Enframing', in which students and teachers can engage aesthetically with the world and listen and respond to the 'call of Being'. These small but potent windows of opportunity put students in touch with 'contextual ways of knowing' in which they have the potential to see, hear, feel and 'attend to more facets of the experienced world'. This puts me very much in mind of the sort of 'Living Geography' initiatives that the Geographical Association have been advocating.

In a similar vein, Michael Bonnett (2002) has considered what 'education as a form of the poetic' might look like. In this vision we are invited to see education as essentially 'an ever-evolving triadic interplay between teacher, learner, and that which calls to be learned'. Unlike the highly controlled and instrumental way of thinking that defines the era of Enframing, poetic thinking does not conform to an externally imposed framework but rather involves a 'genuine listening to what calls to be thought in the evolving situation'. Such thinking is context-relative and expresses 'a receptive-responsive openness to things'. In a poetic mode of education, the teacher must 'let the pupil learn rather than impose learning upon her'. Importantly, this is not a wholly passive process. This kind of thinking is demanding and rigorous in its nature, for, as mentioned, it requires the learner to listen for what calls to be thought.

Bonnett rounds off with this wonderful passage which incisively captures what genuine thinking means for Heidegger, and what a poetic form of education would mean for learners, and is well worth quoting at length:

"For Heidegger, genuine thinking is not the assimilation of a series of gobbets of prespecified information and ideas, nor the acquisition and application of free-floating 'thinking skills,' but an exciting and demanding journey into the unknown. It is deeply rooted, being drawn forward by the pull of that which is somehow incipient in our awareness but has yet to reveal itself, and the fundamental achievement of education lies in learners coming to feel for themselves the call of what is there to be thought in this unthought: the harmonies, the conflicts, and the mysteries." (2002: 242)

This is an especially interesting quote because it connects with the ongoing debate about knowledge, pedagogy and the geography curriculum that my own research will be contributing towards. It would seem that the recent predominance of generic and transferable 'thinking skills' and other pedagogical devices have caused us to forget the real purpose of schooling, which is to give young people access to the ever evolving store of powerful and important knowledge (such as geographical knowledge) which can enable them to understand themselves and the world. As this quote points out however, this is best approached not as a matter of assimilating a series of predetermined facts, but rather as a continuing journey, made by both teacher and student, into what is, at least to them, as yet unknown.

There is a related question here about the extent to which technology might aid or hinder this journey. Does technology in education inherently conceal Being? That is, does it cause us to become less receptive and open to things, and more reliant on prespecified, highly structured frameworks that distance us ever more from the earth? In a rather interesting little interview on Radio 4 with author and TV presenter Christopher Somerville, he argues that in the age of the Sat Nav we have as a nation become more disorientated and geographically illiterate than ever before. The interview itself, spanning only four minutes, is short and Somerville's assertions are frankly shaky, but there are a few points made in it that can act as launch pads for further discussion.

In the interview, Somerville argues that people today are so dependent on their mobile phones and Sat Navs to orientate themselves that they fail to see the 'real' geography around them. It would be interesting to reflect a little more, from a Heideggerian perspective, on what constitutes this 'real' geography; is it the lakes, mountains and seas that lie behind the representations we see on our screens? If so, what precisely is it that makes these things so unique in their realness? Is it not possible that technology might actually help us to see, feel and hear more, thus enlivening our experience of the world? Could mobile phones and Sat Navs, creatively used, not enable us to become more, and not less, responsive to the landscape? These are all questions that are well worth exploring further, and I hope to do just that in a future article.

References

Bonnett, M. (2002) 'Education as a Form of the Poetic', in Peters, M. (Ed) Heidegger, Education and Modernity. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.

Dwyer, M., Prior, L. And Shargel, E. (1988) 'The educational implication of Heideggerian authenticity', Philosophy of Education, 44, 140-149.

Fitzsimons (2002) 'Enframing Education', in Peters, M. (Ed) Heidegger, Education and Modernity. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.

James Marini (2010 - unpublished) 'Worlds Apart in the Curriculum: Heidegger, Technology, and the Poietic Attunement of Art' Submitted to the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory. Draft available online.

Photo is by Flickr user Luca Rossini and is made available under a Creative Commons license