I’ve been thinking about this blog and about my history with blogs and other newer forms of media.  I named this ‘Vicarious Conversations’ because I know myself.  I don’t really like being in the centre, I like the peripheries.  I like to interact vicariously, sometimes reflectively and I don’t always have time to reflect fully before I’m on the next thought.  So I feel like I’ve missed the boat.  But the analogy of backroads seemed to take root while I was thinking about EduPunk.  I think I’ve always been in that category, whether it had a label or not, but I was on the periphery while an undergrad, stayed in the peripheries for most of my (post)graduate education[1], and am still on the periphery as an academic.

In some ways, that’s a conscious decision and it seems to be one that is not an ‘appropriate’ position for an academic in these days of the RQF[2].  But the peripheries seem to be a useful position.  It’s from the peripheries that things like EduPunk come.  The shifts and changes are more do-able at the peripheries.  They are less noticed and potentially more likely to get going while under the radar.

But the backroads.  I have spent most of my time traveling those backroads.  In reality, I only take backroads when the main roads are congested.  I’ll take the main road at certain times, but other times — keep me away from that traffic.  I suppose it could be seen as taking the path of least resistance.  This is not always such a good thing.  That’s where we do things because we can’t be bothered to change.  But consciously keeping to the peripheries, deciding when one wants to traverse the well-beaten track or when to go the back way is potentially more empowering.

So why have I stayed on the backroads of the blogosphere?  Sometimes, I wonder.  I keep thinking of the ‘Scully Incident’ where Gillian Anderson visited Brisbane and I took my daughter to see her only to be physically removed from the crush of people in such a small space[3].  I think being lost in a crowd is frightening.  Being spotted in a crowd could be potentially panic inducing.  The backroads are safe(r), they get you where you’re going, without the frustration of being caught in heavy traffic where you have no control.  That’s where mainstream education seems to be heading — heavily congested with minimal control for the drivers.

EduPunk, while it stays on the periphery, is probably a good place for me.  But it now has a name and a following.  It’s moving to a more central position.  So I ask: “What’s coming next?”

1. Heck, I even went to regional universities to do my research — there’s nothing more peripheral than a regional uni in Australia [↩]
2. While the Howard Gubmint implemented that as the Research Quality Framework, it really meant that those of us at the peripheries were Really Quickly F@#ked [↩]
3. I never did thank the nameless security guard who recognised my panic and pulled me from the crowd — it was probably to protect everyone else, but I thank him, nonetheless [↩]