I’ve been think about some of the arguments for the proposed changes to access of information in Australia, aka the ‘clean’ feed.  I’m not sure what to call it because there has been debate, serious debate, about terminology.

But the thing that’s tweaking me at the moment is the book I’m reading[1] – Vygotsky and Pedagogy  (Daniels, 2001).  There is something in the Vygotskian tradition that needs to be applied to the whole shenanigans being proposed.  The nature of tools and mediation that Vygotsky used – the non-deterministic account in which mediators serve as the means by which the individual acts upon and is acted upon by social, cultural and historical factors – would really help me analyse what’s going on – if I could just get my head back in that space.

Of course, I’m supposed to be reading this book to finish my paper on the adult extension of Vygotsky’s work which goes something like this:

Children learn with the help of a more able partner (be that parent, teacher or peer).  In simplistic terms, Vygotsky posited that the Zone of Proximal Development was the difference between what a child can do unassisted and what they are able to achieve with help.  This is, in some ways, a better developmental indicator than simply assessing what a child can do at a given point (which is how we traditionally measure development).

In my work with adult learners, there is a similar process going on, but there are differences.  I often see Vygotsky’s work applied directly to adults with no change to account for any difference between adults and children.  What I find, though, is that adults are generally able to see that they don’t know something and take action to rectify that.  I called this the Zone of Learning Capability in my thesis.  It’s almost equivalent to the Zone of Proximal Development but takes into account the differences between an immature learner and a mature learner (although those terms may be problematic).

In a sense then, mature learners (or adults) generally (but not always) undertake activities to assist in their understanding of their world.  This is where the Internet is so powerful.  We can search and take steps to rectify what we don’t know. We can ask Twitter, Jeeves and thousands of other sites.  We are here to learn.

But what has this to do with the filters? Well, I’m fairly sure  they won’t work.  Most of the people I know are fairly sure they won’t work.  And if we’re unsure, we can ask.  We don’t pretend we know and go along blythely assuming that we understand when we don’t.  We openly discuss the differences in our positions. We may shift our positions depending on any number of new items of information.  We are, in a sense, adult learners – mature learners, if you will.

Which brings me to my point: I don’t think Conroy[2] is a mature learner.  He won’t accept other possible interpretations or any other information new or otherwise.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that many of our politicians, the world over, are not mature learners[3]. There are few people in this debate (at least on one side of the debate) who are what I would call mature learners.  The whole debate is being mediated through a particular lens, a way of seeing the world through the perception of immature learners.

The mediator in the debate can almost be essentialised to how we actually view the internet.  The language being used almost denies that there is anything of value in the whole series of tubes.  Perhaps it’s that analogy that is working against us.  Tubes are relatively easy to block and unblock.   Of course, it must be simple to alter the flow, it’s like a tap!  If the internet is a series of tubes, then the filter is a tap, one which may be turned on or off  at will and the flow regulated.

Now there’s a problem we need to work on. What language do we use to state our position?

Reference: Daniels, H, 2001, Vygotsky and Pedagogy, RoutledgeFalmer, London.

1. which I’ve been reading for ages and never quite finished [↩]
2. or Our Dear Friend Clive Hamilton – where has he been hiding? [↩]
3. see if you can pick the few that are [↩]