Subject: multiple views
From: Molly Freeman (mollyfreeman@telis.org)
Date: Tue 09 Nov 1999 - 00:30:34 MET
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 15:30:34 -0800 From: Molly Freeman <mollyfreeman@telis.org> Subject: multiple views
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In response to Farhad and discussants,
I sincerely apologize for the gender error and I appreciate the history
lesson.
I suspect that our different "takes" on transactional distance theory
and, it
appears, on the other sources you and I have cited, can be attributed to
gender,
culture, and to variations in habits of mind, more recently
characterized as
learning styles and multiple intelligences. Interestingly, it is
precisely because
complex adaptive systems are dynamic that I am uncomfortable with
transactional
distance theory. Apparently, we both value the "dynamic."
It seems to me that your interest in whether theories "hold up to
empirical scrutiny,"
such as complex adaptive systems, involves a very literal application of
the theory to
human social phenomena. In contrast, I utilize the metaphors and imagery
of the theory
in order to test new ways of making meaning of human social relations
and social change.
I step back to see how the theory's concepts may be similar with other
ways
of thinking. Our respective methodologies give rise to different
emphases and different
observations of what is most valuable.
Most valuable for me are the imagery of fractals and recursion, the
theory's appreciation
for the necessity of diversity, and the concepts of self-organization
and sensitive dependence
on initial conditions. Where you conduct systematic observations of
interactions, I
consider artists and science fiction writers to be among the most
significant resources
for clues to where we may be going or to what may be emerging. I see
educators,
on and offline, honoring these concepts in their teaching strategies, ie
Guy Bensusan,
without any reference to complexity theory or transactional distance
theory, as did
Paolo Friere and Buber and others before us all. And, I see educators,
on and offline,
who are highly disrespectful of anything but what they think they
'know.'
Again, I want to share the following lines from Bakhtin on polyphony
because
I think they go to the heart of what makes me uncomfortable with
transactional
distance theory and with the way it seems to have appropriated complex
systems theory:
Polyphony challenges the model of truth that conveys there is only one
truth [and] that
this truth stands objectively separate from the one who thinks it or
voices it. (Morson & Emerson)
I see this conversation revisiting the structural-functionalist themes
of thirty years ago.
In the Moore & Kearsley book, Distance Education: A Systemic View, there
is a very
Parsonian statement that I find antithetical to my reading of complex
adaptive systems
theory, and to the essential messages of Dewey, Buber, Vygotsky,
Feuerstein et al.
'There cannot be within any unit, institution, or the nation at large,
or even in
a global network, a viable distance education program in the future that
is not
in some way integrated into a total system. Making the changes and using
the
technologies that will bring this about is the biggest challenge of all.
It is a
task of teachers....it is an historically important task, that finally
rests in
your hands." (Moore & Kearsley p. 245)
I sense this preconceived notion of a 'total system' in transactional
distance theory,
in contrast to open inquiry to continuously changing contours of an
expanding universe
of ideas and patterns of behavior. For me, this means that course
objectives and grades
and instructional design must invite their own transformations. If they
do not, they inhibit
self-organization and they do violence to the participant learners.
Complex adaptive
systems are multiply entwined and continuously learning with one
another. I put my oar in
when I think I might make a difference for the better. As an educator
and social being
I need to remain alert to polyphony and sensitive dependence on initial
conditions.
I do see where your work in transactional distance theory crosses over
with my work
in complex adaptive systems analsysis, and I surmise that on many points
we do not
disagree, but in style and preferred forms of inquiry we differ. And, my
guess is that
for us all, the differences do matter.
Sincerely,
Molly Freeman, PhD
Distance Learning Consultant
A broader statement of my complex systems analysis of US schooling is in
"US Schools on the Edge of Order and Chaos" in EDJournal, March 1999,
Volume 13, Issue 3
"
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