The question of land and fish

The other day I noticed a postcard in my office that read: “Land is a mystery to fish. By the time fish finds out about land, it’s too late”. The card was a business promotion, I don’t know for what, but still the quote caught my mind. I found the thought intriguing: is there something around us that we are not aware of, something that is crucial to us, but that we have not taken notice of?

I think there is, on several levels. I’m not going to investigate all of them here, of course, but concentrate on a cultural aspect. Some might be familiar with the concept of “tacit knowledge”, but even if not, all of us have made use of the knowledge itself. In every culture it is a tacit dimension, a dimension we are introduced to as children (if we are natives in that particular culture). Because of this knowledge, you know when you are greeted by another person; you recognise what a greeting looks like. Without this knowledge, all the members of a culture would have to explain every single action, and in practise that would be impossible to handle. This becomes particularly evident when we travel; arriving at an unfamiliar place we might observe strange activities and actions that the natives to not even seem to think about. We learn how to act and function in a culture not because (at least not exclusively because) we have been thought explicitly how to do things, but because of our very existence in that culture. We learn it by way of doing it. The things we cannot articulate is (of course) impossible to talk about; it has to be shown implicitly. This is also why we don’t question our practises; we might not even be aware of them ourselves. We have to get a person from another culture to ask us: “Why are you doing this?” This is actually quite interesting; to get someone to fundamentally challenge our ways of acting can be very rewarding.

This is one of the places where the much hyped term “literacy”¹ comes in. To be literate in our world it is not sufficient to be able to read and write mere text, with the term “literacy” we are concerned with being able to “read” and “write” an environment, to “unconsciously see” what is going on. And as our world has become fundamentally artificial, in order to understand what is going on we have to be able to make use and see the relevance of the different technological tools offered to us, and know how it is put to work in subjects that concern us. Technology has become one of the main building blocks of our society. And now (as an educator and interested in schooling) to the point: if we as a society agree that knowledge about technology is important in order to function in this society, why do we not let our pupils and students get more acquainted with it? Unlike fish when it comes in contact with land, we become more apt to the task, better prepared and more experienced when we meet new things in organised environments. Getting experienced with different sides of our culture is not lethal to us; not getting experienced with it might be (at least socially).

I came across jet another quote illustrating this: ”Figuratively speaking, it is as difficult for those who have become fully literate within a world dominated by print to see how their own literacy has been shaped – indeed limited – by the technology used to produce and disseminate printed materials as it is for a fish to think about the water in which it swims” (taken from Reinking ed. 1998).

Perhaps we have difficulties identifying what is most important in our society, depriving the next generation a head start managing it?

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Notes:

¹ This is a concept I will return to again on this blog, and hopefully in a more elaborate form.

Skype – Human communication

Ever been about to phone a friend and wondered if he or she is busy? If it is OK to disturb? I came to think of it the other day, that calling someone is actually a way of intruding on other peoples private life. I’m making a phone call because I want to talk to someone right now. And the thing is, on the receivers end, one feels obligated to answer the phone when someone calls. Somehow it is the callers right to reach you whenever he or she wants; not taking a call when you could (or should) is close to cutting some off by saying “I don’t want to talk to you”. Who says that to a friend face to face? Very few. Of course, this is not face to face, that is the reason we can get away with not taking that phone call. We can always pretend to be busy, not hear the phone ringing or whatever.

However, as we move over to communication technologies like Skype, all that is about to change. One of the most brilliant features in Skype is the ability to indicate to the surrounding world whether you are available for talk or not. This way you don’t have to turn one particular friend down by ignoring his call; tell them all in advance! And from the callers point of view: It is so much more rewarding to call someone who actually wants to talk! If you don’t feel like talking, or got your head buried inside some project that needs your attention, set your indicator to “busy” or something and tell your contacts that now is not a good time to call.

So if you don’t wanna talk, send the message. If you really wanna talk, let someone “Skype you”. You might actually make some new friends while you’re at it. This is what communication should be all about anyway; you shouldn’t have to give up your privacy even if you wanna stay in touch. This, I think, is a “new” and more humane way of communicating. The tools are small, but the social impact is high.