So said Shelley. He wasn't being negative.
I had a good, satisfying rant yesterday, about my institution's desperation to reduce education to the cold, alienated transmission of commodified facts, tailored to suit the demands of capitalism (because that's working really well, isn't it?).
Then yesterday, having finished Greg Bear's rather exciting Darwin's Radio (a gene thriller), I watched Horizon, the BBC documentary strand. This week, it was an hour on Einsteinian Relativity and quantum physics (extra-UK readers: it'll be on Youtube in no time). The fascinating thing is that relativity brilliantly describes the workings of the universe, and so does quantum physics, equally brilliantly. Unfortunately, they're completely incompatible, and this show focused on black holes to explore the dilemma.
The film consisted of arty graphics (it's basically impossible to represent the stuff that's out there, but they did their best) and moodily posed shots of physics boffins doing their stuff.
What was most profound was that they all kept saying, elegantly, 'we don't know what the hell is going on'. The point is - and Vice-Chancellor, I hope you're taking notes - that they all said this with massive, goofy grins on their faces: I couldn't help grinning back, caught up in their love of pure, intellectual pursuit. It's exciting, romantic, fascinating.
The absence of certainty is what drives proper educators. We love throwing ideas around, testing them, discarding them, modifying them. Can you imagine turning up at a local call centre and saying to them 'We'll offer this course to your employees if you give us £50,000. By the end of it, they'll understand that there aren't any right answers, only more questions. It'll totally destabilise their conception of the universe. They'll love it'?
That's what's going to happen. It's going to be boring, short-sighted and culturally damaging. It'll also be economically damaging, because training people to be more obedient drones definitely won't lead to innovation or invention.
I'm off to a meeting with the Ultimate Authorities now. Toodle-pip.
1 comment:
Yeah - Horizon was good, although a little more on the effects (relative effects) of bent space-time would have helped explain Einsteinian ideas, added some material for sci-fi geeks, and given us a glimpse over the event horizon. Loved it, and loved the sublime uncertainty they all expressed in the face of theoretical incompatibilities. Let's hope none of us face similar uncertainties on the job market.
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