While it is true that I too read too much into the metaphor, it’s in a different way, sarcastic. Punks are the people who disrupt the system, and are called that by those in charge of the system. When the system becomes static, good teachers and innovators become punks by system definitions.

With the original plans for edupunk to pull on the zine culture to pull those who the system might call punks together, I find it fitting. However, I do agree that the term is not suitable for serious use. It’s too tongue in cheek. Truth is, I think Jim Groom fully agrees with the view that those people are leaders, not punks.

These are not Edupunks, they are Educational Leaders! They are our role models paving a new path to a more meaningful educational experience in our schools. They may be on the fringe, but they are also at the forefront. They are leading the way.

I’m not a fan of the edupunk term either. I think it marginalizes those who definitely need to not be marginalized. At the same time there is a tension here between those who push against convention and the bureaucracies that try to constantly establish and maintain that same convention. What’s interesting here is that like in the 1960’s, many of these so called “rebels” however they are labeled, are coming from power positions in our universities and learning institutions. Personally, I see that as a good sign, one that will help to give them the same non-fringe status that the name is trying perhaps to take away, although that “status” in itself is a tension.

A great post! Thanks for writing.

I’m not an edupunk either, but I read what you say and agree with it. I also agree with Jen Jones’s metaphor, for I identify with edupunk the same way as she (apparently) does; it takes me back – more than 20 years!

You say “the student has become the teacher”. I follow this too. I follow the Zen proverb, ‘when the student is ready the master appears’. It is often misunderstood and sometimes even ridiculed through misunderstanding.

Well I got an answer that leaves me with many questions. These quotes will keep me thinking for a while:

…Because the intellectual sand box of communication that you create in your blogs only has as much Space for others to play in as you leave them.
and
What I find really interesting is it depends on Why YOU are doing what you are doing. Are you exploring, expressing or are you guiding?

I have often said that I write this blog for me first… and perhaps I’m really only making the space open for me?
And like Darcy I’m not sure if I’m exploring, expressing or guiding?

Maybe because I am unsure, I create a difficult space for people to make meaningful connections?

As has been the case many times before with Darcy, the student has become the teacher. Thanks for sharing your wisdom!

Space: A student’s lesson on creativity from a chaotic perspective.
Place: A Sandbox, the Sandbox

If you want Art, or some sort of creative endeavour, don’t give someone one of Picaso`s paintings.

Simply give them a blank piece of paper.

The emphasis is on `blank“. Blank IS Space. This Space is the room necessary for Creativity to take root and flourish.

Draw Lines for people. Hook up dots. Offer shapes. Prepare questions. Print out worksheets. Outline guidelines. Create expectations for responses, and participation. Dig deep ditches for your boundaries, and erect massive walls for your territories. Explain and articulate beautifully to your heart’s content.
But if you want to illicit conversation; if you want to foster creative response to your own creativity, then save space, or loose face. Because the intellectual sand box of communication that you create in your blogs only has as much Space for others to play in as you leave them. You could do two things. You could nudge over and make room for others. This would leave you with less space to explore your ideas, but would leave others joining in conversation with more space to explore ideas. Or, you could just invite others to play in a larger Sand box -expanding your intellectual horizons. Either way, or no way, in my mind is best. I do not know.
What I find really interesting is it depends on Why YOU are doing what you are doing. Are you exploring, expressing or are you guiding? Again, I don not feel I know.

Space is the only way we get what’s inside, outside. So, An Answer I DO have for you Dave is that our worlds of communication are only limited by the “horizons of interpretation“ (Langdon) we experience internally when we erect language as a product of our creativity. Creativity seems to mysteriously be a journey of becoming that “meaning“ goes through as chaos becomes meaningful. Our creative impulses ARE NOT answerable to chaos though. But chaos IS answerable to our creative impulses. In fact, ONLY chaos is answerable to our creative impulse. Chaos IS Space. It is a lacking of meaning, a lacking of certainty or a lacking of “answers“ that leave room intellectually for people to explore the dynamics being presented. Otherwise for many, their just isn’t any room in the sand box to comfortably get in, sense what all the ideas could mean to them, and then create new connections with what ideas they already had handy.

Conclusion ?
Share a Sandbox or get a new one ?

I am unsure.

Eric,
I’ll take the C+ without complaint. I can be wordy at times, and that’s why right at the start of the post I offered up that my main point was in Confession #3. I’d love to see ‘this’ fringe learning be the norm!

Jen,
Thanks for the inspiration! It was your brilliant, (and far less wordy), post that helped me find the positive focus in this post.

I think that as the pedagogy catches up to the technology, the fringe will need to become the norm!

Also, as Plato would say:
Very well thought out,
excellent arguments,
too long! C+