In search of modern knowledge

When Gary Stager asked us this morning, ‘What do you wish to make?’, I thought about a paramount problem of ‘modern knowledge’: how can we disrupt the tracking we are subjected to? I  imagined something that could disrupt the RFID tracking badges (like the ones used by ISTE). It would work like a cloak, emitting a signal making it appear you were playing along, but would supply the tracker with junk information.

I received lots of helpful suggestions (and good reading) via Twitter. David Fortin directed me work on Tor. Dr. Savasavasava and Doug Levin both suggested that I read Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum on obfuscation, which is the “production of noise modeled on an existing signal in order to make a collection of data more ambiguous, confusing, harder to exploit, more difficult to act on, and therefore less valuable.” (p.46) 

I was riding high on the wave of fortuitous suggestions from people that I trust as experts and it wasn’t even lunch time yet! Yet, my project quickly took a different turn, which I will explain after setting up some context.

Constructing Modern Knowledge takes place in Manchester, NH and is now in it’s 11th year. I am privileged and grateful to be at a school – The International School of Brussels – that has the means to send me to this conference. In turn, I feel obligated to bring back some valuable knowledge, and to share what I learn more widely with others. Before arriving, I read up on Seymour Papert’s constructionism which suggests that “learning is most effective when part of an activity the learner experiences as constructing a meaningful product.” (1987) Papert was particularly critical of mathematics education: “”But children, what can they make with mathematics? Not much. They sit in class and they write numbers on pieces of paper. That’s not making anything very exciting.” Constructionism enters to supply interesting things for children to do as they learn. “So we’ve tried to find ways that children can use mathematics to make something — something interesting, so that the children’s relationship to mathematics is more like the engineer’s, or the scientist’s, or the banker’s, or all the important people who use mathematics constructively to construct something.”

I largely agree with Papert that meaningful contexts set the stage for learning, though I’m skeptical that we ought to think narrowly in terms of making products. We might not make anything when we tend to a community or care for a fellow person. Cleaning isn’t plausibly construed as making a product. We make meaning when we read, but I doubt that’s what people have in mind. Putting those objections aside, I know from my own teaching experience that a meaningful context helps students learn how to write better than isolated lessons. If children need to write a letter, narrative, or essay, then they encounter problems they need to solve; I can help them find solutions (or, at least, strategies) in conferences and mini-lessons. In order to learn how to make a section of their mystery story more compelling, it’s essential that they learn how to use dialog, select interesting verbs, and use imagery. Their goals set a context in which learning how to use writing techniques becomes meaningful.

Let me get back to my adventure in making. 

After scanning the bountiful offerings assembled (and brought to New Hampshire from Gary Stager and Silvia Libow Martinez’s basement in Los Angeles), I concluded that I didn’t have the tools or machinery on hand to even begin to approach a tracking disruptor. I could have tried to make a mock-up or model from various crafting materials, but I’m skeptical that there’s a lot of real learning or value in making something short of a working prototype if the purpose is to understand how tracking works and to disrupt it.

What did I wish to make? I had no idea. So, I took a slow stroll and examined all of the equipment on offer. The embroidery machine seemed to produce visually interesting and intricate work. I could imagine making something that someone would want and that wouldn’t end up as trash. As we design and make, we have an ethical obligation to not add to the growing pile of well-made, technoscientific trash. Barry Allen argues, it is

“probably impossible to become trashless. The challenge, however, is not to become trashless but to make trash for which we can care. What matters is not trash per se but its cost. The best trash is trash we are prepared to care for. We care for trash not just by waste management but by taking care not to trash for trifling reasons, or to make things that can only be trashed after one cycle of use. Trashing artifacts is like the end of life. It is inevitable. It is also a morally sensitive transition, and should be negotiated civilly with the nonhuman beings whose fate has intertwined with our own.”

I was drawn to the embroidery machine because it could add something to artifacts that I already cherish and intend to care for: a traditional Haudenosaunee pattern on some clothes that I already own.

The above pattern – The Hiawatha Belt – represents the peace between the five Haudenosaunee nations. The colors add another layer of symbolism: white for peace, and purple for political messages. But not only is the pattern symbolic, so too are the materials. Wampum belts are made from carefully worked clam shell: “The bead is cut from the white and purple parts of the shell. The shell is thought of as a living record. The speaker puts the words of the agreement into the wampum. Each speaker thereafter uses the wampum to remember the initial agreement and the history that has happened to date.”

What would I lose by creating this pattern from an embroidery machine instead of from the difficult and laborious process of using clam shells? I will let that question linger. 

I created the design with a program called Turtle Stitch that uses the Scratch coding language to produce patterns. The coding process required some basic mathematical knowledge, but for the most part, it just required attention and focus. Unlike making from Wampum, if I made a mistake, I would not ruin the piece. I could undo, redo, and delete. At once I figured out how to code a box, I could simply duplicate, shift, re-size it the box.

At once the pattern is made, the embroidery is executed with the artifice of certainty.¹Davd Pye wrote about the ‘workmanship of certainty’, but I’ve adopted the gender-neutral term that Barry Allen has used. At once I set the fabric into the machine, the pattern will be re-produced as many times as I want, each stitch just as perfect as the rest. Our environment is dominated by the artifice of certainty. Any metal bowl that you buy at Ikea is virtually indistinguishable from the rest. This is both a boon (we can count on them each being made just as well), but also an aesthetic burden. As David Pye has argued, the artifice of certainty reduces the visual variety in our built environment. In contrast, the Wampum belt is the product of the artifice of risk: the piece can be ruined at any moment with the wrong move. Take a look around you: how much of what you see is made from the artifice of risk? Consider the objects that you treasure, or find to be the most beautiful: how many are made from the artifice of risk?

We all know that to the person with a hammer, all the world looks like a nail. So, we must be careful about what tools and artifacts we surround ourselves and our students with. To the school with Turnitin, all the world looks like possible plagiarists. What artifacts do we wish to surround ourselves with and care for? After we can answer that, we can begin to think about what we wish to make.