Society is people living in community. In a sense, society is a living, dynamic, and highly interconnected organism. Technology is what people develop in order to improve their community experience (i.e. the wheel, oil lamps, ink wells, steam engines, PDAs, etc.). Such technological developments may be proactive or reactive but either way, they come to exist for the purpose of meeting a community’s perceived needs (i.e. weapons of mass destruction, electronic gaming devices, kitchen appliances, etc.).
Where does education fit into society? Education is the creation of society designed to prepare newcomers to conduct themselves within the local culture and carry it on to future generations. Education furnishes the untrained minds to live within the community; to skillfully utilize and creatively enhance that community’s technologies.
Technology development is the inevitable merging of the electro-mechanical machine with the electro-chemical human. Therefore, Technology does not have a ‘place’ per se because it is not as separate as our ‘boxed’ minds have thought. Neither is it outside the box. On a sub-atomic level, it and we are very nearly the same.
The fact is, the entire material world is made up of 118 chemical elements. Both we and the machines we invent are composites of some variety of these elements. Until we realize the ubiquity of our existence within a closed biosphere, we will remain trapped in our pigeon-holed mindset that organizes everything as separate and ‘other’ and the debates between the pros and cons over technology in education will continue. And human living will remain as an expression of a senseless contradiction insisting on remaining within the confines of less than 10% of our brain’s capabilities.
For at least a decade I have been hoping that our minds would be blown by the technological advances we are witnessing before our eyes. Perhaps some have experienced at least the lighting of the fuse. But honestly, you tell me. Kaboom? (4/4/09)
