In the final chapter of Anti-Education Era, James Gee argues that we
need to critically read like writers-- questioning the construction of the text
and putting the text in conversation with our own work and interests. It is
with this spirit that I compose this blog post. While I agreed with many of the
points Gee made and found the book an easy read, I was overall disappointed.
The back cover highlights four points Gee argues in eye-grabbing red font:
"social media can both grow and stymy the next generation of
learners," "it's up to educators and parents to maximize social
media's positive effect inside and outside the classroom," "digital
learning and social media can teach students to resolve global
challenges," and "synchronized intelligence is an important strategy
to overcome the limitations of today's schools." Overall, though, the book
most spends a majority of the time discussing why humans are stupid (147 of 215
pages). This portion of the book is general social commentary about the faulty
nature of memory, the need for comfort and meaning, and how people group
themselves. Within this portion, my favorite quote, has to be, "We join
committees where the committee as a group is usually stupider than the dumbest
person on it and rarely smarter than the smartest person on it, but we call for
more and more committees" (5-6).
The commentary on social media is mostly related to affinity
spaces and the game Sims. It lacked anecdotes about using digital learning for
civic engagement. Instead, the two key anecdotes focused on how people learn in
the game environment-- one example being a Sims game based on Nickled and Dimed
that demonstrates the difficulty of raising children on low income and the
other example being a grandmother who learned how to construct a virtual purple
toilet for her granddaughter to use in her Sims game.
In terms of use value for my own work exploring critical
pedagogy and new media, I did relate his circuit of reflective action to John
Dewey-- mentorship, experience, goals, personal investment, and meaningful
action (15-16). I tie it to Dewey, rather than Freire, as it is more pragmatic
and emphasizes mentorship and experience. I also enjoyed learning the term
Pareto Principle, which was new to me. The Pareto Principle explains how a
small fraction of the population have the largest take, whether that is in
wealth, ownership, attention, impact, etc. This reminds me of the Andrew Keen's critique of Super Nodes, which notes that though everyone can create and publish online, certain
individuals garner most of the attention.
Most of the information in the book is common knowledge, at
least for those in higher education. Inequality leads to social ills. People
gravitate towards meaning over facts. Our memories are imperfect. Stories
motivate individuals more than dry statistics. Why the arguments are not
unfamiliar to me, they may be to my undergraduate students. I am considering
adding chapter two, "Short-Circuiting the Circuit of Human Reflective
Action," to my composition coursepacks. Overall, the book is highly
readable and easy to skim as it is written in plain speak and only cites
sources at the end of the book.
