Hi. It's great to be able to be part of this course. I am from Venezuela. I am 26, but I have been living in the United States since I was 14 years old. I used to be a middle school and high school teacher (History / Spanish) as well as a swimmer and a swimming coach, but right now I am studying at the University of Minnesota. I have a M.A. in Latin American Studies – Development from the University of Florida, and I am in the first year of my PhD studies in UMN's Comparative and International Development Education Program.
Through my research I hope to better understand the possibilities and the role of OERs for Developing Countries. What does the future hold? How will we "flatten" education credentialism? While the world is flat in terms of real-time telecommunications, knowledge continues to be a commodity that limits certain countries from owning or having control over the means of production.
While before developing countries imported goods, they then began to import machines to make these basic goods through Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI), yet until they understand how to make the machines, how to create knowledge, they will always be importing from one place or the other. There is nothing wrong with importing and exporting, but to purposely restrict access to credentials and information and by doing so limiting the ability of developing countries to improve their efficiency of their economies, the knowledge-base of their human capital and their standard of living, should not extend to educational materials. While we should respect innovation rights and patents, education (access to the shoulders of giants) should be free to all of those who venture to find them. Apart from developing countries, this issue extends for me to individuals who are also unable to escape poverty and achieve social mobility because of limited access to quality instruction or education materials. The internet and OERs are not a panacea, but they are a step in the right direction.
I hope to learn from all of you during the subsequent discussions!
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Tell us why you have joined this workshop and what you expect to learn and share
While I am researching OERs, I believe that true innovation and the best (groundbreaking) ideas were and are developed in “coffee house” type environments. They are developed in forums where we are able to bounce ideas off one another. This course is a way to learn from experts such as Wayne and Jim as well as reach out to other supporters of OERs with the hope that we will encourage and challenge each other to find solutions to some of the problems currently facing the OER community, as well as aid the growth and development of OERs. The more we educate our “sisters” and “brothers” or all of the inhabitants of the world, the greater the likelihood that we will be able to creatively solve the world’s problems. As Paulo Freire advocated, we must empower and increase the consciousness of those that do not feel as if they should take part in discussions that are beyond their level of education. We could achieve this by freeing knowledge, collectively producing education resources, and freeing education, so that those with inquisitive minds will be able to find the means to change the stars.
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In your opinion, is teaching a vocation or profession. Why?
Education to me is a way of life. We used to learn from our parents and from our tribe, but in modern society we learn from a teacher, who is there so that we can increase society’s productivity and specialization through the division of labor. Adults, including the parents of today’s children have specialized jobs and children rather than learn primarily from their parents, from their elders, from the village, they learn and attend a government sanctioned institution. This institution can retain many of the elements that traditional communities incorporated into the rearing of young children such as the passing of skills to the next generation. This transfer of knowledge includes both the formal and the hidden curriculum. However, particularly since the industrial revolution, society has become increasingly complex and stratified. In modern society, in general, we have developed norms and minimum requirements that a teacher must adhere to in order to be certified.
Teaching is a vocation and will continue to be a vocation in the sense that humans, as social and communal animals, are instinctively responsible for the next generation. Life in solitude could be poor, nasty and brutish, but man has never (naturally) been alone. We teach each other as a way of survival. Together, through that innate vocation of passing knowledge from one generation to the next, our ancestors were able to hunt down the Mammoth and other animals with great efficiency, in many instances to extinction. Humans everywhere survive because they work together. Teaching therefore, to me, is a prehistoric human tradition, and a societal need.
Teaching is a profession, because in modern capitalistic or socialistic society, labor has been commoditized, we trade labor and services as we trade other goods. While some individuals have been given, as a result of their certification, the job, the duty, and the opportunity, to teach the next generation, others have been given or have obtained access to a wide array of professional positions. To make the modern societal machine function, we should all provide a contribution. We live in a complex word where we must earn a living, and it our world today, teaching is one of the ways in which we can earn a living while at the same time help human society sustain itself.
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If you're an educator, why did you join the vocation or related profession?
Like others have mentioned, I joined teaching to make a change. To help individuals from every social class to obtain the tools that will help them look at life critically and adequately face future unprecedented crises.
As a history teacher and a futurist, I am interested in finding ways to help students to look into the past in order to help them better understand the future. I am also interested in trendlines (rather than headlines). Helping students have ideas of future possibilities (multiple futures for humanity) and how we are both capable of finding ways to solve most problems but at the same time incredibly limited and how we should always have a child’s flexible, an inquisitive mind, and understand our value premises, as well as develop a strong philosophical foundation. I joined education so that I could help tomorrow’s children be well rounded individuals, enjoy life, and care for their peers as for themselves.
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