[Ci4cg-announce] How Civically Intelligent is your College or University?

Eevi Elisabeth Beck e.e.beck at iped.uio.no
Mon Jul 18 04:23:35 PDT 2016 

Dear friends,

I'm interested to contribute to the conversation about how to encourage 
colleges and universities (and those who look at them) to become aware 
of and appreciate their potential to help students become more 
responsible citizens; for this to be seen as (close to) the core of what 
education is about.

Others have looked at this too.
Within the field of Education, practitioners and researchers have 
struggled for years with articulating such processes and aims in ways 
which communicate the intent, and with establishing them as legitimate 
aims for educative efforts.

If you're interested to hear my views, read on; otherwise please do 
something which is more worthwhile for you right now.


As the question of terminology (wording) already came up, maybe it's 
helpful to sketch some terms I know about and which I think relate 
closely to the efforts of Doug and the students:

"Bildung":
In the Germanic tradition, the term Bildung is perhaps seeing a revival 
these days as it's getting stripped of some elitist connotations which 
it had for a few hundred years. The term is also being used a little bit 
in English nowadays. I've co-authored two papers that look into this, 
aiming to spread its use and contribute to pushing at those boundaries 
by asking how it applies in professional education. The original meaning 
of Bildung is image, or development "in the image of". And some say it 
includes the silent space where we can touch and develop some solidity 
about our own truths, so we don't quite as easily get swept away by 
dominant ways of looking at the world (such as established ways of 
ranking universities).
This could become individualist, but in the eyes of Wolfgang Klafki, a 
renewed concept of Bildung must include: self-determination 
(independence), co-determination (collaboration), and solidarity (with 
those who have less opportunities to develop their self- and 
co-determination).

"Formation":
Some of my colleagues looked into the related term Formation, which from 
what I know is more in use in the US than Bildung is. It seems to 
connote to more practical work (yet a UK colleague once reacted very 
strongly to the term Formation, hearing it as a straitjacket - the 
opposite of the intention).

"Intelligences":
As for intellingence(s), American educational researcher Howard Gardner 
once proposed that there are seven of them, of which conventional iq 
tests only address one. (Others include musical intelligence, etc).
I really like the plural. Once we've opened up for the co-existence of 
multiple forms of intelligence, it doesn't matter to me if we say there 
are three or tree thousand of them. The point is that there is more, 
always more, when we start looking... To me then, the question of where 
to pitch the effort - how close to today's system, how visionary, how 
close to daily experiences, how utopian - fortunately has no single 
answer but loads. I fully agree with both Doug and Todd. Each of us 
offers what we have - and there are shortcomings in all approaches. 
Myself, I find it easier to deal with academic language and ideals, with 
care of expression. Others maybe suffocate in that world where less time 
is spent on real action. I believe we're all needed, but those of us 
more bent towards theory (such as me!), could do well to listen to those 
who attend to practical results (which I suspect includes both Doug and 
Todd - at least I feel inspired by them :-).

Opinions are only opinions:
More than anything, we need in my experience the kind of subtle (and 
sometimes less subtle) respect for the others' point of view which we're 
already seeing in this exchange. Thanks to both Todd and Doug for that.
We are more than our opinions. Often i forget this simple truth but when 
I do remember this, I feel more free. Because there are so many ways.
To me, at core of such discussion as this is How can we culture the 
insight of the centrality of students - and us, their teachers - 
enjoying being responsible citizens? How can we provide some sense of 
network, community, or recognition, to those who know but may seem to be 
struggling alone?
Disagreeing about the specifics of how seems to be one way of actually 
doing the work, of raising awareness (our own and that of others). 
Great! :-)

I see that my email has become long and that's not fully respectful of 
others' inboxes - sorry! Thanks if you read on.

Cheers,
Eevi

On 18.07.2016 05:23, Doug Schuler wrote:
> Hi Todd,
>
> Thanks for taking the time to raise these points! I'd really like to
> hear from others who disagree with this line of reasoning or find it
> lacking in other ways. Debating the viability of the concept (of civic
> intelligence) and possible uses of it is very important.
>
> The first thing I'd say is that I am not trying to come up with
> something that measures /progressive social values/. I'm actually trying
> to understand better how groups of people come up with approaches that
> are effective and equitable. My basic hypothesis is that they use
> something like "civic intelligence" to accomplish this. The hope is that
> this could (1) help us to improve the civic intelligence of people
> around the world (which, btw, takes different forms in different
> contexts); and (2) help provide a useful concept for developing and
> conducting collaborative projects of all types.
>
> The reason that I want to use the term "intelligence" is that it seems
> to be the best descriptor available for this job. Its main functions —
> integrating thought and action, the use of reason (etc.), and learning —
> are all distinct functions of "intelligence." I also want to assert that
> intelligence in individuals is not only something that's adequately
> described by IQ tests. THAT is an invention by researchers and to me it
> does real harm to the richness of human thinking and activity and to the
> worth of humans.
>
> We developed the five perspectives because we really wanted to get a
> view of the /whole/ range of ways that a college could be civically
> intelligent. It's almost the opposite of trying to come up with a single
> attribute that is the stand-in for the entire institution. (That will
> also give us ideas as to how to actually improve it!)
>
> We do acknowledge the value of knowing things about social issues
> ("homelessness, economic inequality, police violence," e.g.).
> Unfortunately I may have given this short shrift in the blog piece (see
> below to see the verbiage that we used for this) but in the longer
> version the topic is covered in more detail.
>
>> (2) What does the college do to promote civic intelligence among students?
>> This includes the classroom and other forms of evaluated teacher /
>> student activities as well as other activities outside the classroom
>> including student groups and activities, informal as well as formal.
>> We also identified interdisciplinary classes, especially those focused
>> on societal problem-solving, as very important, as well as the
>> quantity and quality of student engagement and leadership in
>> educational endeavors.
>
> Finally, one of the reasons I'm so hep on the term is that students (not
> all of them) seem to respond very positively to it. It allows us to
> study important things such as how might we address historical
> wrongdoings and it also allows us to feel that we actually ARE connected
> to humankind in some sort of real way AND that we have some modicum of
> power and self-efficacy to possibly help effect some change. I.e. it can
> be liberatory and it's not always easy to make those claims about education.
>
> Other feedback would also be very appreciated!!
>
> Thanks Todd!!!
>
> — Doug
>
>
>> We will continue our examination of civic intelligence at Evergreen
>> and we encourage other schools to examine theirs. The rankings, of
>> course, aren’t intended to be permanent. They are aspirational and,
>> with work and encouragement, the hope is that colleges and
>> universities will become a critical backbone of social purpose,
>> cooperation and civic intelligence that builds on their deep
>> experience advancing the world’s knowledge and humanity.
>>
>
>
>
>> On Jul 14, 2016, at 10:43 AM, Todd Davies <davies at stanford.edu
>> <mailto:davies at stanford.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> I like the overall idea and the outline rubric, Doug. I am somewhat
>> skeptical about trying to adapt the word "intelligence" to measure
>> progressive social values. I realize, however, that you are heavily
>> invested in the term "civic intelligence", and I respect the goals I
>> think are behind that. It sort of reminds me of adaptations of the
>> word "violence" to mean essentially the same thing as "injustice"
>> (e.g. "structural violence", "economic violence", "cultural
>> violence"). To the extent that I admire the hopes here, and I
>> definitely /do/, I think trying to rank universities according to this
>> rubric is a good way to promote the idea of civic intelligence.
>> Universities tend to be thought of in relation to concepts such as
>> "intelligent" and "smart", so using the word "intelligence" to judge
>> their social values might be effective for that reason.
>>
>> A challenge I see for this approach is that the concept itself may be
>> so contentious that it will have a hard time getting traction, and may
>> even spark a powerful counter-movement. The experience of trying to
>> identify "peace" with "justice", which has had big names behind it
>> (e.g. Martin Luther King) as well as an academic field of sorts (peace
>> studies), may be instructive in that regard. An alternative approach,
>> although one that would carry the project away from your concept of
>> "civic intelligence", would be to assess universities according to
>> somewhat more conventional (though still problematic) notions of
>> intelligence, i.e. ones that relate to knowledge as opposed to values,
>> and that can be tested objectively. How do students at different
>> universities do, for example, on Simon Baron-Cohen's Reading the Mind
>> in the Eyes test? Or, in the social welfare domain, how much do
>> students know factually about topics like homelessness, economic
>> inequality, police violence, and the effects of war on civilian
>> populations? I bring up these ideas not to say that you should change
>> your focus, but just that there are multiple ways to push back against
>> the dominant and oppressive identification of universities with the
>> ability to solve logic puzzles, and we should probably go at that from
>> multiple angles.
>>
>> Todd
>>
>> Todd Davies
>> Symbolic Systems Program
>> Stanford University
>> Stanford, CA, 94305-2150 USA
>> email: davies at stanford.edu <mailto:davies at stanford.edu>
>> phone: 1-650-723-4091
>> office: 460-040C
>> web: web.stanford.edu/~davies <https://web.stanford.edu/~davies>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org
>> <mailto:ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org> <ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org
>> <mailto:ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org>> on behalf of Peter Day
>> <P.Day at brighton.ac.uk <mailto:P.Day at brighton.ac.uk>>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, July 14, 2016 3:38 AM
>> *To:* Doug Schuler; ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org
>> <mailto:ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Ci4cg-announce] How Civically Intelligent is your
>> College or University?
>>
>> Thanks for this Doug
>>
>> I like this a lot.....please feel free to keep me informed of
>> developments......am busy on other projects right now but might like
>> to think about ways in which we could include this in my modules.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Peter
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org
>> <mailto:ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org> [ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org
>> <mailto:ci4cg-announce-bounces at scn9.scn.org>] on behalf of Doug
>> Schuler [douglas at publicsphereproject.org
>> <mailto:douglas at publicsphereproject.org>]
>> *Sent:* 14 July 2016 05:13
>> *To:* ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org <mailto:ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org>
>> *Subject:* [Ci4cg-announce] How Civically Intelligent is your College
>> or University?
>>
>>
>>
>> Believing that this is relevant to many people on the list I'm
>> pointing people towards an article of mine about ranking institutions
>> of higher education.
>>
>> I'm trying to make the case that colleges and universities should
>> think about themselves in terms of /civic intelligence/.
>>
>> I describe about how my students and I developed the idea and present
>> the skeleton of a
>> rubric. http://www.sigeneration.ca/civic-intelligence-university-college/
>>
>> We're hoping to go to the next phase: putting more flesh on the rubric
>> and using it to rank some schools.
>>
>> I'd love to hear your thoughts in relation to this idea. Or if you'd
>> like to help!
>>
>> — Doug
>>
>> PS. I sent a (nearly) identical note to the ciresearchers list....
>>
>>
>>
>> Douglas Schuler
>> douglas at publicsphereproject.org <mailto:douglas at publicsphereproject.org>
>> Twitter: @doug_schuler
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Public Sphere Project
>>      http://www.publicsphereproject.org/
>>
>> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good
>>      _ http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce_
>>
>> Creating the World Citizen Parliament
>>
>>  http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament
>>
>> Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution
>> (project)
>>      http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv
>> <http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/>
>>
>> Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution
>> (book)
>>  http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________________________________
>> This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security System
>> on behalf of the University of Brighton. For more information see:
>> https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/is/computing/Pages/Email/spam.aspx
>>
>> ___________________________________________________________
>> This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security System
>> on behalf of the University of Brighton. For more information see:
>> https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/is/computing/Pages/Email/spam.aspx
>
> Douglas Schuler
> douglas at publicsphereproject.org <mailto:douglas at publicsphereproject.org>
> Twitter: @doug_schuler
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Public Sphere Project
>      http://www.publicsphereproject.org/
>
> Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good
>      _ http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce_
>
> Creating the World Citizen Parliament
>
>  http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament
>
> Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution
> (project)
>      http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv
> <http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/>
>
> Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution
> (book)
>  http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ci4cg-announce mailing list
> Ci4cg-announce at scn9.scn.org
> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce
>

More information about the Ci4cg-announce mailing list