I got into a heated discussion with some close friends of mine over the weekend. We were at a party for my wife’s birthday, when the Lake Middle School/school board meeting came up.
The discussion ended poorly and I felt bad that we had ended the discussion curtly and abruptly. We’ve communicated since then and all is well. My friends and I share common beliefs and values, we just happened to disagree. Friends can do this—they can hug and move on, knowing that they still share and value their friendship.
What about communities who have been fractured by disagreements? They can’t shake hands and move on unless they make a concerted effort to do so. The school board just ended its“counseling” therapy session. It’s important for them to work together; after all they are the ones who make the decisions—but what about the community? The school board is divided because the community is divided.
We have some work to do–some hard conversations to take place. I’d like to see someone who is well respected by the entire community come in and facilitate a series of conversations in the community about the direction of our schools and how that process can be better structured.
I’ve also learned a thing or two about the power of blogging. What I have recently learned is that while blogging can put ideas out there, blogging cannot take the place of good, honest, face-to-face dialogue. Let’s remember the power and limits of blogging as “conversation.”
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I totally agree with Mark that nothing can replace face-to-face interaction if we really mean to understand and work productively with each other. That value lies at the center of my choice to teach in the first place.
I don’t think, however, that a couple of difficult exchanges really stake out the limits of blogging as conversation or anything else. The pattern of usage on this blog looks more like what people do with news papers (read it then move on) than web 2.0. I don’t mean that as a criticism, just an observation.
Online interaction can get a head start if the participants already have a relationship in physical reality (like a class) but I’ve also see relationships emerge in physical reality as a result of conversation on a highly interactive website (No Impact Man comes to mind, I’m sure there are less crunchy examples our more conservative readers could identify).
Since the suite of 21st Century skills includes things like using technology for collaboration and problem solving, it seems like we could put some effort into figuring out how to make the few exchanges that do occur here more productive. We will never understand this stuff the way our “digital native” kids do but I think it’s well within our mostly middle aged grasp to figure out how to do better than we have.
Just a thought.