Parts 2 & 3 of Talking about ‘Unheard Voices’ with Ali Carr-Chellman. Interview by Jason Engerman.

PART 2. SHARING THE LEARNINGS FROM ‘UNHEARD VOICES’

In a previous summary you mentioned that this empirical research has been confusing to so many editorial boards and journal reviewers.  What are some common misconceptions about this project?

That we were trying to figure out how to keep people from becoming prisoners, homeless, working poor or migrant workers. That we were trying to design schools that would work for them in a way that would prevent them from becoming poor, prisoners, migrant workers or homeless.  Like it was a prevention kind of program.  It’s not a prevention program.

Another was that somehow we’re trying to design schools for prisoners, who were already prisoners. They were thinking of educational correction institution programs. That wasn’t the case at all. They were just misreading what the basic purpose was.  I think it’s so unusual to be thinking about these voices that haven’t been part of the dialogue, that people just really didn’t get it for a long time. Finally we found a journal that was interested in the work, and they published, I think, 2 or 3 articles from that study.

As a professional in education, what is the benefit to me of engaging in a dialogue with populations that are not necessarily knowledgeable in the same profession? In other words, why is it beneficial for professional educators to extend this conversation to populations outside of the profession itself?

This is really interesting because the assumption underlying that question is that professional educators are experts and that they know what they’re doing and they know more than say a parent who is a migrant worker or what have you.  What’s interesting is that we’re willing to extend that conversation to professors. So in other words, very few teachers would say, “Well why would I consult with a professor on this?” And very few teachers would say, “well why would I consult with a minister on this or a business man on this.” Some would, but mostly the farther away from the center of the school we get, as we understand tertiary stakeholders, the more difficult it becomes for educators to understand.

Part of that is there’s an underlying assumption of “expertism.” That expertise is something that is valued and merited above other kinds of expertise. So if we go back to Rogers work and what we’re understanding in Diffusion of Innovations, the notion of engaging stakeholders, who are not normally part of that dialogue is part of understanding indigenous knowledge.

It’s part of respecting the community that you’re in and understanding the larger community that you’re a part of, as opposed to assuming that only people with lots of letters after their names, you know BS, MS, PhD, EdD, should be allowed to participate in the dialogue. That’s why it’s important.

Because I think they bring a very different perspective to the dialogue and that’s what we should be seeking if we’re seeking broad stakeholder participation. In systems design, that’s exactly what you’re seeking. In systems design you really have to let go of the notion that you’re the expert, you’re the light-bringer, you’re the one who’s got the answers.  Once you start understanding that, you’re going to be doing stakeholder participation. It gets scary because you’re no longer the one in charge, but it is key to a systems design perspective.

What are some ways that we as educators and researchers can actively include these populations in our practice and research?

There are some very specific things. We have to consider that these simple invitations for these unheard voices won’t get anywhere because they’re very busy people; like all of us, they have lots of pulls and demands on their time.  Many of these people are working two and three jobs in order to make ends meet. They’re worried about leaving their kids home at night in the communities that they have to leave them in.  So you really have to think carefully about what you’re doing.

For instance if you’re going to have a parent community group, and you want parents to come who haven’t traditionally been part of that group, then you need to make sure that you have child care available for their kids if they have kids. You have to figure out how are you going to engage populations that really aren’t part of the system right now.

People who are prisoners are really considered outside that system. Migrant workers move a lot, homeless people are rarely in the same place twice. So how do you include them in a meeting? I mean, it’s really hard. Do you go to a homeless shelter to have a meeting? It’s a really interesting question. How many teachers would feel comfortable going to a homeless shelter for a meeting? How many teachers would feel comfortable going into a maximum-security prison for a meeting?

To try and include voices that aren’t normally a part of their dialogue? I don’t know. I think that’s a pretty tall order that we’re asking people to take on there. But you really have to think outside the box if you’re going to include these unheard voices, I think.

PART 3. WORKING AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM SCIENTIST

You consider yourself a social system scientist. What exactly is a social system scientist?

The original system sciences really come out of [Ludwig] von Bertalanffy’s work. He was a biologist who felt that people were fragmenting into silos.  He was really interested in finding, what we call a unifying theory. That is a theory that brings things together as opposed to separating them out and saying this is my little piece of biology or this is my little piece of physics.

With this fragmenting, it becomes difficult to understand or even talk the same language as we create more and more jargon and separate ourselves more and more. So systems theory was started by [Ludwig] von Bertalanffy and [Anotol] Rapoport, who was a mathematician, [Kenneth] Boulding, was an economist, among others.  The systems idea began in the hard sciences such as mathematics.

Then Peter Checkland did some work in social systems, or soft systems, theories and practice. He authored a good book and did a lot of groundbreaking work in that area.  Then the ideas from hard systems theories, unifying theories, were adopted metaphorically to social systems. There were a few people who try to make models or simulations that were based on mathematical models to social systems.

However, you couldn’t make a direct application from mathematical models because it’s not very effective. So ultimately, social systems then becomes a metaphorical idea where we’re trying to unify, rather than divide and we’re trying to think about understanding the basics of systems theory that we were given, metaphorically.

These would include things like interdependencies and interconnections, self-renewal, self-transcendence. Furthermore trying to understand those in terms of how we design and change social systems. Social systems include educational systems, health care systems and social work systems among others.

And how has that affected the work you actually do–the research that you do?

I try to deal with fairly big questions and whenever I deal with a narrower question I try to relate it to the broader question. For instance the gaming work that we’re doing is a fairly narrow idea.  Yet what I’ve been trying to say all along is, it isn’t about the game it isn’t about the school’s acceptance of the game. It’s about the school’s acceptance of boy culture. It’s a much more cultural and bigger question. Really it’s a systems issue as this isn’t just an issue of, “Can we get games in the schools?”

Many people in educational technology and other fields will say that my goal is to implement this particular new innovation and get it adopted in schools. However, my argument is that you can fix that one piece, but then everything around it will makes it degrade back into its original self.

For instance we learned from family systems theory, looking at drug users. They would end up back in rehab when they were put back into the family system. They rapidly degraded back into the drug use or some kind of dependency because they’re addictive behavior came from the family. It wasn’t just them as an individual.  You can’t just take 1 piece out fix it and put it back in.

Another example would be when you talk about schools doing alternative assessments.  If you just put alternative assessment into a system that’s basically the same, it will automatically degrade.  It will happen over time because of the structured function of social systems.  They operate in that fashion.

So when we look at something like, gaming and the kind of work I’m doing in gaming, it’s not really about the games. Instead it’s about these broader social questions of, “are you accepting boy culture?” Is this really an indictment of games or is it an indictment of boy culture and if it’s really and indictment of boy culture, then what does that say about the system. What does that say about the larger system and what’s happening? It’s a huge social problem!

It’s about the way we treat young men and young boys in our culture in our society. Post-adolescent boys are scary to us.   We’re afraid of them. I think that that leads to this sort of alienation that these kids feel.  The point is, that it’s a much bigger social issue than just to say it’s about this one single incident or this one single research question. It’s much bigger than that.

Click here for Part 1.