Who Taught Educators To Hate Themselves? (About Lists and Authenticity)
The following is a debate I’ve had with a few folk, so here is an uninterrupted fleshing out of these thoughts.
Michael Petrilli put out another list of edu-influentials this year. This list, unlike the last time I wrote about this, didn’t need any particular prodding from me regarding diversity and inclusion of women who discuss education policy. This list, unlike the last time, kept Sabrina, Audrey, and me, and added Xian Barrett, too. I generally feel ambivalent about lists, awards, or any special recognition unless I know there was a concentrated effort by a group of folks to put me on. For that, I must be thankful.
At first, I felt as strongly as Audrey Watters does about lists. For the most part, I do agree with her assertions:
We can debate, as philosophers have for ages, the meaning of these terms – “intelligence,” “influence.” But more importantly, we should ask: why do these characteristics matter? To whom do they matter? And once there’s a practice in place that has defined these terms and has designed measurement tools to assess them and a scale to rank them, we should ask what purposes these designations serve. I don’t mean what sorts of perks do you get with your Klout score or your IQ; I mean for us to consider how might these ranking systems reinscribe hierarchy and inequality, all the while purporting to offer an “objective” tool that reflects ability.Sorta like “science,” but not.
But then something hit me: there’s a lot of connected educators and edu-activists saying they don’t care about lists, awards, and recognition but taking them anyways. Before I became fully acquainted with the intricacies of social media and the worlds of ed-tech and edu-activism, lots of folks received plaudits, gifts, and followers just for existing, willing to include corporate sponsorship in their message as long as their “numbers” flew. Now that there’s a wider range of Who Taught Educators To Hate Themselves? (About Lists and Authenticity) - The Jose Vilson: