The ‘New’ University

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College The ‘New’ University A Manifesto for an (Anarchogogic) Expressionist Future

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Anarchogogic Connectivism Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Connectivism • One of the pivotal theoretical or philosophical foundations for this module is that of ‘connectivism’ • Of particular relevance and importance within this, is the recognition that ‘knowledge’ is a fluid phenomenon. • Knowledge is perpetually shifting – as it is distributed, and negotiated, across a network of connections (learners, facilitators, external sources, re-interpretation etc.). Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Connectivism • As such, learning should be conceived as a continually morphing process, one which is re-established during encounters with ‘active, engaged, and engaging participants’. • Connectivist knowledge, should thus be understood as a multifaceted process: • One which is (and becomes) sculpted and refracted through a mirage of new (and complex) interpretations, meanings and potential new directions. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Connectivism • Influenced by not-yet made possibilities, knowledge is not ‘acquired’, (as though it were a structured, stable and tangible ‘thing’). • Instead knowledge is con-structed as learners engage in ‘real time’ (or the ‘Now Time’ of their own connections) with vibrant ideas. • Infused with their own ingredients of experience, hopes, intentions, values, day-dreams, aspirations (possibilities) etc. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Anti-Freedom: The Consumer Packaging of Knowledge • This is, therefore, quite distinct from the (what has become) established ‘packaging’, and, consumerised delivery of knowledge. • Approached as though it were a ‘sealed’ (ossified, fossilised, in-tact and transportable) stable object – • knowledge is becoming a ‘product’, along with its standard packaging: wrapped, sell-o-feigned and, containing the prescribed details of its constituent ingredients. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Anti-Freedom: The Consumer Packaging of Knowledge • Its production-line process is now familiarly characterised by a rigidly bureaucratic framework, structured (administered/controlled) by ‘gatekeepers’, who supervise and sanction the knowledge by way of: • Detailed pragmatism: Learning Objectives, • Sterilised end product: Learning Outcomes • Associated assessment strategies – an epistemologised statistical imposition of ‘number’ • Arguably indicative of regurgitated-conformist efforts (as opposed to the confrontation with knowledge with a view to transgressing it). Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Anti-Freedom: The Consumer Packaging of Knowledge • Such an entrenched and ‘closed’ system (insufficient) as an ‘indicator of knowledge progression’ (This is a long video clip, but well worth watching and considering) • The execution of its pseudo-scientific arbitrary scale, masquerades as a ‘universally’ accurate, mode of objective and meaningful measurement. • Such a distantiating ‘method’ discards and even destroys the intimate connections, (and chaotic, creative inner-worlds) of otherwise (potentially) impassioned and future-facing learners. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Amnesia/Anamnesis • This Statist/Consumerist approach to knowledge is being inflicted onto national/international armies of learners. • Understood as ‘anamnetic’ (Platonic anamnesis) knowledge, it can be “seen” for what it is: • Backwards-facing, knowledge, which remembers the past only. • The future is in turmoil, and learners are being bureaucratically and structurally coerced into engaging with the echoes of a knowledge that ‘has-been’. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College Amnesia/Anamnesis • Stagnating and controlled, encased in fenced and ‘policed’ ‘present-past’: • Knowledge becomes monoto-nomically defined; the important realm of the unmade (and ‘open’) future remains a disappearing relic. • Learners should be guided towards empowered and expressive (or Expressive) learning, through strategies and events that enable ‘connections’ to their own creative utterances – and autonomous sputterances. • We need to ‘remember’ and engage with, the FUTURE. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College expression/Expressionism • One of the challenges of anarchogogy, is begin to learn to incorporate, and help develop (in others), a formative Expression(ism). • Open-up knowledge, the academy, the future to the strange (complex) and multi-dimensional territories (imaginings, intelligences, visions) of new possibilities. • Unleash excitement, vision, a creativity which enables, and, allows for future eunomic sculptings to commence. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College expression/Expressionism • Expressionistic learners: connect to the openness of ‘Now Time’, begin to glimpse unmade possibilities on the approaching horizon of the future, • Expressions enter into a re-politicised co-nexus of possibility. • You’re probably thinking, “yeah, right!” ... • but, just consider, “what if ...!” Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

Craig Hammond & Phil Johnson University Centre @ Blackburn College expression/Expressionism • Hence, ‘anarchogogic connectivism’, is devoid of: • Notions of transferring (holistic packages) of knowledge. • Of controlling knowledge through numbers, of experts building knowledge (for learners) –creating automatons. • Anarchogogy seeks to open-up learning and knowledge networks, along the principles of ‘diversity, autonomy, openness, and connectivity’ • In doing so, open-up individual-learners (and notions of the social), to a new approach to knowledge ‘as-unmade-possibility’. Anarchogogic Connections - Expressionistic Futures

The ‘New’ University