Schools and the Participatory Culture

Dr. Friesen’s description of the wonderful work being done at Olds School brought our reading of Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture (Jenkins, 2009) to mind, particularly its definition of the phrase “participatory culture”:

 “1. relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement

2. strong support for creating and sharing creations with others

3. some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices

4. members who believe that their contributions matter

5. members who feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least, they care what other people think about what they have created”. (p. 5)

 Jenkins uses the phrase to describe the world of Web 2.0, in which people have switched from being receivers to creators of content. But it could also be applied to the ideals of schooling that we have been talking about in class. If students were allowed to seize their right to an education, were given the opportunity to develop their minds and engage in happy and productive work with their friends, school itself could become a “participatory culture”, and the five facets to the definition would hold true. There would be low barriers to expression; strong support for creativity; informal mentorship from the teacher; meaningful contributions; and strong bonds between students engaged in meaningful work.

What is it that prevents the participatory culture we see flourishing on the web from taking hold in our schools? I suspect that a deep reason is that, institutionally, we are afraid of students and believe that the only way to make them work is to force them to do so – the old industrial model of control.

And yet what is heart-breaking for those of us focussed on the secondary years, is to remember for a moment the joy that motivates student learning in the younger grades. Much of what happens in those early years could be termed as “participatory culture” – the sounds of happy engagement from the well-run classroom are evidence of that.

The challenge for high school teachers like myself is to reignite the joy of learning in our students, to believe in their innate curiosity, and to open our doors to the participatory culture that has so naturally taken hold in other aspects of their lives.