Based on a comment I left on a post over at Weblogg-ed.

I’ve been following “Bridging Differences” for quite awhile and so have seen how these two women who at first seemed far apart in their theories and experiences in education have been coming more and more to common ground – kind of shows the value of talking … hashing things out, diplomacy … um but I digress. We’ve heard/seen the same when the Stagers’ and the Richardsons’ (and others) who at times seem to be at odds over things get together to “have at it” in person seem to come away realizing they are not so far apart really.

My other take away here is that however we define or identify the members of those pushing for change in education that are not “techies” – those of us that are believers in educational technology should go out of our way to embrace and converse with them as allies in this whole change process. We will not agree on everything, but much more than not, and we will have magnified and enriched our voices.

Also note that Ms. Meier and Ms. Ravitch are blogging … and I note more and more they are linking to other sources and resources … unless they have someone else doing that for them they are making steps, perhaps unknowingly, towards embracing technology as a communicative and educational lever.

Those in power have been casting aspersions on blogging and bloggers as not having value, of being pawns in a conspiracy to undermine democracy, and all that is good. We all know that TV news, newspapers, magazines … the lot … have never been accused of that … they are sacrosanct … umm yeah.

One of the strongest lessons, in my opinion, from the whole Watergate mess was how the Nixon administration and their surrogates attacked Woodward and Bernstein and the Washington Post as being slanted and biased and off the mark wrong … and we know how that turned out. Both Meiers and Ravitch have faced similar attacks.

This country in-particular has been engaged in a raucous debate over education for a long time and that has been enhanced since the “deployment” of NCLB. Perhaps like Meirs and Ravitch we will begin to come to some common ground and bridge some … or a lot of our differences.

Learning is messy!

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Tags: education