Mutualism, as outlined by Kevin Kelly, is the concept that species depend on one another for their survival in at least one phase of their life (WTW, 311). He identifies three strands of "increasing mutualism" that comprise co-evolution:
(1) As life evolves, it becomes increasingly dependent on other life.
(2) As life evolves, nature creates more opportunities for dependencies between species.
(3) As life evolves, possibilities for cooperation between members of the same species increase.
Human life, as Kelly points out, "is immersed in all three mutualisms" (WTW, 312), and he goes on to compare what he terms "the technium", or the whole adaptive system of technology and culture, with human life. He sees it as a planetary-scale organism, whose "life" can be divided into stages of development, mirroring the development of biological organisms.
As such, the technium operates within the realm of mutualism as well, and, what is most important to understand, is that the third level of mutualism pointed out above represents the level of mutualism that humans have entered...and the activity associated with this level is accelerating, due to the interplay of two "organisms": man and technology.
"We are just starting our journey of increasing mutualism between the technium and ourselves. Mastering this commensalism, like adding with pen and paper, will take some education. The most visible aspect of the exotropic trend toward mutualism is the way in which the technium increases the sociability between humans. [...] For the next 10 to 20 years, the socializing aspects of the technium will be one of its major traits and a major event for our culture" (WTW, 314).
"Collaboration, which is not new, was once hard to do en masse. Cooperation, not new, was hard to scale into the millions. Sharing, as old as humans, is difficult to maintain among strangers. The extension of increasing mutualism from biology into the technium points to yet more sociability and mutualism to come" (WTW, 316).
If Kelly is right (not many folks doubt him, based on past predictions), then a major event for our culture--the culture of independent schools--over the next 10 to 20 years will be the socializing aspects of the technium; in other words, mutualism. That time frame may seem rather brief to many, yet it represents one generation of students following our curricula from PK through 12th grade, then a handful of years in post-secondary education (in most cases).
SOME QUESTIONS FOR SCHOOLS
- How might schools leverage this mutualism between man and machine?
- How might we better emphasize the importance of collaboration within our curricula?
- Would we need to rewrite vast sections of those curricula?
- How do we maintain human:human socialization, with the technium's rapid growth?
- How do schools handle these kinds of questions within extant frameworks? For example, is there a committee at your school that would charge itself with these questions? If not, what would such a group of thinkers look like, in terms of structure? Should there be structure?
- Will the ostrich approach (head in the sand) work, at this stage in the game? Could schools simply ignore the technium? Would such schools survive in the long run?
- Do we believe that "how we do school" (how we "teach" classes), as they exist today, is responding adequately to the degree of mutualism that Kelly describes? If not, how might we alter "how we do school"?
- Is anyone in your school even thinking about these things? Where would you start such conversations?
For more on the technium, I recommend What Technology Wants, Kelly's recently-released tome:
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