In Defense of Eclecticism and Knowledge Management
A cursory glance at the titles in this collection may lead one to categorize it as an “eclectic assembly” about knowledge. Such a label, however, would be hitting it squarely on the head. Isn’t humanity’s collective knowledge an eclectic assemblage, and isn’t a truly learned person a person with knowledge in many disciplines? Traditionally, a “Renaissance person” was an individual with astuteness and familiarity in varied disciplines. A contemporary Renaissance person is an eclectic jack-of-all-trades.
Neither knowledge nor eclecticism is undesirable. The essays in this collection are strung together on the thread of “sharing of knowledge”. Sharing, as in imparting knowledge in a formal classroom setting; sharing as in disseminating information to large populations in a society.
Teachers, policy makers, and businesspersons are wrestling with two important issues: one, presenting relevant, timely, and useful information to their users and two, placing the information where the users may reach and access it easily.
Assuming that “educated decisions” are in the best interest of people in a society, it is important that users of the knowledge, be it students in a classroom, or public at large, have the choice in deciding the value, worth, and usefulness of a particular piece of information before accepting or discarding it.
Broadly speaking, the essays in this collection are about creation, dissemination, and results of knowledge sharing efforts. Such a grouping lends itself to three sections: Theoretical framework around knowledge management, the organization of knowledge for formal instruction, and presenting knowledge in a given society.
The opening essay by Rehman lays a broad foundation by describing the purpose, place, and importance of managing and sharing knowledge in formal learning settings. He offers practical approaches to planning and imparting instructions. Simplistic as it may seem, Rehman’s recommendations are grounded in research. His arguments appeal equally to logic and common sense.
The two papers in Section II report on a society’s attempt at sharing knowledge with its various publics. Marta Koszko discusses and dissects the use of Quick Response bar codes, their display in public places, and users’ reactions to QR codes, smartphones and technological sophistication necessary to make use of such communication.
Marta Koszko questions the relevance of recent technological devices that are supposed to help people communicate more effectively and access information more easily. She describes the early attempts of introducing the Quick Response (QR) codes in Poland. The postal stamp look-alike squares have endless functions from carrying a boarding card to scanning and depositing a check into one’s checking account. One can pay a bill by scanning the QR code on a bill or get directions to a museum by scanning the QR code on a poster at a train station. Koszko argues that while it is an extremely useful technology in providing, sharing, and accessing information, it is of little use for someone who is not about to board a plane or pay a bill or visit a museum. Or if a person does not own a device that can scan a QS code and then perform various functions. For such non-users, the display of QR codes in public places is an intrusion. Such persons may also feel excluded from the communication that is occurring through this new technology. Are the QR codes to improve communication among the providers and the users or is it to exclude certain people from the communication process. She agrees that if one has a proper device one has the information, without it, one is unable to access certain information. She concludes that for some, these devices may be useful, for others these may be unessential.
Monika Chomątowska revisits the question of turning cities into metropolises. Reminiscent of German expressionist cinema and Fritz Lang’s landmark silent film Metropolis (1927) that presented a futuristic urban dystopia producing dehumanization, totalitarian control, and environmental disaster leading to cataclysmic decline in society, Chomatowska asserts that in the name of “knowledge economy”, some governments and international organisations are pushing for metropolization as the future of the world. As more and more opportunities are shifted from the rural areas to the cities, the quality of life in the rural areas deteriorates. People migrate to the cities in pursuit of employment, education, and healthcare. Such depopulation of the rural areas and the overpopulation in the cities has widened the gap between metropolises and the countryside creating a visible social exclusion that is afflicting both rural and metropolitan populations, and has produced a social underclass in the rapidly growing cities in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Offering examples of transformation of European cities such as Barcelona, Glasgow, and Stockholm, she questions the social and economic benefits of metropolization. Just as expressionistic cinema introduced a new form of conflict -man versus city- in narrative structure. Chomątowska warns us of the deepening of internal disparities in metropolises, of high unemployment among immigrants, hence creating a poor underclass. The lure of a better life in a big city is giving way to a dual city with rich gated communities near slums where the children of poor immigrants attend the worse schools and the poverty becomes heritable. The newcomers from rural areas often lose their cultural values. The moral standards in metropolises are also different from those in traditional societies– e.g. higher divorce rates, consumeristic lifestyle, placing career above family life, and loose sexual contacts have resulted from the creation of metropolitan cities. Careful knowledge management and communication need to be put in place before cities turn into futuristic nightmares.
Three essays in Section III are case studies from classrooms where educators and facilitators are facing the challenges of reconciling with cultural values and social issues.
Lyon Rathbun is teaching in a violence-ridden town on the border between the US and Mexico where gunfire exchanges between the members of the drug cartel and the law enforcement agencies are everyday occurrences; where innocent bystanders risk getting caught in the crossfire and getting killed. It is not easy to teach grammar when the students are preoccupied