Raising Funny Kids 37: Cyborg Students

Cyborb-Students have a socio-technical relationship to the world - a post human approach to learning in a vastly growing virtual landscape. 

In an era where computer simulation of local environments is becoming more the norm than the exception, our kids have a database of information about the world that far surpasses that of their predecessors, namely us. 

Ordinary reality no longer captivates the young, digital mind. Nature doesn't "look as good" as Photoshopped images of external reality. External reality still exists, it just doesn't captivate the digital mind in the same way that artificial environments made up of visual enhancements do.

So, how do we compete? How do we cyberpunk experiences and information into bits of sociotechnical relevant data without losing its organic context? 

The answer lies in the bringing together a synergistic relationship between self-organization and postmodern science education. Experimentation has long been the way we shape our minds and pedagogical stories we mutually construct. 

Wandering in the vast outback of Australia, discovering Aboriginal groups liberates our minds from established meanings and ways of speaking - as does exploring the trees in our own backyard or neighborhood park. 

Flexibility and communication in all its inherent forms (hand signals, facial expressions, arm movements, pointing) emerges in the absence of Google Translate and virtual tools. 

Unfortunately, there's an immaturity associated with lack of experience that affects the creative force of keeping an open mind. When the mind is only fed virtual images, the mind cannot recognize novel concepts, becoming desensitized. 

It is the field of experimentation where the virtual classroom (i.e., the traditional, post-industrial school model) cannot compete. Laboratories are mostly designed for repeating experiments, proving their efficacy. While some "new" work goes on, there is a tendency to get caught in the methodology of educational research, which is disconnected from the real environment. 

Unless we want to raise a new generation of Cyborb-Students and Cyborb-Citizens, who fail to disparate forms of data unless they are predefined by computer coding language, we must provide an environment whereby students can get their "hands dirty" in the uncovering of knowledge that ultimately constitutes and contributes to the data we use to construct and feed our systems.