The Pirate’s Dilemma
Comments(0) 
The Pirate’s Dilemma, originally uploaded by Lykle de Vries.
The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has been running a series of lectures about contemporary culture which have included some provocative talks from a variety of fascinating individuals, each with their own take on where the world is going. Apart from a brilliant talk by Sir Ken Robinson about Changing Paradigms in Education, my favourite offering is by Matt Mason whose talk is entitled The Pirate’s Dilemma: how hackers, punk capitalists and graffiti millionaires are remixing our culture and changing our world. His basic insight is that cultural piracy is at the heart of the capitalist system whilst appearing to be undermining it and that the way to deal with it is not to fight it but compete with it. I wonder if this view has any relevance for us in education? If we see teachers as the traditional producers of education and students the consumers, then I think it does. Young people are now increasingly able to produce, rather than simply consume, cultural products. With greater access to cheap and powerful technology, young people can swiftly generate their own entertainment and take greater control of their own persoinalised learning. Matt Mason describes how companies who have learned from the pirates, and adopted some of their ideas and working practices, have remianed competitive in a fast moving market place. Whilst I am uncomfortable with the notion of education as a marketplace, I wonder if a greater effort to collaborate with young people on the construction of learning in schools (and beyond schools) might not yield a more relevant, engaging and rewarding curriculum. Pirates are natural innovators. We can learn a lot from them.
