Reconciling order and chaos in education

The other day, I downloaded "Get Smart" the movie from iTunes and watched it with my kids. Between the lines of humor and the action, I could not stop thinking about the subtle nature of the spy business portrayed by the actors, thriving on the conflict between "control" and "chaos" - the two names of the spy organizations.

"Chaos" was the enemy. "Control" was America's answer to its cold war nemesis. The movie brought back memories of watching "Get Smart" the TV show, when Agent 99 and 86 paired to fight off the attacks of "Chaos" in their weekly segments. Both the movie and TV show portrayed the conflict buried under ground covered by imagery such as the Lincoln Monument and Congress, where freedom shines - at least in our part of the world.

Normal, everyday business just continued, as if neither organization existed. The more the movie was putting a humorous spin on the conflict between "Control" and "Chaos", the more I could not stop thinking about my own existence in terms of innovating and promoting automated solutions for the challenges we face in education. Public policy and thought leaders have strived to bring about order in how public funds are invested in education. The result of order would imply conformity, uniformity and the fear of standards.

Then, I recalled the book by Tom Peters, "Thriving on Chaos". As an entrepreneur, who seeks to find opportunities to address in the market place and the creation of solutions where I can deliver value, I guess you could say I have ventured to address the underlying implications of chaos in an unknowing way. Designing industry solutions begins by developing an organized framework, layered to control inputs and outputs, to support processes in a systematic and sustainable way. And, the subtle nature of a good solution implies ease of use and adoption delivering the value to users.

Get Smart's "Control" and "Chaos" were disbanded after the cold war publicly as the movie tells the story. But, beneath the ground, through twenty or so thick steel doors and hidden elevators, they survived to continue menacing each other for decades. In industry and education, one would presume we will never rid ourselves of the conflict between "chaos" and "control". In the western world, our democracy is built on the premise of freedom and independence. Our "Bill of Rights" and "Constitution" offers insights into not only our founder's vision of how society would govern, but how individuals, represented by their institutions will employ the drive for balance between individual rights and community.

Using the Internet dictionary, I quickly found that control means the power to direct and chaos means the state of disorder absence of rules or laws. Chaos is a world without order, a great void. Characterizing the opportunity to automate a process or function, is taking something that lacks structure and implementing a system to provide clear cut steps, efficiency and control over the actors or users. Control allows us to plan. It allows us to monitor. It allows us to react to changes.
In contrast, where freedom and independence continues to shine, we reveal in the creativity, experimentation, innovation and choices we have from the variety our economic circumstances offered by our society. As a people, reared on decades of free choice and our god given rights, we strive to reinforce our individual pursuits and rights to free enterprise and personal responsibility.

So, is chaos really the enemy of progress and civilization? Or, is it a reflection of our principals mirrored across the seas of commerce and justified by our capitalistic pursuits? Do we thrive on chaos because it allows us to standout, to differentiate and to find meaning in a crazy world?

Our motives are self fulfilling possibly. Through independence, we create confusion, the void of organization and conformity to standards. Art, science and religion reconcile emotions viewed through lens of different colors seeking discovery. When we think of academic independence and the confluence of circumstances drawing us to conclude we need comparability, transparency and coordination across academic programs, I ponder the irony. Control is viewed as the enemy and chaos is viewed and reinforced by the key stakeholders who desire to help learners succeed.

In one sense, we have immortalized principals of fairness and representation, balance and judgments made and passed through legislation debated and negotiated through community activism. As the pendulum swings, we shift back and forth considering the impact of freedom and community good. The catalyst of freedom stimulates individual pursuits, as long as it is not harmful to anyone else while we attempt to defend those that can't or don't know how to defend themselves. Independence allows us to have a personal mission in life, not dictated or controlled by government. Our creativity and free expression offers us perspectives of uncertainty and personal feelings. Ambiguity and confusion is precipitated from the uncomfortable openness or closeness our society. Attempts to legislate laws are a means of imposing conformity. Uniformity is questioned against the principals of the constitution.

How can we reconcile order - the efficiency, control and clarity of a system with the chaos resulting from our creativity, trust, uncertainty and ambiguity in how we deliver education?
America is a society influenced by independence and a strong reluctance of authority. Conformity is not easy to accept nor predictable, except by market demand created by relationships between supply and demand. If there is no demand, then supply inefficiently erodes until equilibrium.

If you have come this far with me, you are most likely confused and lost in how this relates to the Academic GPS and the vision to unify our educational resources to provide an easier means to map, guide and address student needs. Well, if one desires to provide some sense of order or control over the condition we call chaos, where the disorder and confusion overtakes us, one has to challenge the backdrop of why institutions, free to pursue their own mission, practices and policies, funded by tax dollars, offer no means to plan or control the process of attaining educational aspirations outside their borders.

In order to create a shared system, bringing order and guidance to individuals seeking control over their learning pathway and destination, the organizations serving people must contemplate the implications I share. How can we provide such order, if we lack the will to govern and balance the needs of individuals who would be lost in their pursuits, given the industry's structure and vacuum of missing connections? How can we help people be successful? That is our challenge and it is bigger than us all.

The Academic GPS is a vision to provide a new student device, supported by automated services connecting institutions, their programs, courses, requirements, and outcomes. It would be learner centric, which means it would help each user navigate their circumstances and aspirations. This would support the notion that institutions, faculty and academic departments recognize the need to be a participant in a process of creating some order to the academic environment beyond their confined perspectives.

If we are going to help guide more learners to a higher level of education, then we must see the educational environment through their eyes. Which, even with the academic structures and foundations of learning organized within institutions, one should be able to sense the chaos all the same. It is good business to support individuals through their learning and career aspirations. I don't think anyone would fault that statement. It is even better business - in my view, and more in line with our democratic and social ideals that we reconcile the conflict between order and chaos in education for the public good. Where do we draw the lines? Let's not be constrained by call for independence for the sake of clarity. It does not mean conformity or uniformity must be forced down the throats of the academic enterprise. It does mean coordination, communication and construction of methods to help learners excel by enabling learning (stages of life) to be better understood by the participants.

Like "Control" in Get Smart, we need an Academic GPS, to offer us the comfort knowing we are protected and that someone is thinking about the risks and fallout of not keeping a watchful eye on "Chaos".