November 2001

ISSN 1537-5080

Vol. 15 : No. 11< >

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The Writings of Guy Bensusan

Editor's Note: Many of Guy Bensusan's articles were unpublished at the time of his death. Others are awaiting editorial assistance to integrate themes from personal dialogs, list servs, notes, and unfinished works. His stories distill the essence of his explorations and ideas about learning. He encourages us to adapt and experiment with his ideas rather than imitate them.

What I offer is not a foolproof chart, it is my personal blueprint. It comes from a professor trained in history and experienced in teaching humanities, arts and culture courses.
...

I do not offer my path as one to be imitated. Only I can be Guy Bensusan. Rather, I hope that the ideas, principles and tactics described will be considered, molded and adapted, adjusted and modified by each navigator to his or her own specific desires, locations, areas, needs and goals. I sincerely hope they will be useful as springboards for experimentation.

Cyber-Charro and Quixote

Guy Bensusan

In the waning weeks of 1996, I met Mexico's Virtual University president, Carlos Cruz. He spoke at a major conference in San Francisco, where three university presidents from Canada, the USA and Mexico talked on Institutional Imperatives for Distance Education. Among the many significant ideas and outlooks, I was especially impressed with a visual that Carlos showed us: an astronaut in extra-terrestrial regalia astride an Arabian horse. The man was labeled "Electronic Technology" and the horse was tagged as "Educational Models." The audience laughed heartily at this highly Hispanic contrast between possibilities and current realities in education.

While I appreciated Carlos' apparent tactic with that photograph, a different dichotomy began to occur to me. I perceived the horse as a vehicle representing an antiquated teaching methodology, while the human as astronaut was fully equipped with the most up-to-date tools for innovation and futurism. Wow! What an image! How flattering this is to us professors. We are instantly dubbed as competent, avant-garde human beings unfortunately forced to work under onerous and obsolete conditions, outdated regulations and outmoded equipment.

But is it accurate? Or is it flattery for the professoriate? Does this vision truly portray our predicament? The idea intrigues. What, in truth, are the roadblocks we face? What prevents us from engaging in the vital shift from teaching to learning? Is it our university system? Our endless penchant for committees and rules? Our accreditation? State boundaries? Is it lack of funding for software and library holdings? Is it a poorly-prepared group of students? Is it preference for research over teaching? Or a fear of failure? Is it employers, or tradition, or parents? Is it our rapidly changing demography? Is it institutional leadership or is it us?

I remember Walt Kelly's Pogo saying, so long ago, "We have met the enemy and he is us!" Carlos Cruz's photograph definitely contrasted possibilities with actualities, opportunities with challenges. My initial modification of that photo praised faculty while pointing to challenges of the system. But was my response appropriate? Is it our torpid and apathetic bureaucracy and our paralyzing piles of policies that impede the transmutation towards learning?

Are we not actually in the opposite situation? As professors, are we not blessedly surrounded by a vast cornucopia of wondrous new tools for communications, data gathering and information dissemination, and are not many and perhaps most of us highly-educated doctors of philosophy and education either incapable of using those implements, uncomfortable with them, anxious about how to use them, or even afraid of their power?

As I thought about all of this, a new picture came to my mind -- the flip side of the "Cyber-Charro" (the silvered astronaut without sombrero, riding a horse) clearly was a Medieval Knight in armor riding a Space Vehicle. It might even be Don Quixote attempting to pilot an F-117 Stealth fighter-bomber across the wild blue yonder. Whee! Whoa! Wait! This is a different image, and a different picture altogether. What a change! How unflattering! Now it is the human professor who is outmoded, archaic and laughable, not the technology. This vision takes us in a different direction.

The next stride in my musings sprang forth without delay -- part of my resourceful-teaching technique, no doubt. Why not put the pictures of Cyber-Charro and Quixote flying the Stealth side by side? Juxtaposition might show the current dilemma in higher education by implying an obvious question, "Where are the problems and opportunities demonstrated here? Are they coming from innovative teachers and backward systems, from innovative systems and backward teachers, or simply from the discrepancy between and among the conditions?"

That was not enough. So I constructed a motion picture storyboard in my mind of the noble-but-drooping Quixote in rusty armor coaxing his nag Rosinante across the rainless plains of Spain. A spacecraft zooms by and Quixote looks up. He stares at the craft as it speeds across the blue. He watches for a long time, and then looks down at what he is riding, stroking his beard and thinking about it (cut to close-up of quizzical look), and then shakes his head incredulously as the camera zooms out.

Riding on to town, he comes to a sign, "Taller de Reparaciones" (Ye Olde Repaire Shoppe -- Special Sale!!). Dismounting, he leads Rosinante over to the hitching post, hails the shop boss, and describes with zesty gestures what he has seen flashing through the sky. The two talk at length and the shop boss eventually shows him a catalog full of possibilities. They nod in agreement to a potpourri of equine upgrades, pushbuttons, whistles, bells, and shiny stuff.

Rosinante is led away into the shop, while Quixote moves into the patio to wait, feasting on Manchego cheese, chorizo sausage and Rioja wine while watching dark-eyed damsels dance. Time passes, and late in the afternoon, with sounds of Castillian fanfare and castanets, the refurbished Rosinante is led out and paraded before Don Quixote. He circles his long-time companion, slowly stroking her silver coat and marveling at the fiberglass wings, metallic hooves and fancy chrome. He touches the spikes of her outstanding mane, then he feels the boot-like stirrups. He looks into the remodeled saddle, now shaped like a cockpit, with instrument panel and steering mechanism supplanting the worn leather reins.

The shop boss suggests a trial ride and Quixote agrees, but Rosinante is now so much taller, that he needs a collaboration of helpers to get on. He finds that the sitting space has been diminished, leaving him perplexed. He can climb up and mount, but he has no room to maneuver, or stow his baggage, and besides, Rosinante will not respond to his old and familiar commands. Quixote shouts and kicks his heels, but Rosinante doesn't feel a thing.

"Perhaps it is the armor," says the shop boss, "you don't need that any more." Quixote nods in agreement, hands his helmet and old spear down, then his beloved shield. This provides more room, but it is still not enough. Rosinante will not go and the many onlookers who have gathered are getting impatient. The shop boss says, "You have to make still more changes! Get rid of the rest of that obsolete junk! Throw it away!"

"Knowest thou indeed what thou art asking, oh thou gallant master of crafts? These magnificent pieces of artisanry from before my birth are the badge and soul of my vocation. I will lament their loss, and tremble without them. How can I be a true knight without armor? I am not easy with this!"

"Come on, old man, we must get along with it. I have other customers too! Get on down here and take that old stuff off!" Reluctantly, emotionally, Quixote dismounts and divests himself of his embossed gauntlets, then his overlay-decorated arm-sheathes and leg armor, and finally the engraved breastplate. With a long sigh and a longer face, he hands them to the shop boss. He turns to Rosinante, who whinnies with excitement, and looking into her brilliant eyes, he senses a sudden and uncommon inspiration.

Unburdened and unencumbered, Quixote feels himself rejuvenated. There is the exhilaration of a new challenge, and he swings himself up into the silvery saddle with energy and spirit. He is now a fellow human, no longer a Don. The shop boss, the workers and bystanders cheer, "Ole!" and Rosinante responds to the enthusiasm, prancing with her rider to the bravos and hoorays!

With a salute and benediction, the shop boss hands Quixote one final item, a stylish, glassy helmet with six pulsating antennae, tipped in bright colors. Don Quixote bows his head, blesses his benefactors, and presses the proper buttons to spur Rosinante to action. With a whoosh, the renovated idealist and the computerized Clydesdale soar away on their mission to rid the world of evil, hatred, poverty and ignorance. Curtain closes, forming the words, THE BEGINNING.

Now, this fairy tale is just that --- a mythic imagistic impression of what may need to happen if we professors are to succeed in entering our new transitional age as forward-looking innovators conducting technology-vehicles appropriate to the mission of learning for our new age. The old nag has to be redesigned and refurbished if it is to help us go to new places with new people. And it is also obvious that the rider (meaning us) must face up to the need to engage in our own transformation. It is no surprise. We all know it. It is not the "whether" that is bothersome; it is the "how."

But where our quixotic metaphor fails us is that it provides no clue, key or any specific, detailed formula about the actualities of alteration, conversion, transformation, metamorphosis or shift we must pursue. Like Quixote, we know there are many other vehicles. We also know they will be carrying us into new territory. We further are aware that we should shed outmoded vestments, gear and our old mental maps, even though we feel safer with them. Like Columbus, the maps we have are drawn from our previous experiences. The terra incognita ahead of us have as yet no maps to guide us, or rather, if there are any, they have not yet been made available. This only means that exploration is valid for all of us, each individual can search out the new paths, noting landmarks, and leaving trails for others. We must explore with open minds and then draw our own maps, fresh maps that rely on what we learn as we experience the unknown, uncharted and insufficiently imagined world of tomorrow.

I have been allowed glimpses of tomorrow. For the past decade, I have been fortunate to be an early venturer with two-way video and two-way audio to multiple simultaneous classrooms in Arizona. Students in courses I conduct are face-to-face in real time, able to see and discuss our humanistic subject matter with each other and with me. They interact by electronic mail, chat groups and other softwares. This distinctive system, NAUNet, on which I was asked to experiment by offering courses in innovative ways, has provided a fascinating learning laboratory.

Thanks to the vision and dedication of the many leaders, to the assistants and colleagues I have been privileged to work with, to constant encouragement from Mauri Collins and Elizabeth Perrin, and to thousands of students who participated in the exploration of new territory, I accumulated some foundational principles upon which I now build the many courses I offer on-line.

With foresight and faith, academic leaders of Northern Arizona University instructed me to teach, to experiment and learn, to pass on my insights to colleagues and to help in building the program. A decade later, with seventy courses-worth of experience, I have accumulated observations and suggestions. The purpose is to share my learning with other professors and administrators, to offer some thoughts about helping the learning process to function better, and to describe some specific methods that I have seen helpful for learners in the acquisition of expanded knowledge, validation techniques, context awarenesses and the ability to continue their own learning after they have left our classrooms.

What I offer is not a foolproof chart, it is my personal blueprint. It comes from a professor trained in history and experienced in teaching humanities, arts and culture courses. This is not a limiting factor in terms of academic fields, however. One thing I learned is that teaching is teaching and learning is learning. All learners must go through a similar process, regardless of scholarly discipline.