"Ye Have Need of Patience"

I've been vexed all week. Really, vexed. Here's a selection of the blog posts I didn't write this week: "Why Open Education Won't Save the World," "Lurking and Ignorance in Qualitative Research" and "The Malignant Delusion of Educational Assessment."

Like I said... vexed.

I don't know how to take the mass of largely useless lecture notes that is open education today and turn it into something that will create intrinsic value for universities AND actually contribute to the self-actualization of a micro-entrepreneur in Mozambique. I don't know how to get useful instructional direction from formulaic "objective" statements or how to write a test item that actually taps higher-order thinking (heck, the textbook can't even do it!) Let alone how to change the morally and logically bankrupt system that says standardized tests somehow indicate the worth and quality of schools, teachers, and children. All the problems just seem too complex, too convoluted, too entrenched, too intractable, too freaking HUGE.

David told us a story this week about a time when everything got to be too much and Stephen Downes just sort of disappeared for 6 months. He got choked up talking about how it changed things, how he needed that foil, that critique. I haven't struggled with these problems long enough, let alone come up with any ideas or opinions significant enough to be needed or missed, but I was vexed this week. And sad. And already tired.

Last night, I thought of that story, and I listened to this. I still don't have any answers. Nothing is any clearer, brighter, or easier. But "we are not of them that draw back," are we?

Nope.