Virtual Schools and the “Dichotomy” Problem

NYC’s iZone and Huff’s Oversimplification

As NYC creates its virtual school, there have been many articles that have begun cropping up about online learning versus offline learning.  Huffington Post’s Scott Olster wrote about it most recently:

New York City’s Department of Education launched the NYC Innovation Zone in April, a $10 million initiative in which 81 schools plan to test a variety of education methods, from expanding the hours of the school day, to using virtual education for advanced placement and credit recovery courses. Approximately $1.5 million of the $10 million budget is slated to be devoted exclusively to purchasing virtual credit recovery programs, according to school spokesperson Matthew Mittenthal.

The Innovation Zone is the city’s first major investment in virtual education. Until now, the city has lagged behind a national expansion of virtual schools and online learning programs.

Other cities have dabbled in virtual learning and the city seems to have learned from their lessons by diversifying their approaches to what virtual schooling could look like.  Olster’s article makes it seem like the city is focusing on AP and credit recovery, though.  He leaves out of his post the city’s pilot with blended schools, for instance, where up to one third of the teaching and learning will take place online while operating withing current brick-and-mortar parameters of the school day.  Oddly, Olster focuses much of his attention on schools that are not actually part of the iZone.  For a clearer representation of the work, see Gotham Schools or the DOE’s iZone site.  The piece also falls into the pitfall of presenting virtual schooling as an offline/online dichotomy.

The Dichotomy Problem

“Dichotomy” is a useful word here.  Business consultant Stephen J Gill uses the word when he writes about those who argue that online learning is more economically efficient and therefore necessarily better than face-to-face instruction.  In his words:

The problem with this argument is that it implies that all Web-based training and conferences are superior to all in-person events. The important question is not, “Is online better (or cheaper) than in-person?” The important question is, “What types of learning interventions for what results and under what circumstances are more effective?”This could include Web-based only, in-person only, blended or a multitude of variations within and among each of these broad categories.

For him, to think of it as online versus offline presents a “false dichotomy” and limits innovation.

What “Dichotomy” Teaches Us about Dichotomies

I’d like to tap into my love of words and literary theory here to offer another take on dichotomies.  In fact, the history of the word “dichotomy” brings much to the current discussion.  Most familiar is the definition of dichotomy that denotes the splitting of a whole into two parts.  Its etymological ancestor, diakoptos, breaks down into “dia” being Greek for two or across and “koptos” meaning to cut:  To cut in two or through.

Another definition of dichotomy, also stemming from the ancient Greek, is to break through.  In this sense, dichotomy means something very different from the creative splitting of a whole.  Here, quite different than above, dichotomy means to rupture a surface.  While not denotatively a negative action, it does connote destruction with little sign of affirmative generation.  This destructive meaning is furthered by others, including “to receive a deep cut” and “to cut off”.  In these definitions, dichotomy is very dark indeed.  And bloody too.

And yet in another definition, this one less bloody, dichotomy extends more metaphorically into social acts like conversation.  Rather than the fleshy slicing and lacerating above, Aristotle in his Rhetoric uses the word in reference to poor conversants who interrupt and cut short conversation.

Finally, the word has also been used to refer to the counterfeiting of Greek coins.  The creation of something that has the likeness of the original.  In this case, it merits unpacking what both the original and the duplicate represent.  The original coin serves as a common currency, a promise of an individual to both another person and a society that a debt would be honored.  The duplicate, however, endangers both the individual relationship between debtor and debtee, but also it is a selfish act that threatens the economic well-being of the whole.  Though at first this meaning of dichotomy seems a far cry from the others, it is, perhaps, a combination of these others.  It is both the creation of two from one and it is the a destructive disruption to all.

Advice for Mr. Olster of Huffington Post

Despite its etymological ambivalence, the use of dichotomies continues all around us today.  Even if it’s not explicitly used–or, especially when it’s not explicitly used–it is an effective rhetorical device to make a compelling point.  For example, pitting online learning against offline learning.  Or, as Scott Olster does (perhaps unintentionally), suggesting that virtual learning is gaining traction solely in opposition to the brick-and-mortar realities of schooling.  (For a rounder sense of what is possible in blended learning environments, t check out this op-ed by two iZone principals. Or, read postings by someone who works with teachers to use technology innovatively in their work.)  I would argue, along with Aristotle, that what Olster achieves when using a quiet and untroubled dichotomy is an interruption, an aborted dialogue, a rhetorical shout or barbaric yawp that in turn issues a deep intellectual cut to others.

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