PDF VersionSlicing through the onion: |
PDF VersionSlicing through the onion: |
TToday we are accustomed to regard symposia as sober academic affairs. However, in ancient Greece often it appears they were "rambling banquet parties" (Makedon, 1995, sec. 47). In the Hellenic world, men from noble families were periodically invited to symposia (Συμπόσιο), and such events featured extensive discussion, drinking, and convivial carousing. This social institution was later adopted by the Etruscans and Romans. Quite likely, the symposia of antiquity were highly discursive. In other words, instead of listening to extended lectures and then asking a few questions, a more fluid back-and-forth exchange among participants occurred. The dialogs of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon offer some glimpses of how ancient symposia might have been. Kluth (1997, par. 2) and Dwyer (2002, par. 3) suggest the primary goal of such events was fraternity rather than scholarship.
Moving forward to the Renaissance, it seems clear that the discursive features of many academic assemblies became less prevalent. Respected scholars spoke at academic gatherings in Latin, which enjoyed more status than the vernacular. As a set form of discourse within a fixed social hierarchy, the audience was expected to listen patiently as each savant lectured with little or no direct feedback. It is difficult to reconstruct what actually happened at academic gatherings of yore, but literature offers occasional glimpses. For example, Erasmus (1509, tr. 1668) satirized the pedants of his day who would, "boozle young men's heads with certain empty notions and curious trifles" and "bring in some foolish insipid fable . . . and expound it allegorically, tropologically, and anagogically." Such remarks suggest that uninspired academic discourse has a long, venerable tradition.
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Two centuries after Erasmus questioned, "What does all this trumpery drive at?" the 86th Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Seeker, described the tedium of the academic assemblies in which“only the old philosophy of the schools was taught . . . and that neither ably nor diligently” (Ward & Waller, 1907).
The predominant paradigm of most academic conferences – at least in the West – regarded knowledge as a product to be dispensed rather than as an interactive process of constructing (and deconstructing) experience (Smith, 1999, 2003). This objectification of information has had profound effects on education. For one thing, it has encouraged scholars to regard listeners as empty containers rather than active participants in the process of meaning construction (Palmer, 1998, quoted in Yero, 2002, p. 101). Generally, mastery of the facts stood paramount. Furthermore, if knowledge is viewed as a product, it becomes tempting to consider ways to ship, package, and sell it efficiently. This is one of the reasons that Aronowitz (2000) cautions against regarding universities as mere "knowledge factories":
If knowledge is subject to market forces . . . [and it] can be bought and sold like any other commodity, what follows is that scientific knowledge has become private property and the research university is sustained by its ability to sell its wares to the highest bidder, in which case it becomes itself a corporate entity. (p. 110)
Hints that the knowledge-as-a-product paradigm is flawed surface periodically throughout history. Thomas Hobbes, for instance, suggests in part that active engagement is essential for deep learning. He underscored the value of problem solving and analysis in tackling new information (Ross, Schneider, & Waldman, 1974, quoted in Kauffman, 2000). Though widely criticized for his empirical focus, Hobbes also stressed that education involves the inculcation of moral values as well as the presentation of data. Admittedly, the educational pronouncements by Hobbes are diverse and at times conflicting, yet in places he foreshadows later psychologists by suggesting, "Men’s wills are to be wrought to our purpose, not by Force, but by Compleasance" (Leviathan, Chap. 31, par. 8).
Comenius echoed similar sentiments. Though his primary focus was with youth, his core ideas pertain to learners of any age and in all types of educational gatherings. His 'Principles for Facilitating Teaching and Study' from the Didactica Magna (1633-1638) offer worthy insights for organizing academic events. Towards the end of his life, Comenius condensed his educational precepts to three basic principles (Bovet, 1943, p. 196 quoted by Piaget, 1993, p. 180). Those points can be rephrased in the context of symposium planning this way:
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Though his vision of "teaching all things to all men" never was realized, the ideas of Comenius have inspired educators for generations. Indeed, many post-modern theories can be traced back to his notions. Such theories are particularly important when attempting to work with today’s young learners, dubbed variously as "Generation Y", "Generation neXt", "Echo Boomers", and "Millennials" (Crown Financial Ministries, 2006; Tinsley, 2008; Wikipedia, 2009). According to Taylor (2005, par. 5-12),most of today's college students born somewhere between 1984 – 2002 tend to exhibit
these learning characteristics:
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Naturally, not all persons between the ages 6 – 25 fit this description, but it does seem many university age students have a number these attributes.
However, Taylor argues there is frequently a mismatch between the preferred learning styles of the bulk of current students and the traditional educational methods found in most academic conferences and classrooms. He also contends that most schools are not evolving fast enough to meet the evolving needs of Internet-savvy youth with short attention spans. Though Taylor's comments are based on experiences with
university students in the USA, many of today's university-age Japanese students seem to share many of the characteristics noted in Taylor's research.
Let us now briefly consider a symposium that was offered on October 25, 2008 by the Toyo University Institute of Human Science. Though some of these remarks are critical,
the event itself was a typical small-scale conferences. The problems identified here seem to occur in many academic events.
According to Weinman (2001), presenters and conference organizers need to understand who event participants are, why they are attending, and what expectations they are carrying into the door. In some countries, it is not uncommon to begin conference discussions by asking the audience such questions (UTSG Study Group, n.d., par. 3). That did not happen at the October symposium considered here, but since I knew 14 of the 16 participants to at least some degree, it was easy to construct a participant profile. That information is summarized in Table 1.[ p. 85 ]
| Type of Participant | Members Present | Likely Reasons for Attending | Probable Expectations |
| Featured speakers | 3 panelists 1 moderator |
invited to speak or moderate |
were told to expect up to 30 students and a few teachers |
| Administrative staff | 2 conf. organizers 1 student aide |
primarily administrative | an organizationally smooth conference with 20-40 present |
| University faculty | 1 part-time teacher 1 full-time teacher |
Institute members personally invited | hard to ascertain . . . possibly future panelists (?) |
| Students | 7 undergrads | mostly to obtain classroom credit | most wanted information for future travel abroad |
Essentially, there were two groups of participants at this event: teachers and undergraduates. These groups had significantly varied reasons for attending and quite likely differing expectations. Six of the student attendees were from my class. They came to this event primarily to receive classroom credit towards their final grades. It is not uncommon for teachers to adopt token economic principles and use grade incentives to reward desired behaviors (Kohn, 1999; Wallin, 2001; Pressley, 2006, par. 8).
This symposium had two phases, spliced by a brief intermission. A chronological overview appears in Table 2.
| Event | Approx. Length | Main Content |
| Opening Remarks | 7-8 minutes | Greetings from the moderator & 2 conference organizers |
| Panelist 1 | 30 minutes | Focus on stereotypes of the Southern USA |
| Panelist 2 | 30 minutes | Deconstructing "foreignness" & stereotype-bashing |
| Panelist 3 | 30 minutes | Classroom approaches to "international English" |
| Q & A Session | 15 minutes | Questions to respective panelists |
| Intermission | 5 minutes | (nearly all students left at this point) |
| Moderated Discussion | 45 minutes | Roundtable sharing of views about teaching English & culture |
The first phrase consisted of a few introductory remarks and three presentations in an expository lecture mode. The second phase was more discursive and participatory. Except for one student volunteer, all participants were teaching foreign languages to undergraduates in Japan. It is noteworthy that all of the student participants (except the volunteer) were out of the doors soon after intermission.
When I reflect on this symposium several months after the event, the most memorable part was the final discussion. Why? Most likely because I was actively involved in that part. According to a constructivist view of knowledge, the process of learning something is at least as important as the information itself (Bartlett, 1932;
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Bragg, Swenson, & Canfield, 2004). Whether it was because the final panel was unscripted or simply because the focus was also more relevant to my teaching needs " or possible a combination of both factors " the final discussion remains the most vivid feature of this conference in my mind. An analysis of six of the student essays following this event suggests that there was a mismatch between expectations and symposium content. I told my students the symposium would offer "useful information" about issues pertaining to studying abroad. Indirectly that statement was correct, but the written feedback suggests that the Generation Y-ers did not feel the symposium content directly pertained to their lives. Taylor (2005, par. 2) stresses how crucial it is for educators to underscore the value of a given field of study when speaking to today's learners by stating:Our current postmodern times require more ownership information and ideas by students, developed through the personal construction of knowledge, and so suggest the need to alter a number of fundamental "traditional" practices. Some changes will require the recognition of the consumer based realities of higher education in the third millennium; if school is not fun and does not have apparent meaning and/or benefit, young people will not participate, or participate in full and authentic ways.(iii) Organizational Analysis
From an organizational point of view, a successful symposium is one in which there is a congruence between the objectives, topics, timeframe, roles, and size (Weinman, 2001). Successful symposia should also be transparent in terms of policy formulation and finances. Unfortunately, few academic conferences " at least in Japan " fulfill all of these criteria.
At most universities in Japan, the planning of academic conferences follows a reverse engineering model: on the basis of previous precedents, future academic events are organized. There is seldom any systematic analysis of the merits and demerits of existing structures " conference planners probably rely on subjective impressions. As cultural memeplexes (Blackmore, 2000; Distin, 2004), it seems that symposia have an almost self-replicating power: unless a given event is widely problematized by key stakeholders (or budget constraints have significantly changed the fiscal climate of the sponsoring institution), future conferences tend to pattern themselves after past events. In terms of structure and format, the 2008 symposium discussed herein differed little from the symposia of 2007 or 2006. Though infometric scientists such as Posner (2001, pp. 317-333) and Hubbard (2007, pp. 85-102) have suggested ways to systematically evaluate the costs/benefits of intangible assets such as symposia, at this point in time their ideas are not widely utilized.
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This paper has argued for a more process-oriented and task-conscious approach to conferences, both in terms of organizational planning as well as actual presentations. Noting that young learners tend to favor different learning modes than those offered at most academic events, concern should be raised about the relatively low levels of participation among undergraduates at symposia. If academic gatherings are to serve as more than platforms for specialists to network, then some fundamental rethinking about how to organize such gatherings is warranted.
I conclude this paper with three concrete suggestions for future academic gatherings:
Returning to the metaphor introduced at the start of this paper, we can see that academic symposia are multi-layered onion-esque affairs. The outer appearance of such events represents merely one superficial layer. Those involved in organizing such events need to deal with many additional layers. Though preparing conferences for a broad audience is often a challenge, if we focus more on process the results might be more tantilizing.
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Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan. Project Gutenberg e-text# 3207. Retrieved January 4, 2009 from http://www.archive.org/details/leviathan03207gut[ p. 90 ]
Posner, R. A. (2001). Cost-benefit analysis: Definition, justification, and comment on conference papers. In M. A. Adler & E. A. Posner (Eds.).Cost-Benefit Analysis: Economic, Philosophical, and Legal Perspectives. 317-333. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
| Chronological Index | Subject Index | Title Index |
