#        Meditation on Education

**Published by:** [Jennifer Yellow-Hat](https://paragraph.com/@yellow-hat/)
**Published on:** 2024-02-26
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@yellow-hat/meditation-on-education

## Content

First delivered at the Nottingham School of Art & Design, Scholarship of Teaching & Learning Conference 2023. This meditation invites listeners and readers to de-center their perception of education and the knowledge economy and imagine a future where Web3 transforms experience. Scroll down to listen, or keep reading. Relax into yourself Into your chair Into your centralised world Feel its rigidity against your back Hover above your eye line Look down at your body - Zoom out Observe your surroundings Are you excited by the world? The moment you inhabit? Observe yourself Do you feel free? - Worker bee happy in the hive Listening to ideas Trying to thrive In the knowledge economy In whose patriarchal shadow We play in the cold Like good like minnows - In the institutions That we’re bound to and serve Are we fair, are we open Do we have stuff to learn? - What is our record of fairness and parity? Where are we stuck What’s the colour of our hegemony Do we like the taste Of what we’ve baked into our culture? - The stories we tell Truths and observations Are the stories of few The ones invited - The science of men Who conveniently overlook The bodies of women Who have to put up With funding and money Being syphoned, withdrawn To the causes of man Their bodies at the fore The knowledge economy So much for objectivity - The knowledge we grow Fertilised by governments Owners, companies Shareholders With heavy profits Set up, with mercurial might A system that stole In the dead of the night Our intellectual labour Commodified and gifted Which is sold, and is owned By those centralised grifters And closed behind a wall By their appointed gatekeepers Determined to keep The work from creator The future is coming Maybe you heard Of digital landscapes Digital verbs - One mans imaginings That one day came true Science fiction The futures not new - Utopias broken Dystopias here The metaverse beckons Grab a digital beer To 21st century colonialisation Not land grab but brand grab Semiotic appropriation - The rhizome is growing No reason or rhyme It duplicates, recreates, Sign after sign - They’re telling us listen To engage and observe The stories around us The way we converse - Universities aren’t separate They’re not over there They’re connected, by tendrils To the verse you hold dear - The digital lands We’ll inhabit so soon Contested, imagined Not proven, still new - Mirror consciousness Reflect values and mood Sustain intellectually Enrich like good food - What do we stand for Educated educators University, poised Ill prepared for what lies ahead A digital entity Ready for the Education-verse? Set to build A future we’re proud of Not one off the shelf Sold by centralised actors - Can my verse Be your verse Just don’t say the metaverse Education-verse? - Function Communication Dialogue Open to all Open metaverse Built by us all Must be active participants In our digital futures - But what of the centralised Hegemonic norm What of the future If it won’t change its form - As lands emerge Glistening shiny and new Digital landscapes To invite and entice you - As decentralised communities Contract and connect And the world co-operates We need to ask what next - Do we build in our bubble A centralised head quarter A digital land Lambs to the slaughter - Or do we imagine As decentralised pilgrims A different narrative A story beginning Where the digital lands Can be rich Can be moving Can be open Inter-operable A utopia to be proven Round the corner Hidden From sight and vision Is a knowledge that’s shared A knowledge that’s given - In ways that whisper Shudder Ask to be heard Ideas that question And challenge And form into words - From pockets of earth eons away From voices Rejecting axis They’ve been spinning for time The knowledge economy Draws a new line Away from the north Neoliberal woes Look to corners unknown - Where stories are woven Knowledge travels on the breeze From the global south To mouth to mouth to mouth - Our knowledge is passed In the most vital way To students Who turn up to our classes each day - Screw the formal And the centralised Screw the knowledge economy Let’s celebrate the personal The human A cultural society - Our stories are told through the classes we teach But what if those classes extend beyond reach If our classroom was open Inviting An invitation To be forked To be mimicked A catalyst for creation - If round the world People like you and like me Employed by the centralised knowledge economy Said I choose something different I choose collaboration I choose sharing And dialogue And open communication - What could education be If we flew out our hive If we shared our knowledge As a mechanism to survive - Classes borrowed Lessons shared We could be valued and cited Invited to take part In conversations about science In conversations about art - Could hold tokens Representing value Accrued by participation In knowledge acquisition Participation in culture - Our students would learn From the network effect Curated education Openness Respect - Breath Deep breath Feel your feet against floor Be present in the room Feel light Imagine the possibilities It we just let go And said okay Lets try being open

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