Utopia: An imaginative,critical and playful dialogue on the meaning and practice of contemporary education

Abstract

In this article the authors re-examine Sir Thomas More’s classic book Utopia as a potential source of ideas and concepts for examining, understanding and imagining contemporary education. Too often the concept utopia is used to criticize an idea, perspective or image as offering a simplistic solution to a complex problem, or, at its worst, as a model that all must be forced to accept. In our rereading of Utopia we suggest that the book and the concept can be best understood as an imaginative, critical and playful dialogue. When applied to the field of education utopia offers the potential for reimagining how we engage with and conceptualize educational theory and practice.

The year 2016 will mark the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia. This landmark is an opportunity to carefully consider the role of utopia as a concept that informs various aspects of educational thought and practice. Utopia is one of the most recognizable books in the pantheon of English literature and was the opening for an entire mode of thinking. However, history has not been kind to this idea and over the centuries utopia and utopianism has gained the status of epithet. To be called utopian or engaging in utopianism is to be considered naive at best or diabolical at worst (Nozick, 1974). The worst dictators of our age were said to have utopian visions of a paradise that society was to be forced to work towards. Hitler’s Third Reich was to be an Arian utopia of racial purity, and Pol Pot was intent on murdering his way to an agrarian Utopia. Despots typically seem motivated by their own narcissistic image of a future society to which all must be forced. Utopia has become associated with a form of externally imposed social engineering where everyone must conform to an individual’s singular vision of what the world can and should be.

It is not clear how or why Thomas More’s original work could have been transformed into such a troubling mode of thinking and imagining. A thoughtful reading and analysis of the book and related scholarship would quickly discourage the reader from thinking of utopia and utopianism in such a problematic manner. In this article we will engage in such a reading of Utopia in an effort to resuscitate it as a form of thinking and imagining that is valuable to educational philosophy, theory and research. A full examination of More’s work reveals a number of ideas, images and metaphors that can be organized into a mode of thinking that is valuable to the field of education.

Utopia was originally published in 1516 under the editorship of the revered humanist Erasmus. At the time of writing and publishing Utopia, More was the under sheriff of London; however, in 1535 he was beheaded for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. In 1935 he was canonized by Pope Pius XI and earned the title Saint Thomas More. Like his good friend Erasmus, More was a leading humanist of the time and argued for the virtues of a simple life of kindness and good deeds. Utopia represents his attempt to critique the social problems of his time and propose possible solutions that were based in a humanist philosophy (Skinner, 1987).

Our reading of Utopia takes into consideration More’s personal philosophy, ethical commitments and the intellectual climate of his time. Utopia was not written as a description or a plan but as a dialogue. More was consciously mimicking the writing style of dialogue as found in the writings of the ancient Greek scholar Plato. In the early 16th-century the Greek intellectual tradition, particularly that of Aristotle, dominated and scholarship was more literary, philosophical and poetic. It was not until later in that century that the very idea of modern science emerged when Copernicus challenged the reigning earth-centric model of the universe with his heliocentric model, and scholarship became more factual and prosaic (Foucault, 1970). When More’s original intent and purpose for his book are considered along with the time period, the intellectual climate and the style in which it is written, the concept of utopia acquires a very different significance especially for the current state of educational technology and digital media.

While our intention in this article is to rethink utopia and its application in computer-mediated education, the prevailing use of utopian imagery in educational discourse relies on the more colloquial and troubling use of this concept. David Tyack and Larry Cuban (1997) drew upon a common understanding of utopia to examine the history of school reform in Tinkering toward Utopia: A century of public school reform. They suggest that utopian thinking, defined as either “pie-in-the-sky” or “visionary”, was central to the discourse of school reform. Moreover, early protestant reformers were inspired by utopian visions to reform schooling in an effort to make the US into “God’s country”. Whether visionary or impossible, Utopia as the target for some desired future has often framed how reformers thought about the purpose and goals of schooling.

If we turn more specifically to contemporary ideals concerning the role of computer technology in education, a similar mode of thinking is evident. There has always been something of a utopian impulse when it comes to the use of computer technology in education. Ivan Illich (1970) proposed a new form of education in which a renewed educational institution could be formed around a series of computers that are linked and communicated with each other. The purpose was to deschool society and reconstitute education as the quest for freedom and liberty. While the internet was still some distance off, his imaginative proposal for the use of computers in education is clearly utopian. As the use of computer technology in schools has skyrocketed since Illich’s time, so have their uses changed. Ushering in the latest “innovation” in educational computing, Apple Computers has touted the iPad as “transforming the way we teach and learn”. The company has created a virtual universe of dynamic imagery to spread its utopian vision (Apple Corporation, n.d.).

The utopian image of computer technology in education extends to teaching and learning that occurs on the internet. The rise of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) as a form of e-learning has Time Magazine (2013) touting it as “the ivy league for the masses” (Meacham, 2013), and which Mike Rose (2014) dubs a utopian vision for education. MOOCs are a variation of ubiquitous or “anytime, anywhere” learning that hail a coming transformation for the scope, purpose and geography of education that will “blur the traditional institutional, spatial and temporal boundaries of education” (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009, p. 9). These are grand visions that promise a transformational and visionary potential for education.

These historical and contemporary uses of utopia in educational scholarship use a colloquial form of the concept that suggests a preconstructed image that is deemed worth working towards. This conception of utopia in education primarily serves the interests of the powerful who have the resources to make their ideas and visions the ones that are the most valued or accepted as natural and unquestioned (cf. Apple, 1979). Michael Peters (2010) warns that e-learning, far from fulfilling its utopian promise, exists within the context of contemporary digital capitalism that generates a corporate and consumer mentality. Our understanding of utopia in education is much more critical, humanistic and playful and favors dialogue and openness over the oppressive normative conditions of a corporate imagination.

Utopia as dialogue

An analysis of Thomas More’s classic work must begin with the style in which it is written, as this is the foundation through which all other aspects of the text emerge. It should be noted that Utopia was not written in the style of an exegesis or a treatise and should not be considered an authoritative explanation or description of a place. Utopia was written as a dialogue between More and the fictional character of Raphael Hythloday. We come to know of Utopia only through this character, and how he describes to More his travels to the land of Utopia.

A dialogue is a style of writing in which the main ideas are shared among the participants in the conversation. Dialogue is Greek for through (dia) reason (logos). It is important to note that dialogue always refers to a conversation between two or more people; thus, the notion of “through” is a reference to the process of creating a shared understanding among the participants. In a book such as Utopia, the reader of the text is invited as a third participant into the dialogue by working through their own reasoning and drawing their own conclusions in the context of the dialogue they are reading.

In a dialogue the author refrains from stating or proposing facts or truths. All ideas are provisional and open for challenge, or even ridicule, by other characters in the dialogue. While these challenges may be a superficial confrontation intended to make the author’s intentions seem even stronger, they remain a potential threat to the ultimate authority of one character or one idea. Consequently, the ideas presented in a dialogue are unstable, constantly shifting in the process of formation and reformation. Clarence Miller, who wrote the forward for this edition of Utopia, states that the book was written as “a dialogue with an indeterminate close” (p.44). Ideas and information are transformed through a special kind of dialogue, a conversation in which “facts appear only to be resolved once more into the possibilities from which they are made; certainties are shown to be combustible” (Oakeshott, 1959: 198).

A second kind of dialogue befitting utopia is teleopoiesis. The term was coined by Jacque Derrida to reference a conversation that has an effect on that which is at a spatial or temporal distance (Spivak, 2001). Utopia is teleopoetic as it constitutes a dialogue with a place that does not exist and could only exist at some possible moment in the future or in another topography. Utopia is as much a conversation with people who live in England and Europe in the early part of the 16th century, as it is a conversation with people around the world in the early 21st century. We treat utopia as a concept situated in More’s particular time and place while at the same time transcending it to offer possibilities for contemporary society. Utopia is a set of images that were intentionally inserted into a risky dialogue with the future; one without guarantees. The intent was to have some possible effect on the space that was not yet but will inevitably become. As an interaction with a space and time not yet, it is unclear what direction the images, words or deeds from the present will take in some undefined future. It is the sharing of ideas across space and time, and it is the possibility that those ideas will have a positive impact on the state of the planet that drives the purpose of dialogue. They become fragments offered as gifts to a conversation (Graeber, 2004).

In the book Utopia, dialogue is the generative milieu through which the reader comes to understand and develop a vision of the place called Utopia. As such, the foundation of utopia is the sharing of gifts that are indeterminate, risky and combustible. When applied to online education or digital media, dialogue will serve a similar function as the fertile seedbed through which education comes to be. How we are thinking of dialogue shares some elements with Foucault’s discourse. For Foucault, discourse is the set of linguistic technologies through which social objects are shaped and emerge into being (Foucault, 1972). A discourse is a technology of power with authoritarian consequences that foreclose the object and deny engagement. If we can imagine for a moment that a discourse can be replaced with the linguistic technology of dialogue the object of attention, in this case computer-mediated teaching, learning and digital media, acquires shared, uncertain and precarious aspects. From within and through dialogue education has the potential to be shaped, molded and to emerge as a shared, creative and generative activity.

Utopia as critique

What was Thomas More’s purpose in writing Utopia? A commonly accepted interpretation is that More was proposing the contours of a society that he held as desirable and worthy of efforts to move towards. This has become the colloquial use of the term. However, this interpretation does not hold up under an examination of the context in which More produced his book. It is much more reasonable to assume that More wrote Utopia as a critique of what he saw as the intellectual direction of contemporary European social life and politics.

A robust debate in the early 16th century involved the form of government employed and valued in Europe. Eric Nelson (2001) suggests that Utopia was More’s creative rejection of the Neo-roman civic thought of the day. According to Nelson, Neo Roman ideals define liberty as the absence of domination and characterized by “an imperative to do no harm, and respect private property” (p.892). More set out to completely reject this idea by constructing Utopia on the model of Greek ethical life in which, “The purpose of civic life…is happiness defined as human fulfillment through contemplation” (p.893). According to Nelson, this can be specifically found in the Utopian’s rejection of private property.

The narrator of Utopia, Raphael Hythloday, is clear that the primary virtue of Utopia is the absence of private property. Private property, he argues, reduces human nature to the quest for individual private welfare. The abolishment of private property directs humans to work for the welfare of everyone. Hythloday states, “where there is no private property everyone works seriously for the public good” (p.56). The ultimate purpose of not having private property and focusing on public welfare is to produce a life that is joyful and without anxiety and worry, “For what greater wealth can there be than to be spared any anxiety and to live with a joyful and tranquil mind, with no worries about making a living” (p.196).

Utopia was a critique of More’s contemporary society. Situated in the dialogue through which Utopia is written, his critique is sometimes direct and literal and at others evocative. By imaginatively generating the strange world devoid of private property, More is inviting a comparison to his contemporary society. The critique is fostered as the images of Utopia relayed by Hythloday bring the reader into an intentional conversation, in which the imagined geography of Utopia is placed into contradistinction with the world they currently inhabit.

Critique, as it is employed in Utopia, does not necessarily mean the kind of direct criticism that is based in authoritarian discourses. The form of critique that emerges from Utopia is conducted from within the generation of an alternative vision of schooling. Contemporary examples of such critique include the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire (1972), the democratic education of John Dewey (1916) or Nel Noddings’ (1984) feminist ethic of care. In each of these examples, the overarching focus is the development of an alternative vision and image of what education could be that then serves as the basis for a critique of the system as it currently exists. As with Utopia, the critique can be directly stated from within the alternative vision, or the alternative vision can stand as the critique itself.

The work of Paulo Freire is one of the best examples of how critique can be guided by a utopian vision of education. Sacadura (2014) suggests that a pedagogy based in Freire’s work can only be conducted through a “sense of utopia, dream and imagination” (italics are from the original) (p.503). Critical pedagogy must also be an anticipation of the future that emerges from our dreams of a possible space and time (Shor and Freire, 1987). Much like the conception of Utopia we are arguing for here, Freire requires an imaginative and critical engagement with the work so that it can be transformed.

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire lodges a well-known critique of contemporary education as based on a banking model in which the teacher fills the head of a passive student. The particular critique is made possible by a vision of education in which teachers and students form a trusting and democratic relationship, “His efforts must be imbued with a profound trust in men and their creative power. To achieve this he must be a partner of the students in his relationship with them” (p.62). The critique of a hierarchical and oppressive banking education is conducted from within a clearly articulated vision of an active, creative and equitable form of education.

Utopia as imagination

Probably the most salient and resonant feature of Utopia is its imaginative qualities. The word utopia is derived from the Greek “ou” meaning not and “topia”, meaning place. Thus, the literal meaning of utopia is “no place”. Utopia, as its name implies, does not and is not intended to exist anywhere because it only obtains as a non-existing place. More, it can be reasonably assumed, did not intend for Utopia to somehow somewhere come into existence as a real place where people can live or visit. However, as a form of imagination utopia is intended to have real consequences in the world, maybe not to exist as it is described, but to endure in its consequences in the world.

Utopia, as an imaginative space, engenders a variety of consequences. It circulates in the world as a concrete and specific book and as a set of ideas, which have further spurred ideas of their own. It has spawned a vast network of ideas, utterances, practices and objects. As indicated earlier, Utopia was constructed as a dialogue and a critique of the current state of affairs in the world. Such practices have a transformational effect, maybe very small even unnoticeable at the moment but intended to alter the parameters of contemporary and historical ideas and practices, if only to open space for a new set of ideas and a slightly altered conversational focus.

Imagination as discussed here is much more than images created by the brain or fantasies sequestered in the mind. We define imagination as the energetic and generative intersection of consciousness and the material conditions of life (Hayes et al., 2012). This is a recursive crossroads where consciousness exerts an influence on the material conditions of life and vice versa. As Castoriadis (2007) argues, the imagination is where the social is incessantly created and recreated into novel forms, and where consciousness becomes life experience. This conception of imagination does not allow for the fantasies of a grand image outside or above concrete human action that would serve as a signpost or beacon intended to shape and guide action and consciousness to a desired end point. While More engaged in a kind of fantasy to create an image of the island society called Utopia, this was not his primary goal. The overarching project of the book Utopia, was to illustrate certain ethical and civic principles for the purpose of critiquing contemporary social and political values and practices. Utopia acquires its imaginative force as More’s mental imagery intersects with its concrete effects in the material world as critique, dialogue or the desire for something better.

When directed to the generation or preservation of a just and equitable world, imagination must be guided by certain visible values. Whenever people choose to imagine something otherwise, they are consciously or subconsciously bringing into play values. The values of objectivity and fact that stubbornly cling to educational scholarship are mute when operating on the terrain of the imagined. As a space and time that is not yet, the imagined is always treading upon the subjective realizations of individuals or groups that are intrinsically guided by their own set of values. Values and ethics should be an intentional and guiding component of any utopian imagining.

It is clear that More was guided by a set of values based in humanism that he hoped to see in the world. This allowed him to imagine a world without private property and focused on communal well-being because these were values that he found important and worth circulating. In fact, all of Utopia is a statement of the values that guided More’s life rather than his attempt to create a singular normative image of a society to which we should all attain. Utopian thinking and dialogue must be an expression of carefully considered values and ethics intended to guide us, not to one person’s static representation of their own desires, but for us all to imagine, share and generate a world that is more abundant, just and connected; a world in which we can all thrive and flourish.

For computer-mediated education and digital media, the imagination should not be for the creation of a fantasy image to be followed but for generating an interaction between mental activity and its manifestation in concrete reality. To imagine is to create an effect in the world and vice versa. When high-school students create videos to imagine possibilities of social justice, they are working at the intersection of identity, culture and society to produce effects in the world and in consciousness (Goldman et al., 2008). In a ubiquitous educational environment participants must imagine themselves as transforming traditional educational limitations of space and time (Cope and Kalantzis, 2009). When a utopian imagination is used in education it is not about generating a mental image that will guide implementation, but the recursive intersection of consciousness and the world. There can be no guarantees or certainty in either direction but when guided by values, such as democracy or social justice, there is an anticipation of moving in that direction. The purpose is not to create an image in one’s head of the most desirable form of education or offer a complete model for others to follow, but for the image and its concrete reality to emerge together.

It is important to remember that the imagination, like all other human faculties and capabilities, are socially produced and embedded. When engaging in imaginative activities it is important to be vigilant in understanding the subtle ways in which an imagination is framed by current experience with and understandings of society. Levinson (2001) states that, “the world does not simply precede us, but effectively constitutes us as particular kinds of people” (p.13). We cannot disassociate ourselves from the forces that continue to shape our society. We are immersed in cultures infected with racist, sexist, intolerant, competitive, violent and acquisitive ideologies. Our imaginations do not allow us to escape these, and we must be vigilant in how they frame our thoughts and our actions. While these may not be removed from our imaginations, they can be recognized and addressed through the conscious inclusion of values that run counter to our most troubling ideologies.

Utopia as play

To imagine is always to imagine otherwise through a playful reworking of the material conditions of life experience. Play is a flexible and manipulable space that exists beyond or is something other than our concrete reality. Huizinga (1938) describes play as a “flowering, ornament or garment” that is “added thereto and spread out” through our life experience. It is a second poetic rendering of the world that is parallel or layered onto nature. Play represents a desire for freedom; to not be dominated or determined by natural or social forces. Play is a function of an imagination infused with human desire and the ability to alter the conditions of material life (Sutton-Smith, 1997). In fact, play is the fundamental source of human innovation and progress (Kane, 2004), as it is a focused and intentional activity (mental or physical) that recreates the world for a purpose, and always contains an element of pleasure that is often expressed as humor, joy or solace.

Play can be found throughout Utopia as More employs irony to make key points (Kinney, 1986). Raphael Hythloday is the narrator and sole source of information concerning the nature of Utopia. In Latin Hythloday means “speaker of nonsense”. Here, More is playing with the reader’s expectations for a reliable narrator. The humor comes from the contradiction of the meaning of Hythloday and the various characters in Utopia who vouch for his integrity. Peter Giles is a close friend of More’s and he appears in the book to introduce Hythloday to More as knowledgeable and reliable about the things he speaks, “there is no mortal alive today who can give more information about unknown peoples and lands” (p.59) Firstly, there is humor in naming the main character and narrator of a story “speaker of nonsense” but then presenting him as reliable and knowledgeable. This gives the narrator a trickster role in the story and readers might be advised to be cautious in trusting a main character telling a nonsense story about a no place, whether others may vouch for them as reliable or not. But then, what kind of nonsense would this story be? As the reader we are warned against believing what Hythloday is telling us because the very idea of Utopia just makes no sense. We can conclude that More is dislodging his readers from their zone of comfort, never giving them a firm footing with which to engage his dialogue. Another interpretation would hold that Utopia, since it is based in the Greek civic tradition, would seem like nonsense to those who accept the Neo-Roman civic tradition. It is then a jab at those holding the Neo-Roman civic tradition, accusing them of not being able to understand the image of Utopia as they are so blinded by their own ways of viewing the world.

Play also acquires a central position in the imaginative quality of the dialogue as the possibility of imagination emerges only through play. Utopia is an imagined world invented by More. As consciousness and the material world intersect, More participates in a playful reinvention of contemporary (16th century) European society. The nature of the dialogue, the main character and the title Utopia, insert a playfulness and irony into the whole of the narrative. The entire book is a form of play that invites the reader into an open dialogue that is infused with humor.

Education, from the classroom to the internet, is serious and it is business. People’s futures are at stake and so are billions of dollars of corporate and/or taxpayers’ money. The very idea of being playful in education seems almost immoral. Yet, play, as Huizinga (1938) suggests, is at the root of human cultural experience and creativity. Culture emerges as people move beyond the mere need for survival to creating the world around them. While the idea of play is often supported for the education of young children, it is lost to everyone else. In utopianism play is an essential part of the teaching and learning environment as it opens possibilities for the socio-cultural generation of knowledge through inquiry and dialogue. Participation in a community of learners (whether formal or informal) established on the internet allows identity and belonging to be the subject of a performative and playful reconstruction (Thomas, 2007).

Utopia as design

What purpose is utopia to serve for the educator interested in e-learning and digital media? Should utopia be considered a theory: a system of ideas that is applied to examine and interpret some aspect of the world of experience? Or should it be considered a philosophy: a series of concepts employed for interpretation? We do not believe that utopia is adequate for the purpose of either theory or philosophy and offer it, rather, as a design principle.

We employ design in place of the commonly used scholarly device of theory. The way we distinguish between theory and design is best summed up by Richard Rorty’s (1999) distinction of the philosophical problematic between the discovered or invented. Do scientists and philosophers discover their objects, phenomena and problems or do they invent them? Theory is typically used in scholarly work as a lens through which some aspect of the social world is viewed, analyzed and interpreted. Theory clarifies or brings into focus that which is found or discovered. Design assumes that the images, objects and problems are generated, created or invented. While there are potentially significant arguments about objectivity, subjectivity and reality that can be inserted here, we think it is wise to skirt this argument for the time being and suggest that philosophers and scientists probably do both things, and we are merely highlighting one of them for the purpose of this argument.

Design emerges from generative and imaginative thought and action. Too often it is conceptualized as a series of steps one might take in creating a product, like a car or an iPad: a glistening finished product where the design outcome is visible and obvious. However, design does not begin, proceed or end with such a prominent target in mind and is forever incomplete. While design is intended to produce an outcome or a solution to a problem, the process does not begin with the assumption of a single answer. According to Terzidis (2007) design integrates the phases of a creative process into an intentional and emergent whole. The beginning, outcome and development are indeterminate and ambiguous for which there can only be anticipation and not certainty.

In writing Utopia, More probably approached the project as would any writer, with the indeterminate outlines of what he intended to produce. Utopia began with the kernel of an idea from which he could develop his dialogue. Yet, as any writer knows, the final product emerges over time in an incessantly iterative process of persistent writing, editing, rewriting, and re-editing. It is the process of sculpting the image into existence. More designed Utopia through the imaginative process of writing and within his chosen writing style of dialogue. The end point of a creative activity such as writing is a surrendering to the vague and unsure demands, expectations and anticipations of the design process.

A design process is guided by principles and values that become integrated into imagination, action and organization so that intellectual and physical activity emerge coincident with their products in the world. Design does not separate conceptualization from production, or imagination from action; these are wholly incorporated into the entire process. Design places generativity and creativity on an equal footing with the analytical and critical.

Design is an attempt to harness the elusive, like nailing jello to the wall. In design the problem and the solution are in a constant state of emergence, always influencing each other in a recursive cascade of conceptual movement and change. It is forward looking in its anticipation and expectation where the focus is on the not yet and the what is going to be. In design there is a distinct concern with the outcome or the product but this does not override the process and serves more as a metaphor that collapses the imagination and conceptualization into the outcome or product. Design is the process by which things come to be in a purposeful and intentional manner, but without assurances.

More did not discover Utopia but designed it. Slowly, through the imaginative process of writing, More’s consciousness merged with the reality of Utopia on the page, and eventually as a concept that enjoys a life of its own almost 500 years later. As a field, education is rife with individuals and groups who design their educational “alternatives” because they believe it is a better option than what preceded it. The Sudbury model, Waldorf schools, Charter schools, Madrassa (Islamic schools), Christian schools and the democratic school movement are but a few examples of the many possibilities. Schools, maybe more than any other institution, are the subject of design possibilities that are intended to reflect the values, hopes and desires of those engaged in the design process. The employment of design within the field of education suggests the possibility of imagining and creating alternatives to the contemporary educational landscape without proposing them as ideals to which everyone might strive, but as gifts to be entered into a conversation, or as openings that invite participation and creation.

Utopia and its possibilities in educational scholarship

We have pointed out and detailed the various aspects of utopia, yet we have only danced around our original question: What is utopia? We will offer a provisional response here: it is an imaginative, playful and critical dialogue with the intention of encouraging a conversation about the world we would desire to inhabit. It may be the world in general or it can be a specific aspect of a particular world. For our purposes and for the field of education we suggest it is an imaginative, playful and critical dialogue about the meaning and practice of education that is for the purpose of impacting the contemporary reality and future possibilities for education. How can this idea of utopia be employed in educational scholarship?

In what follows we will explore various ways in which utopia as a concept and as a form of thinking can be applied to scholarly interpretations of e-learning and digital media. We focus on two particular examples, Hollywood film imagery of schooling and video games. We choose these because they embody the imaginative and imagistic aspects that are central to our understanding of utopia.

Media and the elusive imagination of education

Maybe the most obvious aspect of utopia is the creation of an imagery that offers possibilities for education in another time and place. The construction of such imagery arrives from an application of the imagination to the making of a concrete representation or example in the world. The image and its expression in the material world of experience is designed through an iterative process in which the contours of the image and its relationship to a concrete example emerge over time. It is an act of creation with an intent and purpose but without an assured end point.

As Henry Giroux (2013) suggests, our society lacks a robust imagination about what education can and should be about. Too often what is considered valuable education has been hijacked by imagery that only supports a narrow version of consumer capitalism. Instead, the imagination of education and schooling should be guided by the values and ethics we would like to see reproduced in the world. Just as researchers working in the tradition of Critical Ethnography are guided by the values of social justice and equity because that is what they are working towards (cf. Madison, 2011), imagining and designing educational possibilities should be guided by the values and ethics the image is attempting to foment. These might be values of justice and equity, or possibly diversity, liberty and autonomy. It is not the purpose of this article to generate a list of possible values, only to argue that values must be a central aspect of designing such imagery.

We focus our attention on the images of schooling represented in Hollywood-style films about school. These are an important source of imagery that guides a public imagination of what schooling can and should be about (Bulman, 2005). There is, in fact, an entire genre of popular filmmaking that focuses on schooling. Fictional films such as Blackboard Jungle, To Sir with Love, The Class and Stand and Deliver are but a few that proffer images of a dystopian school system punctuated by a heroic teacher who can save the lives of some unfortunate children (Dalton, 2010; Farhi, 1999). The documentary genre also offers images of a deeply troubled school system in Waiting for Superman, Road to Nowhere and The Lottery. Then there are the television programs that have used school as the dramatic or comedic context for storytelling and include Room 222, Saved by the Bell and Boston Public. None of these images of schools is an attempt to rethink the nature of schooling or imagine alternative or transformational imagery, but treats schooling as the troubling context for tension and drama. Missing are any images of school that highlight a more progressive, transformational or democratic vision.

While such imagery is in short order there is at least one, albeit imperfect example, that can be found in the film Schooled (2007). The film is a character study of Fred Hill, a disaffected and angry high-school teacher who is struggling with his identity and role as a teacher in a public school. His struggles as a teacher are also paralleled in his personal life and his marriage. After being asked by his principal to take a leave from his teaching job, he temporarily separates from his wife and embarks on a cross-country trip to reconnect with an old friend. His friend’s husband, Hector, teaches at The Kids’ School, an alternative school that his wife describes as “focusing on the basics of life…Self determination, communication and compassion”. Fred expects chaos at the school but finds intelligent, focused students who are self-directed and able to make up their own minds. Through experiences at the school he learns that teaching is a process of living democracy.

The school is fictional and the filmmakers have freedom to design a possible image of what school could be about if it were guided by values of autonomy, self-determination and democracy. It is a critique of what school has become within a conversation about what education could be. Another set of images comes from Voices from the New American Schoolhouse (2005), a documentary on the Sudbury school in Fairhaven, Connecticut. The Sudbury model allows students to make all of the pertinent educational decisions related to their own learning and the running of the school. Students choose whether they attend classes or if there are classes at all, they are involved in the hiring and firing of teachers, and determining disciplinary actions. Like Schooled, this film presents fragments of what education could possibly be as a form of lived democratic practice.

Both films enter progressive and democratic images into the ongoing dialogue about what education is and could be for. Unfortunately, these are in short supply and have been outnumbered by withered ideological assumptions about the nature and purposes of education presented in Hollywood films. As an imaginative and creative endeavor, media has the potential to provide an almost infinite pool of resources to support numerous conversations about the goals, intent and purposes of education that can challenge narrowed and oppressive assumptions about what education is for and how it can be conducted.

Utopia, gaming and e-learning

The imaginative and playful elements of utopia also intersect with the design of virtual environments. Here we discuss the utopian aspects of videogames. We have chosen videogames over other possibilities because there is a clear and potentially fruitful connection with the imagistic aspects of video games and our conceptions of utopia. Well-designed games can include utopian affordances that improve engagement and learning across a range of ability levels (Marino et al., 2013, 2014). We will discuss aspects of video games and simulations that have been identified as a means to improve student engagement in collaborative discourse, dialogue and literacy (National Research Council, 2011). While a full discussion of video games is beyond the scope of this article, our intent is to illustrate how these games, especially when offered across mobile devices, may enhance our collective sharing and imagining of a utopian dialogue.

One example is the video game River City, which is one of the most thoroughly researched educational games in the past decade. River City is a game-enhanced science curriculum that has been used by more than 8000 students (Ketelhut, 2007). During gameplay, students are immersed in a virtual 19th-century industrial city. They become virtual citizens as they are challenged to assist the mayor with determining why an illness is spreading through the city, which was built around a river that flows from the mountains past a waste disposal site and into a bog. Students interact with virtual residents of the city, insects and other digital objects, which provide evidence that supports their scientific inquiry process. This intersection between video games and other more traditional curricular materials improves the accessibility of the science content and makes learning more relevant to students’ lives (Marino and Hayes, 2012).

Several other video game studies have examined students’ participation in a shared dialogue. For example, Kafai et al. (2010), in studies of the video game Whyville, reported that gameplay encouraged students’ participation in scientific arguments and led to the use of higher-level vocabulary than students would use in everyday conversations. Other research supports the notion that video games (e.g., Squire, 2010), augmented reality games (Klopfer, 2008) and massively multiplayer online games (Steinkuehler and Duncan, 2008) support scientific discourse, reasoning and inquiry. These games align with utopian design by allowing participants to co-construct knowledge that leads to the possibility of an improved society.

Video games are not just static entities but can also allow players to design and personalize the game experience by developing a unique in-game identity (Wilson et al., 2009). For example, Rosenbaum et al. (2006), in a study of Outbreak @ The Institute, found that having students take on unique identities (such as a technician, public health expert or doctor) heightened players’ engagement in the learning process. Dieterle (2009) presented similar findings in a study of River City, noting that the high level of autonomy in video games allows students to customize gameplay so that it addresses, at least in part, their cultural norms. Barab and Dede (2007) came to similar conclusions, noting that inimitable identities allow students to disassociate from derogatory perceptions of their physical appearance and ability levels.

We are not presenting video games as a unique virtual learning environment but, as James Gee (2007) suggests, as a search for “the theory of human learning built into good video games” (p.4). For Gee, video games utilize theories of learning that are very much in line with what cognitive science now understands as effective theories and practices of learning. The importance of videogames is less about what they teach and more about how they provide an environment for learning. Much like our analysis of Utopia, Gee looks at video games for how they offer possibilities for education and learning that challenges the status quo. His style is also ironic and playful as it trades on common perceptions of videogames as a mindless waste of time. This is utopian thinking: providing an alternative image of educational possibility that simultaneously serves as a playful critique of the contemporary state of education.

Utopian scholarship as friendship

Just as we began this article by questioning the very nature, purpose and intent of utopia, we can also take such liberties with the very nature of scholarship. Publishing scholarly work in an international journal is the entering of a discussion about the future. Empirical research, philosophy and theory are focused on having an impact on the future. We come to know what is happening in the field of education now, or in the past, in an effort to affect the future and any impact is always a possibility, never assured. It is important to understand this scholarly endeavor as the opening and nurturing of a dialogue about the broader possibilities of education rather than as a quest for the best methods of instruction. Yet, Utopia suggests the possibility of a more intentional and direct kind of conversation with the future.

By drawing upon utopia to examine educational scholarship, we arrive at the possibility that scholars and practitioners need to directly engage in the imaginative conversation and practice of what education can and should be. Traditional scholarship tends to assume a kind of dialogue but it often sounds like two experts talking past each other rather than the intentional construction of a shared and open understanding of the world. This has been heightened as the university system and the work of scholars has been greatly impacted by the force of neoliberal ideologies (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2000). Scholarly work has been transformed to serve global corporate competitiveness rather than a free and open exchange of idea.

We would suggest a series of interactions that are more carefully constructed as a conversation. Drawing from Oakeshott (1959) we propose conversation as an “unrehearsed intellectual adventure” (p.197). Participants in a conversation do not spout treatises at each other, but share bits and pieces of ideas so that a common understanding emerges over time. These are never complete and foreclosed or carefully constructed; they are cobbled together in an intentional but often unsystematic and ill-defined manner. The purpose is not to explain but engage and challenge the participants, where provocative statements trump well-reasoned and supported arguments, where imaginative and transgressive imagery are valued over the recording of facts.

This would entail a change to how educational scholarship would be disseminated. Ivan Illich offers a possibility in which scholarship is designed as the quest for friendship. Illich sought to engage his ideas within a circle of friends. Friends need not be people we might know, only those willing to face one another and “pursue disciplined and committed learning” within a “mutual commitment to the truth” (Farage, 2013). It is really within a sense of friendship that a true conversation can occur: when trust and mutual respect nurture the emergence of ideas that challenge the status quo.

Conclusion

In this article we have re-examined and applied utopia as a concept with potential for productively considering the purpose and meaning of scholarship and practice in e-learning and digital media. Too often utopia is used as an invective intended to disparage someone’s ideas and imagination as impractical, naive or, at worst, diabolical. By rethinking the intent, purpose and historical context of utopia’s oeuvre, and updating it with more contemporary ideas, we have argued that something useful and provocative can be resuscitated. Utopia offers an imaginative, playful and critical dialogue about the meaning and practice of education.

Utopia is more than a theory or philosophy that can be applied to e-learning and digital media and, instead, offers unique possibilities for how we might engage with the very idea of education. Dialogue, imagination, play and design demand that education be viewed as an emergent becoming and as a source of constant possibility. The general concepts we have generated as part of utopia can be applied to specific problems in education, e-learning and digital media. We have explored some possibilities, such as the utopian affordances of gaming and alternative images of school. Other possibilities might range from the playfully expansive imagining of a range of new possibilities for education, or narrowing to an examination of students’ utopian impulses in their own digital storytelling. Utopia is a 500-year-old opening that advances fresh insight into the everyday struggles of making education relevant for our own time and place with an eye towards anticipating a future.