EbaeConsensusToMove

From LiteracyTentWiki

Should we wait for Consensus in the Field around Goals and Models before Moving Forward?

• Yes, in Juliet Merrifield’s Contested Ground, she argued that we must envision what we want to get out of literacy, and build a consensus. We need this consensus before we can move forward. [Message 52, part One]

• No, “it doesn’t make sense to wait until we have consensus on outcomes and measures before moving forward toward an evidence-based system.” [Message 53, Part One]

• Yes and no.

“Regarding the matter of consensus, like many others, I feel leery of embarking on this process without a consensus of purpose and without good measures of achievement once we agree on what we are trying to achieve. However, when I thought about it a little more, I realized that the whole notion of consensus is pretty problematic. How in the world could consensus be reached? I think that this should not be the goal. Any kind of a system that requires consensus on such a huge and socially constructed notion as the purposes of literacy education is fundamentally flawed. And yet, I wouldn’t want the system to move forward without defining some purposes…..EFF standards are a good stand in for now.” [Message 56, Part One]