IN THE BUBBLE JOHN THACKARA - witz cultural

152 Chapter 7
are seemingly unconnected. Our life stories are dominated by the encounters
we have had with particular individuals, and by our constant search for
new encounters. Oxford normally describes itself as having 16,000 students
and 2,000 staff, devoted to acquiring knowledge. But that is to forget its
130,000 graduates all over the world, busy acquiring experience, which is
far more valuable than the donations they are constantly being asked
for.’’ 48
Old people often have time to be mentors, and they usually know a
lot. Søren Kierkegaard famously complained that his life would have made
more sense had he known, as a young man, what he only discovered when
he was old. In my own experience, young people crave feedback from any
quarter possible; feedback from older people is appreciated not necessarily
because it is better, but because it is better than none at all. After all, young
people can be mentors, too. Families and communities are also important
and influential places of learning. Many of us learn the basics about health,
well-being, and key social skills at our mother’s knee—or on the street.
The blockage is that learners and mentors do not easily or naturally meet
each other. Teachers are surrounded by people, but they are often, distressingly,
socially isolated. Classroom-bound, pressurized by timetables and the
sheer numbers of students, they have limited access to the outside world.
In the United States, only an estimated 12 percent of teachers have telephones
in their classrooms provided by the school. 49 Our learning institutions
tend to keep people out—or students in—when they should do the
opposite.
At Oxford University, Zeldin is developing the idea for a Muse Hotel that
would not content itself with providing beds in which tourists can recover
from the exhaustion of staring silently at the historical monuments. Instead,
those who stayed at the hotel would be able to sample what is most
valuable in the university, notably the mind-stretching private tutorial. The
logistics of connecting learners and mentors does not need to be complicated:
Institutions simply need to create space and time and a business
model for these connections, and the students will do the rest.
Design Factor 7: Mass Collaborative Learning
Mentors and intimate conversation are clearly important. But the complex
challenges facing us will not be confronted unless we find ways to enable