I think it is one of education's most fundamental contradictions that we do
so much to prepare people for so little. The strait jacket of race, class,
IQ, and gender forever limit our access and our freedom - and on top of that
we are faced with a shrinking base of resources: arable land, water, fuels,
etc.
Personally I agree that we (as a culture) are way to concerned with the lock
step assimilation of programmed knowledge (including arithmetic and
dissertations) but I can see no alternative but to make small personal
efforts at unhooking from the blind machine.
Chris Francovich
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Smagorinsky [mailto:smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 6:51 AM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: beeeeutifully said, Genevieve
>
>
> I think these points would benefit from some interrogation. I'm not sure
> just where I'd draw the line in following Mike's view of stage
> theories. I
> agree that theories such as Mastery Learning, which used a
> staircase as its
> learning metaphor, can lead to some pretty rigid and disenabling
> teaching. On the other hand, most educational systems that I'm familiar
> with assume that learning takes place in some kind of sequence, and that
> some sequences work better than others, and that for at least
> some learning it's hard to do Thing B unless you can do Thing A fairly
> well. If you can't add single-digit numbers, I suspect that it's hard to
> add triple-digit numbers. (if this example is misguided, please pardon me
> for relying on folk wisdom and personal experience)
>
> I'll bet, for instance, that for those of us who work in
> universities, it's
> widely assumed that people should do coursework before writing
> dissertations. Furthermore, they should pass a comprehensive
> exam of some
> sort before writing a dissertation. The inability to pass
> courses or comps
> always disqualifies a student from proceeding to the dissertation
> stage. And I fully support this set of assumptions, assuming that the
> course work and comps are authentic indicators of someone's ability to
> write a dissertation.
>
> So my question is, what's really at stake in this discussion? Are
> we really
> saying that background knowledge doesn't matter? Or that background
> knowledge as embodied in rigid stage theories is misguided?
>
> Peter
> At 08:11 PM 9/27/99 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >Hi All-- I have been following fleetingly, but am swamped with quarter
> >beginning
> >
> >Genevieve wrote:
> >
> > Essentially, the department had carved out
> >a kind of 'instructional space' for developmental
> >students that broke with the rigid 'Step A goes to
> >Semester 1, Step B goes to Semester 2 and if you can't
> >follow you fail' flow of student bodies in the writing
> >curriculum. Basically, this was a form of retention.
> >Then, about 3 or 4 semesters into the experience, the
> >Chancellor's Office told us to shape up and cut out
> >all the parallel courses. We were being very bad boys
> >& girls for keeping qualified students back, and a
> >student who passes a particular level is by definition
> >qualified to tackle the next.
> >
> >
> >For a long time we at LCHC have railed againt all forms of
> >"Level 1 before Level 2" stage theories of literacy and
> >numeracy acquition. They are built for domination and conservatism.
> >They select in a deadly way.
> >
> >My colleagues and I have written about this pernicious form of
> >pedagogy/selction in a number of places. Getting this message
> >straight would be, in my opinion, very helpful. But maybe its
> >crooked by nature?
> >
> >This discussion is getting close to what I consder the heart of the
> >matter: the essential duality of formal education FROM THE BEGINNING:
> >its entwinement with (literally) middle class and its double message"
> >transform AND select. Teachers live at the contradictory heart of that
> >matter.
> >
> >Can we make it beyond chaining?
> >mike
>
>