Dear Andy and everybody-
Interesting discussion. You wrote, "The barrow which I am pushing is the
thesis that until both participants are committed, for their own reasons, to
a common project, then there will be no learning. And further in fact, until
the joint project is meaningful for the lives of both participants, then
learning will be transitory and meaningless."
After Jean Lave, I think that learning ALWAYS occurs and is ALWAYS
meaningful. The question is what is learning about and what its meaning is -
are their desirable? For example, in the Case 1, the boy learned how to
resist effectively to adult's imposition and oppression, how to be brave,
how to entertain his comrades, how to avoid being caught, how to be
disrespectful to the adult, and so on. We may ask ourselves as educators and
as citizens, "Does this boy need this learning?" or whether this learning is
collaborative (with the adult).
I also think that guidance is ALWAYS a part of any activity. With time I
become more and more convinced that being focused on learning and guidance
as goals may not be useful. It is like happiness - the more you focus on
pursuing happiness the farther you are from it. Eric Fromm wrote something
like that in his "logotherapy" approach. He gave an example with insomnia:
the more a person sets his or her goal on falling asleep, the more he or she
is awake. I think educators are also caught in this trap. The more we focus
on teaching, the less it facilitates learning we desire in our students. It
is not just a rhetorical twist in my view. Desired learning (like falling
asleep) can be facilitated by an educational design (like counting sheep in
case of insomnia) but it can't be designed or aimed at.
What do you think?
Eugene
_____
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 9:53 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: Are kids naturally good with computers?
2) I do not think that in the Case2 teaching was the goal (or primary goal)
of the adult. I think that the goal was to help the child to make his video.
I think teaching and learning were by-products of the working together on
the video project.
3) In Case1, teaching was alienated not only from the child but also from
the adult: it was not the case that the adult honestly wanted to share what
he was excited about...
Well, of course we don't know what these two people were thinking, and our
behaviourist friends would tell us it doesn't matter what they were
thinking, but let's assume they are typical.
Yes.
I don't think that Case 1 adult was not wanting to share his knowledge.
I agree with you but sharing knowledge is not what I meant by sharing what
is exciting and personally valuable.
At the very worst he would want to teach well enough to keep his job, and
more likely his failure to "connect" with the kid was a point of frustration
for him. (Remember, 30 years ago I was a know-nothing young maths teacher in
Brixton, so I have some sympathy with the Case1 teacher).
Good point.
Also, I doubt that Case 2 adult was simply drawn in by the enthusiasm of the
kid and forgot about his own role.
It is not necessary forgot about "his own role" but the question is what was
his role.
Let us assume that both adults intended to teach.
Why to assume that?
If this was not true in the cases observed, there will have been millions
of cases where this was true and both kinds of outcomes ensued.
My point is to make contextual analysis. It is impossible to analyze "in
general" for me. Sorry.
Let us assume that in both cases the kid either was not interested in
learning the application or was only committed "formally", e.g., to please
his parents, to pass the exam, to please the adult, or whatever.
The barrow which I am pushing is the thesis that until both participants are
committed, for their own reasons, to a common project, then there will be no
learning. And further in fact, until the joint project is meaningful for the
lives of both participants, then learning will be transitory and
meaningless.
In Case 1, the adult simply took it for granted that the kid wanted to learn
and understood what it was he was wanting to learn and could not see the
signals being given that this was not the case and did not know how to
proceed otherwise, how to reframe his project. He could not recognise the
independent identity of the kid as a needy person with their own will, who
was not committed to learning the application, and could not be cajoled into
it.
In Case 2, the adult was either a better teacher, who knew that the kid had
his own agenda which did not have a place for learning the given
application, or had enough sympathy and rapport with this kid to just know
in his bones that as things stood the kid had no reason to commit to
learning the application, and found it easy to put himself in the kid's
shoes and recognise what the kid was interested in doing and recognising
that his own aims could be reframed in such a way that he could do what
really enthused him (expanding the horizons of a youngster) while
collaborating with the kid in a "cool" project.
I think it is a kind of rhetorical twist to describe learning as a
"by-product", despite the deep truth which lies within this observation. For
the adult, learning was the aim. The video production was a project which
would provide learning as a by-product, but by-product only in the child's
consciousness. The important thing was that the video production project
produced outcomes to which both were committed.
What do you think?
Andy
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