In regard to Eva's comments; one of the strongest criticisms I ever received
from a student was in just that regard; that I gave "too much time" to
students ... there was "work to be done." Perhaps not surprisingly she was
from a different ethnic/class group than the professional upper-middle class
children I normally deal with but somewhat more surprizing was that several
other students decided to agree with her. Even years of teaching high school
will not provide enough experience to anticipate such blows to the ego (but
they are generally salutary none the less). The same girl thanked me another
day after class for not "pushing her to hard ..." as she was, "... feeling
kind of low." Thank goodness for variance.
I find the notion of educational "philosophy" useful in my own teaching and
research in any case, although metaphysics might be closer -- more
expansive than epistemology anyway since it's more than what one knows; it's
somehow the way the world works, what surprises, does not surprise, or is
even recognized as extant. I was surprized by those who joined with my
critic but not by the general tableau: classroom topology can be tricky to
navigate as we all know. I've been surprized also in observing the
movement of the same persons from classroom context to "extracurricular"
context to virtual context (I'm investigating "alternative" science
learning) but see less change in personal conduct from context to context
than I do in meaning-making; e.g., what might be considered a harsh
criticism from the teacher in one situation could be taken as constructive
guidance or even as a joke in another -- and by the very "same" actors to
boot.
What provides the opportunities for fresh action and consolidation seems the
issue. Too much vagueness/ambiguity can lead to heightened apprehension and
competition; too much structure/ambage can suppress the survival rate of
useful mutations -- opportunities can be lost -- but it's not a golden mean,
it's cyclic (hard to imagine a mean generating anything useful at all
frankly). Everyone who has survived has developed the art of traversing this
"thing" to some degree but coming to know its shifting topology and riding
it with joy -- aah, now there's the rub.
Rolfe
(just out of curiosity Eva, did <AL> ever come up to you afterward and ask
if a toy was "broken enough" for the trash bin?)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Rolfe Windward (UCLA GSE&IS, Curriculum & Teaching)
ibalwin who-is-at mvs.oac.ucla.edu (text)
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"The eternal mystery of the universe is its comprehensibility." -Einstein