Re: Ideology of painless learning and teaching in

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Fri, 19 Apr 1996 09:48:21 -0400

I am responding belatedly (sorry) to Eugene's last posting. I am
happy to envision an educational environment that is free of
oppression and free of coercion that is oppressive. But my own,
internalized "have to's" are too important to my own learning
and self-realization to agree that "have-to's" are in themselves
bad. So I'm wondering if pain, in the sense of an imposition by
others or from outside us of what we have to endure, is bad. There
are certain kinds of pain that are bad, destructive of persons, but
certain kinds of pain that may fuel the development of agency. I have
trouble with an ideology of painless learning, with an economy free of
pain, because it smacks of nostalgia for what never was. The issue
seems to be more complicated.

Yeah, learners have to grab their learning, but grabbing for
me anyway implies a willing acceptance of sometimes painful struggle.
I find some pleasure in it, obviously, but pleasure derived from, made
possible by, the effort that is not easy.

Eugene wrote:
Since I got convinced by
>>several writers working in sociocultural frameworks that we should reject
>>reification of semiotic mediation and acknowledge that knowledge does not
>>exist separately from people actively engaged in sociocultural practices,
>>the issue of what is the goal (or goals, or directions) of education become
>>very important.

Okay. I agree....

If the goal is painless engagement children (or people in
>>general) in some sociocultural practices than teacher's focus should be on
>>student's comfort of engagement.

Well, I think the issue here is one of terminology. My goal would be
children's pleasurable engagement, not necessarily pain-free engagement.

Another implication of
>>considering the purpose of education in person-in-sociocultural-practices
>>rather than knowledge disassociated from people is that the teacher is the
>>final agency for his or her own teaching and the student is the final agency
>>for his or her own learning. Neither teachers are conductors of state- or
>>local community- defined curricula nor students are receptacles of such
>>curriculum.

and later, Eugene expands on the implications of this notion of
"final agency"

If we assume that the
>>student is the final agency for his or her own learning it means that the
>>teacher can't control (and should not try to control) the content of
>>learning curriculum (see Lave, 1992). What is learned from the teaching
>>curriculum is up to the student. The teacher's role is to share is his or
>>her own interests and concern with the student, to facilitate and support
>>learning experiences and promoting student's zones of comfortable engagement
>>into sociocultural practices (the zones have different levels as well as
>>different contextual and time scales).

Here, I think Eugene and I might disagree. If one of my goals is to make
participation in privileged sociocultural practices more possible
for students (and it is), then it is my job to bring to attention the
disciplinary constraints & social practices that a curriculum SHOULD
be designed to approximate and to invite engagement with these
externally imposed constraints in ways that allow for students'
transformative appropriation of them.

So what do you think?

- Judy

Judy Diamondstone
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08903

diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
.................................................