How can the child know what is possible unless it is seen--tried
>--experienced? Can the pleasure of competence come without immersion? Is this
>not sometimes painful?
the very nature of knowledge implies
>that children *cannot* direct their own learning. That is, they are not
>in a position to even *imagine* what it is they do not know, much less
>evaluate its importance, or the relative importance of different things
>that they might learn.
the paradox is
>that each separate human being as he or she develops must individually
>become bonded to a social world that seems rewarding. Each of us makes
>choices about how we engage in the world and "make up our minds" about the
>world as we go along finding our way. The richest and most satisfying
>social worlds are those made up of the richest and most involved and
>creative engagements of its many participants, drawing as deeply and
>broadly on themselves and the opportunities of the world as possible.
>Much better, in my opinion, to be explicit about what
>children can and cannot do, what children can and cannot know, and what
>is valuable about the grown-ups' knowledge and values and activities
>and cultures that deserves to be passed along, or at least offered for
>appropriation in a structured context in which the structures are themselves
>up for negotiation.
>rather than wondering about how much we
>dislike coercion or whether lectures were good or bad for the mind or
>whether some people should be guiding others, we might wonder about what
>gets students involved and engaged and mentally growing, and more
>particularly how do we get them involved in the rich and useful domains
>developed by many people previously who founds those domains rich and
>rewarding.
>The minimal transmissive goal of education that I would accept
>is to provide access to the specialized tools and resources
>of the community, but _as resources_, that is as optional, and
>to be used within some critical perspective that recognizes
>alternatives. There is a great difference between the imposition
>of culture and giving people access to culture as a resource.
- At least all of the above seem to ascribe to the ideal of motivating
activity contexts, where cultural resources are offered up for
>appropriation in a structured context in which the structures are themselves
>up for negotiation.
How much structure, how much negotiation, which cultural resources are still
open questions; perhaps we're left with the unavoidable "who decides which
cultural resources for whom"; at the very least we're left with the question
of how
to teach -- For last words, I choose:
>
>Perhaps it is always, as Max van Mannen suggests, that pedagogy must be a
>science of the unique. Some children require more pressing than others and
>this must be ascertained with sympathy and care but none-the-less tested; no
>methodology can encompass what is ultimately so completely human. Or, as
>Rabindranath Tagore more elegantly phrases it, "In the last analysis, we must
>come to the inevitable conclusion that education can be imparted only by a
>teacher and not wholly by a method ... Just as a water tank can be filled
>only with water and fire can be kindled with fire, life can be inspired with
>life ...the mere pill of a method instead shall not bring us salvation."
So we all agree? -:)
- 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
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