Moving away from the political aspects of the debate, I'm
interested in the presumed educational value of "realism" as
a solution to the problems of students' educational disengagement
in traditional school environments. In an article in this month's
(November) Educational Researcher, Tony Whitson and I take issue
with some standard formulations of "situated cognition" which
tend to reify the conventional idea of "situation" as a temporal/
spatial location wherein a unitary community-of-practice practices.
(Our alternative is more akin to Jay Lemke's ecosocial systems
approach.) I think that some advocats of realistic educational
settings rely on such understandings of situated learning theory.
In my work with preservice mathematics teachers, I've been grappling
with contrasting notions of "student centered" teaching that seem
to percolate through the literature. On the one hand there are
constructivist notions of student centered which focus on the teacher's
detailed models of the students' conceptual structures. In such an
approach, the teacher attempts to engage the students in structured
activities with specific predictions as to what the students will
experience in these activities, and how their conceptual structures
will be challenged/modified as a result. On the other hand there are
a whole raft of approaches that claim to be sensitive to the students'
cognitive styles or interests or vocational needs..., and which structure
educational environments and experiences around those aspects. While
recognizing the value of teachers' awareness of such aspects, in my
more intolerant moments I relegate them to the broad category of
"educational management" rather than to teaching itself. That is
because I see the constructivist mandate as so demanding of the
teacher as be incompatible with these other aspects _as organizing
principles of instruction_. (They can still be useful as secondary
considerations in teaching.) I see the realism in education imperative
as just such a managerial approach, almost inevitably detracting
from teachers' involvement with students' conceptual development.
I wonder if others of you have more sympathy for the realism in education
imperative as an educational justification for school to work.
David Kirshner
Louisiana State University
(504) 388-2332
dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu