In a message dated 4/26/2001 8:55:37 AM Central Daylight Time,
blantonw@miami.edu writes:
> The class, school, and on must learn and then and expand, Eric. Many times
> the problem may be that we in classrooms expect this kind of learning and
> development to emerge neatly and immaculately. We also seem to expect
> students to travel through a
> zpd in 20-30 min periods at the elementary school level and in 50 minute
> periods at the upper level. Publishers and test developers and testing
> programs arbitrarily break up learning units (these are not zpds when
> students engage in the learning)
> I also think the kind of teaching you might be thinking about often forgets
> that a zpd is not the property of the student or teacher. It is social
> construction among the participants. Classroom teaching and learning can
> be modeled with the elements of LBE.
>
Bill,
I whole-heartedly agree with this. My concern is that training teachers to
devise an environment that is based on the priciples of zpd and LBE is not
going to work unless the current system is revamped. Therefore, my question
is what specifically can I do to address a system that insisits on increasing
test scores and fulfilling graduation standards by breaking up learning units
when Activity theory clearly shows this is not the most desirable education
system? Yes talking to legislators is good. Unfortunately the way the
federal system works is no old laws are removed when new laws are added and
we end up with 10,000 pages of education mandates. I agree with Activity
theory as an ideal but am having a very difficult time with just putting it
in schools without doing anything to change the hierchy of the administration
and political posturing that occurs.
Just trying to help,
Eric
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:02:05 PDT