I struggle with this one almost daily.
I believe that children should be granted the responsibility for their own
learning. I try not to assume that burden/prize when I teach, but neither
do I blindly ignore the expections of my principal, fellow teachers,
parents, or the children themselves.
I also have to remind myself that complex systems are not linearly causal
and I can not ever claim to have successfully caused learning to happen.
I resist at every opportunity (too cautiously, perhaps) any attempt to link
a particular method, or even standard, with learning in a causal way. I do
not want to be forced to fit some generalized mold, and I don't want to
make anyone else do that. I try to think and speak in terms of creating
contexts that allow the greatest possibilities for the participants acting
within those contexts to learn.
I think that teachers need most to learn how to observe and critically,
compassionately evaluate themselves. Not how to copy some "best practice."
When I write about my research, I try not to assume that my
understanding/interpretation of the data is the one that a reader _should_
somehow 'get.' I do _not_ want to be responsible for anyone being forced to
teach a prescribed content using a prescribed method. I do hope that
teachers will hear something meaningful in my description of my
understanding and incorporate that into their teaching in ways meaningful
to them.
Sometimes I do worry that this attitude is an attempt to escape from the
responsibility of the impossibility of teaching.
Kathie
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Life's backwards,
Life's backwards,
People, turn around.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Sinead O'Connor and John Reynolds
Fire on Babylon: Universal Mother^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Katherine_Goff who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu
http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~kegoff/index.html