To reiterate, and express in my own words from a common yet separate
perspective -- Martin is pointing to the nature of the zone of proximal
development that is, IMHO, the integration of teaching and learning in its
richest form. What Martin describes is far from lecture, although lecture is
considered to be teaching by some, and perhaps it is, but lecture is not nearly
as involved, intricate, and complex as the kind of teaching and learning that
Martin and his students engage in. Teaching and learning as Martin describes
it are two elements of a unified process, in which the teacher and the learner
are not clearly delineated from each other: each learns and each teaches.
Reciprocality is the deep structure of the learning and teaching interactions:
what the teacher observes and learns from the student changes the interaction.
The learner, in response (but not simple reaction) to the teacher, alters the
teacher's subsequent actions. The participations of the teacher and the
students in the learning and teaching process through this rich zone of
proximal development is asymmetrical, yet not without the interplay, the
pas-des-deux, of one who is primarily learning, with one who is primarily
teaching. It is a dance, and the teacher may lead for a time, but if the
object is to teach how to lead, the teacher must also follow for a time. Each
student, and more comprehensively each classroom is, to a matter of degree,
different from the next, and only a modicum can be accomplished by rote. The
richness of the zoped is earned each time the teacher attends to the students,
and adapts to the moment with creative fashion -- balancing what comes next
with what is now happening, on the scale of the curriculum. Learning and
teaching co-exist in mutuality and are never the same from one episode to the
next.
Martin's teaching is quite loopy. ;-)
We easily see the richness of the zoped in such things as the apprenticeship of
taylors, and we lament its paucity in classrooms that have been driven to that
end in part by the economy of instruction. Yet, as Martin testifies, all is not
the same in all places under the sun.
bb
--- Martin Owen <mowen@rem.bangor.ac.uk> wrote:
> Eric states:
> "learning is not the same thing as teaching"
>
> At one level this is obvious. There are differential power and reward
> issues in terms of the overall division of labour and community mebership
> within the activity of formal learning and teaching institutions. My
> motivations for teaching are different to my motivations for learning (or
> in light of Bill's recent posting my researching). However you do not have
> to push the envelope too far to see the commmonalities are far stronger
> than differences. As I have noted previously we do not have words which
> distinguish between teaching and learning in Welsh; it all comes from
> context.
>
> What do I do when I teach? I make my tacit understandings explicit. I
> mediate these "understandings" to make them available to others. I examine
> the response from others to see if I am making sense and modify my
> mediation (and in so doing my tacit understandings) in the light of the
> dialogue with others.
>
> What do I expect my learners to do in their formal learning setting? Much
> the same.
>
> The mediation may include conversation, contrived but authentic (or
> inauthentic) activity, use of a tool to achieve some object. Even my
> principle roles as a teacher in the activity system are often those of
> the learner: initiator, guide, designer, author, steerer, soundboard,
> mirror. And, in most cases, the teacher and learner are the same species.
>
> Martin
>
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 01 2001 - 01:01:20 PDT