Re: farewell to Rommetveit/ teaching of psych

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 01 2004 - 17:15:08 PDT


Melissa-- Your wrote in part:

 When I think I am
trying to create I-thou communications, sharing what I believe to be
truly valuable and helpful research and theory, students experience a
foucs on "it." "It" here is the content of psycholgy, some strange,
distant and personally insignificant course topic. When students try to
share experiences about a crazy Aunt Sally or child with behavioral
problems in an effort to personally and meaningfully engage in the
material, I tend to respond with "No, that's not 'it'" discussions
about research and theory.
Am I missing the point here? Maybe there is some point at which enough
mastery of "it" allows for more meaningful conversations between I's.
--------------

Am I correct that you find the stuff in the textbooks to be uninterpretable
in useful terms by your students? The "It" is the academic way of understanding?

If so your question is whether mastery of academic stuff can ever allow
for meaningful conversations between people ("I"s using everyday concepts?

Is that the problem you are posing? If so, I can try to answer, if not, can
you rephrase.

mike



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