First, some questions (Schiro/Noddings):
- In Schiro, on page 154, when discussing curriculum at the Highlander Folk School, it is stated that, "This means that workshop participants are required to have had firsthand encounters with labor problems so that they can both contribute to the discussion from their own experienced perspectives and understand the experiences of others." Does that mean that we must have firsthand experience with the problems with society (listed on page 151) in order to understand them?
- The two educational methods that are discussed - group discussion and experience - seem, to me, anyway, to be learner-centered. Do you agree or disagree/why?
- As I ponder this, I may be talking myself out of it. What I think, maybe, is that it seems constructivist... not necessarily learner-centered.
- On page 171, Schiro says, "To accomplish what they believe is best for society, Social Reconstructionists use whatever means they require, that society will tolerate, and that their visions will support," (emphasis mine). This seems to be the tricky part here... what society may tolerate in, say.... Pennsylvania is probably different than what society might tolerate in Oklahoma. Does that matter?
- Are the Learner Centered and Social Reconstructionist ideologies mutually exclusive as it seems to imply on page 174?
- I thought that the examples of Patriotism, Race & Multiculturalism, Military Service, and Political Education were interesting choices for Noddings to demonstrate her point about critical thinking and citizenship education. Are there other examples that you can think of?
- Spoiler alert: I particularly liked her outlook on military service.
- Noddings states on page 137 that, "Some students should be urged to keep trying for excellence; others should be assured that there are different talents to be developed." My question here is - how do you know which is which? How can you be certain that you are not discouraging a student based on some other aspect of themselves instead of their ability?
Apple:
- Apple, I think, is a great example of a Social Reconstructionist. He outlines very clearly his concerns with a national curriculum with a great question - "who will benefit and who will lose as a result?" Who do you think are the winners and losers in adopting a national curriculum? Spoiler alert: Apple is anti-national curriculum.
- I was ASTONISHED to realize that Apple's work was printed in 1993 because it rings SO TRUE today. He seems to paint a conservative versus liberal picture, that I wonder (perhaps due to my own political leanings) if was very accurate of what came after.
- "...while the proponents of a national curriculum may see it as a means to create social cohesion and to give all of us the capacity to improve our schools by measuring them against "objective" criteria, the effects will be the opposite," (Apple p 231). Is this your understanding of what happened leading up to, during, and after NCLB with ESSA?
Whew. Sorry to be so longwinded. I'm looking forward to hearing [reading] your questions from Bernstein!
These are really great questions! In response to your first one, if I remember correctly, Schiro does mention that firsthand experiences are ideal, but having access to firsthand sources is good too. For instance, in history, it is probably challenging to go back in time to experience the events themselves (ha); however, there are times where teachers can provide students with firsthand accounts of those events in order to experience it as closely as possible.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be really challenging to do this all the time in our current public school settings. Much like our discussion last week on letting students decide everything in a learner centered classroom, I think this is similar in that you want to have as many firsthand experiences as possible but the ideology falls on a continuum of sorts. If you can't make every experience firsthand, then you do as much as you can.
On your second question about discussion and experience, I thought they seemed very learner-centered as well. I think the big idea that I have to keep reminding myself is that learning in this ideology is social and not individualistic. So, if learning happens socially, then it could be a great teaching strategy in both ideologies, but the conversation would allow students to construct and reconstruct their thinking and build on prior knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, I think that this is social reconstructionist, but I think it crosses that fuzzy, gray area where the two start to overlap.
I'm skipping down a little bit to try to shed some light on your Noddings question from page 137. After speaking with Nodding on Monday, I felt like she gave me some really great insight that might clarify this a little. I asked her what her ideal school would look like and what role the curriculum would play. She spoke to me rather extensively on giving students choice. She said it was crucial to successful education to give students choice in what they study and how deep they study it. She mentioned how students become oppressed by the curriculum, especially when they are tracked into honors, general ed, remedial, etc. Rather than having to worry about the discouraging of a student, they are free to choose their course of study and cultivate the talents they want. For example, there are very few students who want to pursue a subject like mathematics and are really bad at it. If a student is bad at math, then they can still pursue the subject, but their course of study would look different than someone who has strong mathematical abilities and a similar interest.
ReplyDeleteI think that hints at answering at least part of your question. There is a fine line, it seems, between encouraging students to pursue their interests and telling students where their pursuits should go. What do you think? How would you tackle this balancing act?
That makes sense, though it brings me back to the question about enacting Learner-Centered-ness (for lack of a better term) or Social Reconstructionism in a current classroom. It can be done in pieces, perhaps, but the feasibility is tricky.
DeleteI don't know how to answer your question, honestly. But I feel like you are on the edge of a question I have with my parenting. How do I encourage my children to pursue their interests and provide enough push that they don't just quit when things get difficult, without pushing them to the point where they are just making me happy (but not themselves)?
DeleteI'm attempting to comment via smartphone, so we'll see how this goes. In terms of SR and LC being mutually exclusive, I think that the are definitely separate ideologies. However, I think that the two complement each other better than SA and SE. I think this is because of the principles that define these ideologies. It seems as if there's more room in LC and SR to incorporate both social issues and the diverse individual. What do you all think?
ReplyDeleteLC and SR definitely fit better than, say, LC and SE. If we take the ideologies to be on a (false) continuum, LC and SE seem like they would be diametrically opposed, while SR and SA might be able to fit with either (albeit fairly poorly especially if you try to take too many of the ideas together).
DeleteI definitely agree that SR and LC seem to play more nicely together than the others - though I also think that, taken in their most extreme forms that Schiro describes, that it could be difficult to combine any of them.
DeleteRight. I'm sure that is why they are distinct ideologies, rather than one being a spin-off of the other.
Delete..........................right. Sorry that was kinda.....obvious.
DeleteHa. I definitely think there's some overlap though!
ReplyDelete