Transforming Education

[Denis Hitchens]

Thanks also to you

I take my lead as follows:


>From Don Tinkler:   About Learning 1994

"Sound pedagogy" is much more than "instruction".  In applying sound
pedagogy, the role of the teacher expands to include all of the following:

-  selecting experiences using quality as a measure of appropriateness;

-  organising, timing, monitoring and managing the experiences;

-  providing order in the experiences presented (giving consideration to the
scope and sequence in what is developed and presented as curriculum);

-  attempting to reduce some of the complexity of the material or
information being presented (The world for both children and adults is
indeed complex, but if the complexity is reduced in presenting ideas
initially, the learnings often make more sense when later placed back into
their original complexity.);

-  drawing learners into purposeful two-way communication (generating a
climate where learners are free to inquire, to explore issues, to formulate
questions, to express ideas, to debate points of view, and to seek solutions
to problems);

-  extending the learners' interaction with the learning environment
(extending the range and variety of the learning context).

So I'm not too sure about the balance of responsibility.  I can attempt to
sequence things and reduce complexity etc but this is still my view.  If the
learner is to 'construct' own  world view, a fair degree of true
responsibility (I would think *most*) rests on them.  Basically because they
are constructing for their journey.  Like OS I think we have to trust and be
prepared to 'be surprised';  which we are all the time.

It's good to be not alone


>Hi Alan, & thanks Harrison for being the conduit!
>
>I like your questions, and Eiwor's and Michael's responses (I had a feeling
>this one would draw Michael out of the woods).
>
>I have taught all grades kindergarten through 9th in US public schools.  I
>studied a good deal of Educational Anthropology in grad school.  Currently I
>am the director of what could well be described as an Open Space Camp for
>children and youth, on 80 acres in the Southern Appalachian mountains.  I
>will share a few reflections on your notions, one at a time.
>
>- What if schools were formed as consciously self-organizing systems.
>
>Life would be good!
>
>- What if all participants (parents, staff, and students) were given equal,
>democratic power and rights within the school?
>
>Hm.
>In the most enlightened educational organizations I've known, there's a lot
>of open space.  But always, certain people hold the responsibility of
>setting the themes and defining the great mosaic of givens, whether the
>issue is school structure or curriculum (in the broadest sense).  To me, a
>consciously self-organizing school doesn't concern itself with power,
>rights, or even equality.  These words are like curious tools of a bygone
>era, not needed (reactions, you might say, to a paradigm of dominance).
>Leadership processes are always at work, with a varying pattern of
>leaders...but effective leadership naturally claims its authority, within
>the givens of time and space that call that leadership into being.  Parents,
>students, and staff each have realms of activity in which they are called to
>leadership -- with some cross-pollenization being very healthy.
>
>- What if students of all ages were recognized as responsible for their own
>learning?
>
>I'm a constructivist through and through - people of all ages construct
>their own knowledge, actively and creatively, reconciling their past
>learnings of mind, heart, body, and spirit with their present experience (a
>process that involves some disequilibrium!)  But are students of all ages
>responsible for their own learning?  No.  If I'm their teacher, or mentor,
>or coach, or guide, or even their transparent Taoist master, I accept and
>claim a deep responsibility for the quality of their learning experience.
>This is first because we all learn in relationship.  As the old teacher's
>saying goes, a child doesn't care how much I know until they know how much I
>care.
>
>I also accept responsibility for their learning experience because someone
>initially must set the givens!  Maybe the givens are a violin.  Maybe the
>givens are a violin and a scale to play.  Maybe the givens are the materials
>to make a violin.  Maybe the givens are a hundred books of poetry, or a
>creek in the woods, or a diesel engine.  Yes, invite young people to choose,
>and to direct their own learning.  But provide them with a whole village
>full of mentors who love their students, who really know how to do things of
>this world, and who love the ART of setting givens to establish open spaces
>for learning.  Too much freedom and not enough conscious mentoring leads to,
>in educator Lillian Katz's phrase, "a mutual exchange of ignorance."  (Also
>see May Sarton's critique of Black Mountain College in her journal, The
>House by the Sea.)
>
>So yes, the student "does the learning."  But as the years go by I realize
>that I can't overestimate the power and art of a great mentor to invite a
>learning experience into being.  Mentoring is an ancient human birthright,
>and to me the dream of the kind of school you invite us to think about,
>Alan, is the dream of reclaiming the art of mentoring for all.
>
>- What if this meant that there were no mandated classes, tests, or other
>externally imposed requirements?
>
>Lovely.
>Though, in a different way than you mean, there are many externally imposed
>requirements.  If a theme is, "How do we paddle a skin-covered umiak on
>Puget Sound from Southworth to Suquamish?" (as it was for a group of
>eleven-year-olds I once knew) then one externally imposed requirement is
>that the current in Rich Passage runs four knots against you on the ebb
>tide.  Not three -- four.  That is to say, a curriculum that is open to the
>world is in continuous negotiation with the world's imposed requirements -
>again, the givens.  These givens challenge and empower and sometimes
>confound us.  What's funny is that even a standardized test was created with
>these effects in mind - to challenge, to empower, to confound, in an
>entirely measurable way, like a factory...the mechanics of learning with the
>heart cut out.
>
>- What if the only requirement for graduation is to defend (to the entire
>school community) the thesis that you are ready to take responsibility for
>yourself in the outside world?
>
>An interesting notion.  Again, the language reveals our common way of
>thinking in education (defend implies judgement; take responsibility for
>yourself implies acute individualism).  But I get your drift - to present to
>the community, in depth, your creative vision, your practical dreams, your
>skills, resources, and capacities for a meaningful path of life.
>
>So, as you can probably tell, I would never tire of conversing on this
>subject.  I have opened space in public schools, and will do so again...but
>I am at present exceedingly grateful to be working in an educational setting
>(the camp) free of public schools' institutional constraints.  We have a
>land base and near-complete curricular freedom.  And it's a back-door into
>public education; this fall we gave 900 public middle school students a day
>each of Open Space here, in groups of 75, with a great staff of artists and
>other mentors, and many of their teachers were astonished to see that their
>students know how to self-organize.  If we keep walking our talk as an OS
>organization, we'll provide lots of children, youth, and educators with
>experiences that will leave them wanting more...
>
>Chris Weaver
>Swannanoa, North Carolina, USA
>

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