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#361
02-26-2009, 10:17 AM
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#362
02-26-2009, 10:22 AM
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#363
02-26-2009, 10:38 AM
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#364
02-26-2009, 10:40 AM
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#365
02-26-2009, 02:07 PM
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#366
02-26-2009, 02:14 PM
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#367
02-26-2009, 02:54 PM
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#368
02-26-2009, 03:36 PM
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Weaning—or Encouraging Autonomous Learning By Larry D. Spence, School of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State, At 8:30 a.m. she stood up in class. I wanted to sit. She glared, shooting me with her eyes. “I’m paying good money for this class,” her thin hands shook. “My parents are sacrificing. It’s your job to just tell us what this book means.” She waved a worn copy of Immanuel Kant’s es- say, On the Old Saw: That May be True in Theory, but It Does Not Apply in Practice. “I can do that, but it will burden the rest of your life.” “What do you mean?” “You will always have to take me with you. If you marry, I’ll be there. On your hon- eymoon, I’ll be there. You will need a special room to keep me in your house. I misplace coffee cups and scatter paper clips. I’ll need a desk next to yours at work. A special seat where I can work in your car…” “Stop it,” she shouted. “I don’t want to drag a professor through life.” “Good,” I said. “Then I can’t tell you what the book means. Think of all the books, ar- ticles, policy papers, and memos that you will have to read. If you don’t know how to understand them, you will be lost as a citi- zen, a worker, and an individual. So you can either figure out what Kant means or you can adopt me for life.” The class’s growing laughter filled the room as they imagined living with a seri- ously uncool prof. “But aren’t you paid to teach us? How am I supposed to know what this old German guy meant?” asked a burly tight end. “No, it is my job to see that you learn how to discover the meaning yourself.” “This class is weird,” came a comment from the baseball cap section. Students’ expectation that I could explain the world marred every course I taught. Their intellectual dependence was frightening. On bad days, they were so docile and dependent I understood how good storm troopers were made. John Abbot writes that we should adopt the biological idea of wean- ing to direct our educational efforts. Young children should have plentiful help and di- rection. Then we should gradually back off as children take over their own learning. He argues that to adopt the weaning model, we have to turn the current system upside down. Lots of resources for teaching in small classes should be spent in the earliest years. The resources we now expend in colleges and university should be curtailed. By the time students reach adolescence, they should be self-directed. Is he right? Does the system encourage intellectual dependency, wasting the creativ- ity and curiosity of youth? Is it too late to wean them in higher education – to move them away from dependence on formal instruction to become free-range learners? Current research on the biology of learning backs Abbot’s contentions. My own experi- ence attracts me to the idea. But, oh, in the classroom the dependency is sticky and thick. Students seem confused, indifferent, and desirous only of getting this grade, that course, and eventually the big- ticket degree. The best strive for that special relationship, “teacher’s pet.” They work to say all those things that feed faculty egos. For many years, I saw little hope for developing autonomous learners. Then I made a discovery. A group of my students toured with a national champion drum and bugle corps. I went to see them perform. Their precision, quality, and panache astounded me. I could not believe they were the same creatures that shuffled through my courses. They worked twelve hours a day on their musical skills, slept on gym floors, and were driven from city to city without relief. They were disciplined adults. I walked away with words like “co-depen- dency” and “enabling” ringing in my ears. My best efforts taught students that to learn was to follow instructions. They didn’t need that or my careful explanations, or my crafted syllabi. They needed access to the world’s scholarship and some tough coaching like they got in the bugle corps. And most of all they needed choice and opportunities to pursue their own passions for inquiry and expression. Maybe we smother the best learning instincts of our students. Seymour Papert writes, “The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.” Maybe we should stop chewing and pre- digesting the intellectual food we give our students. We need not joke and enact an excitement we wish they had. We need to focus on the learning and not the comfort of the learners. In earlier times, people took the passion and energy of adolescents as signs of matu- rity. They weaned them on responsibilities. The impetuous George Washington was sur- veying frontier lands by the age of sixteen. By 21, with only a few months of formal education, he could ford rivers, chart moun- tains, charm legislators, and lead troops. Lord Fairfax wrote his mother that he was “a man who will go to school all his life.” Washington’s classrooms were the forest, the battlefield, and the halls of government. He never asked what was going to be on the final.
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the truth will set you free John 8:32
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#369
02-26-2009, 03:38 PM
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#370
02-26-2009, 03:42 PM
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"The impetuous George Washington was sur- veying frontier lands by the age of sixteen. By 21, with only a few months of formal education, he could ford rivers, chart moun- tains, charm legislators, and lead troops. Lord Fairfax wrote his mother that he was “a man who will go to school all his life.” Washington’s classrooms were the forest, the battlefield, and the halls of government. He never asked what was going to be on the final." .... what better way to teach us to think/act for ourself then to leave us by ourself for a bit? 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (New Testament | 1 Corinthians13:11 - 12) I think God wants us to grow up so He can have a meaningful relashonship with us...
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the truth will set you free John 8:32 Last edited by idea; 02-26-2009 at 04:11 PM..
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