[Its.an.education.project] From Piaget

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 5:09 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> In my experience, for many teachers, getting to A is more a matter of
> being unleashed rather than having a the need for a tremendous amount
> of remedial training (and untraining). While probably no one can
> instantly change from D to A, it is not clear that instant change is a
> requirement. I think the key is to have a context that shifts the odds
> in favor of more A and to send a clear message to the teachers and
> children that A is goal. Getting the vector pointed in the correct
> direction--achieving A at a meta level--is an accomplishment in and of
> itself.

We must compare experiences in more detail. I am aware of a number of
instances of superior teachers being fired or otherwise driven out of
the system. Jaime Escalante, for example, after all of his classroom
successes, ran afoul of the administrations of several schools, even
those that invited him to work for them.

My experience also includes tagging along after my mother in her work
as a school counselor. Many teachers dismissed all of the problems
that children faced, from learning disabilities to going unfed to
messy divorces, as the children being stupid or lazy.

I distinctly and clearly remember one teacher who lived to browbeat
students. (Actually, he was delighted when he found out that I knew
more than he did about some of his favorite topics, but he made class
time Hell for the others.)

Yale tried an experiment while I was there, of sending math professors
into middle school to teach. They got much better than the
undereducated teachers who merely met state qualifications, reportedly
because they understood the deep questions that children ask about
foundations of mathematics.

> In Peru, this is by and large the approach they have been taking with
> the teachers: giving them the opportunity to aspire towards A by
> immersing them in activities where they work together to design
> pathways from D to A. I have seen the same thing at a smaller scale
> happen in São Paulo and Porto Alegre.

I want to see their curriculum. Do they get taught Constructionism by
Constructionist/Constructivist methods, or by Instructionist methods?

> Clarity of purpose is critical.

Several kinds of clarity are critical. I have a tendency to favor
clarity of means. I find it easier to derive purpose from means than
means from purpose.

> -walter
>
> On Sun, May 18, 2008 at 6:48 AM, Antoine van Gelder <antoine at g7.org.za> wrote:
>>
>> On 18 May 2008, at 12:21, Edward Cherlin wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> To teach teachers Constructionism would require that we get permission
>>> to put them through a remedial course of what they should have learned
>>> in childhood. It would require that we create the complete
>>> Constructionist course of study by Constructionist methods. But none
>>> of us knows how to do that.
>>
>>
>>
>> We want to be at A.
>>
>> Currently, we are at B, being paid to do D.
>>
>> To get to A we're going to have to be at C as well, but being at C means
>> doing D' which, the people who pay our salaries, don't like us to do.
>>
>> ?
>>
>>  - a
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>>
>



-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay