THE TALE SO FAR
In the first part of this book,I described the course of development as it can be expected to occur in normal children throughout the world.Using their sensor motor capacities and their abilities to master firs-order symbols-systems,young children develop a vastarray of intuitive understandings even before they enter school.Specifically,they develop robust and functional theorist of matter,life,the minds of other individuals,and their own minds and selves.They are aided in this task of theory contructions,some built into the genome,others a function of the particular circumstances of their culture,and still other a reflection of their own,more idiosyncratic style and inclinations.
Of course,not all these conceptions are adequate,and the potent theories of early childhood are complemented by a large collection of stereotypes and syimplifications.Still,form a practical angel,the child of five,six,or seven has a surprisingly serviceable grasp of relevant worlds.More crucially,the five-years-old is in many ways an energetic,imaginative,and integrating kind of learner,educator should exploit the cognitive and affective powers of the five-years-old mind and attempt to keep it alive in all of us.
In the second part the book, I turned attention to the procedures whereby children are educate throughout the world.in traditional sociecities,much education takes place informally,trough the use of simple processes of observation and imitation.This approach has been formalized in the appreciated by the young apprentice.Schools evolved initially in order to aid in the acquisition of reading,writing,and other basic literacy’s;with time,they have come to acquire additional burdens,among them the formidable challenge of conveying the concepts and epistemic forms associated with specific disciplines.Like people,school themselves are subject to serve diverse clientele and to undergo smooth changes.When the constraints governing school are both brought to bear,the difficult challenge facing educators becomes manifest.
While some of the problems associated with school have become all too known,it is only in recent years that researchers and educators have become aware of a new set of difficulties.There is now ample documentation that schoolchildren have difficulties in acquiring a deep understanding of the disclipnary materials presentedto them.In the sciences,the difficulties take the form of misconception:disjunction between intuitive theories whose inception can be traced to early childhood and the formal concepts and teories worked out by scientific researchers,in mathematic,the difficulties are manifested in the rigid application of algorithms:Rather than appreciating how a formalism captures object and events in adomain,student simply treat the exspression as astring of symbol into which values are to be”pluged”.In the arts and humanities,the difficulties are more accurately described as stereotypes and simpliyfications that prevent student from appreciating the complexity and subtlety of social,historical,and esthetic phenomena.Oversimplyfield view of the learning and developing process per se also hamper for the evolution of processes of thinking and reflection in schoolchildren.
In the third part of book,Ihave zeroed in on our current educational dilemma.having introduced this”worst of times”scenario,I have considered a number of ameliorating approaches.Neither approaches rooted in basic skills nor those based on cultural literacy or an approved western cannon seem adequate in themselves.More promising clues are available if we look to examples hewn in the American progressive tradition,certain traditional educational forms such as the apprenticeship,newer educational institutions such as children`s museums,and various technological innovation such as videodisk-based learning environments.
In the previrous chapter,proceeding from preschool trough secondary school and surveying the sciences as well as the arts and humanities,I have introduced several programmatic approaches that appear to work.When properly implemented,program embodying theseces as well as the arts and humanities,I have introduced several programmatic approaches that appear to work.When properly implemented,program embodying these approaches should excite teachers,engange students,and effect precisely those connections between intuitive and formal knowledge that hold the best promise of dissolving misconceptions,countering strereotypical thinking and yielding a deep and lasting understanding.
Individual programs show that an effective education can be achieved.But if one wants to remake educations it is crucial to create environments in which the formation of links between form of knowing is the governing principle,rather than an accidental occurrence or the product of a well-funded(but in practical to replicate)experiment. In classical apprenticeship,a person can routinely discern the connections among his activies,the end toward which they are being directed,and the kinds of tools that can aid in the achievement of an effective product.In hands on museums,youngsters have the opportunity to explore rich environment and to play our their emerging understanding in meaningful context.On-the-job training,mentoring relation,and the involvement of processional in the school are all mechanisms for reducing the gap between the”agenda of school”and the”agenda of life”.And introduction into the classroom of meaningful projects,cooperative form of interaction and process-folios that document student progress can all sensitize student to their own thought processes and to the way in which their conceptions mesh or collide with disciplinary knowledge.
One challenge facing education is how best to fuse institutions-how to inject the apprentice method into school,to introduce school into community work settings,and and to find ways to bridge the geographic psychological distance between the school and museum.Another challenge is to prepare a cadre of educator,be they termed master,teachers,brokers,or curators,who feel comfortable in exhibiting the links among different form of knowing and in drawing children and families into a fuller approach to learning and understanding.
If we are to achieve a milieu in which understanding is prized,it is necessary for us all to be humble about what we know and to move away from our present,invariably inadequate perspectives.Even under ideal circumstance,an education rooted in understanding take time and effort to attain.We all suffer from misconceptions that students of all ages bring to the schools and to be aware of our own predilections toward strongly held but unfounded beliefs.
Let me bring this prespective to bear on the content of this book.Most reader doubtless came to the book with a belief that understanding is important,and most educator probably felt the they well already taking the steps appropriate for such an achievement.I trust that there faith has been shaken by the evidence provided in the preceding chapters.I have sought to challenge the conception that one can get students to understand simply by presenting them with good models or with compelling demonstrations,as well the idea that students who do not understand must simply work harder or adhere to the correct-answer compromise.
In contrast to these straightforward views,I have presented a far more complex and vexed picture.I have proposed that we must place ourselves inside the head of our students and try to understand as for as possible the sources and strengths of their conceptions.I have proposed that we examine our own educational assumptions and practices,nothing where they rest upon hope rather than upon demonstrated effectiveness.At the same time,I have tried to avoid the presentation of recipes for understanding.The various examples and models presented have reflected an effort to describe the kinds of procedures that may prod educations in a positive direction.It is never the models per se that are important,however,but the thinking and the reflective facets thus captured that will determine whether students gain from their use-wheter student will be stimulated to assume”risk for understanding”.
If my analysis is correct,it may have relevance beyond the cyrcle of students and teacher in the classroom.In every encounter in which learning is possible-and view of us spend appreciable time in any other kind of encounter-there are always misconceptions and biases,as well as opportunities for better communication and understanding.Relations at work,at home,on the street,between employees,families,lovers-all are touched by problems of egocentric assumptions about what others believe,understand,and desire.Only if we think deeply and shympathetically about these preconceived notions in ourselves and in others,and only if we strive to engage them fully,is it reasonable to exspect that they can be transformed in productive ways.
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