The more and more I clutter my brain with thoughts of constructivist teaching, active learning, teacher just facilitator, discovery learning, grading, time, what's best for kids, PLC's, essential learnings, common assessments, etc. I need to step back for a minute. I truly believe that what makes a healthy person, or education is BALANCE. I have a strong belief in active learning and when students create their own understanding, that knowledge is imbeded much deeper for a long period of time (should I dare say "forever"?) However, I really do believe in a strong balance. A balance of teaching students to be strong listeners and obtain meaning from a mini lecture, teaching students work ethic/responsibility to turn that paper in on time so I can read it and give them the appropriate feed back, teaching the abiltiy of rote memorization and the study skills to really interalize facts and information, teaching them logic and to questions everything they read, see, and hear for validity.
I think I sometimes get too focused on one aspect and need to realize that learning is an awesome woven quilt that needs the thread and needle as much as the fabric and the design.
I truly have been feeling like we are going overboard with "there is never one right answer". Although I agree with this most of the time. There are commonalities that the students in my class need to know (as there are common things that we as adults need to understand.) Yes 2+2 may be able to equal a great deal of things; however, I want my daughter to understand and know why it equals 4 first. (And yes, I did use a semicolon.)
posted by bkitch @ 9:09 AM
1 Comments:
I'm not sure anyone is saying there is never one right answer, although I would say that there is probably one right answer a lot less than we typically think. That was part of the point of the 2 + 2 example. The other part is can your daughter - or you - explain why 2 + 2 = 4? That's my fear, particularly in math where we think there usually is one right answer - that most students never understand why the answer is "correct." And if they don't understand that, they eventually hit "the wall" and stop studying, or even thinking about, the subject any longer. To understand any form of higher mathematics, you really need to understand the underpinnnings, including place value and how base 10 works. I think it also gives perspective if everyone understands that if humans had 8 fingers we probably would be using base 8.
I agree about balance, although I'm not sure exactly how to define that or if that's really the word we want to use. I think many people would think of balance as 50-50, and I don't think that's really what we're talking about here. We're talking about some "ideal" that meets the needs of the learner. Not only is that probably not 50-50, it's not even the same for each learner. And my fear is that we are nowhere close to "balance" right now - I don't think we need to worry about teachers going "too constructivist" anytime soon. I think if we keep in mind "what's best for kids" we're going to be okay.
As far as the semicolon, you'll have to ask someone else if you used it correctly. But I do notice that earlier in your post you started a sentence with "However," which I was taught is a no-no. :-) You'll notice, however, that I don't follow all those conventions - often starting sentences with "and" or "but" if I think it helps me communicate. I hope the Language Arts department will forgive me. I prefer to stay away from semicolons - they scare me.
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