I am engaged with the book, FACILITATING REFLECTIVE LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION, by Anne Brockbank and Ian McGill. (It’s listed on my bibliography.) I have known for a long time that teaching is best practiced reflectively. Now, I am teaching a new course for AICE(The American Institute for Creative Education–see links). The course is “Looking at Ourselves in the Mirror: Teachers as Reflective Practitioners.” Yesterday, for the first time, I met with my group. Today’s blog and blogs in the near future will be focused on this topic and text.
In chapter four, “The Requirements for Reflection,” Brockbank and McGill write:
“. . . We have already referred. . . to the tendency in higher education for knowledge to be treated as static, disembodied, as a product rather than a process where students may be detached from the knowledge being imparted.” My comment: Is it any wonder why this “tendency” is passed down as legitimate practice in the K-12 classrooms? No wonder our students complain of “boredom” and are disengaged with the learning process at an early age. Apples do not fall far from the tree! What is modeled in higher educated is too often replicated, to the detriment of the K-12 students, and legislated into policies by the bureaucrats in state departments of education and, of course, Washington, D.C.–home of unfundated and ridiculous mandates, e.g., No Child Left Behind.
” In recognizing the interaction for dialogue as constituting a relationship between teacher and learner and between learners we are saying that is knowledge that is the material of the interaction comes through communication.” (Italics are mine.) I remembering distinctly having a phone conversation about this very concept with Til Evans my long-time friend, mentor, and teacher from my days at Starr King School in Berkeley. Til, now 85, has more “on the ball” then all of the bureaucrats in the entire Department of Education in Washington, D.C. put together. Til said that the curriculum IS the communication between teachers and students. Alfred North Whitehead in his seminal book, THE AIMS OF EDUCATION, wrote at the beginning of the 20th Century about the “inert ideas” that are taught in the classroom and the deadness of it all. Much of what is passed along as “teaching” is really a mere “transference” of information. Many educational bureaucrats, who in the opinion of this writer have been out of the classrooms far too long to be making policy decisions, think that “transference” and “testing” the recall of said transference is “education.” I don’t know how much more ludicrous it can become.
Teaching is far more than informational. It is transformational. It is not teaching for students to “be told” or “lectured to.” Teaching requires dialogue–meaningful, reflective, conversation. This level of teaching is why Brockbank and McGill are justifiably holding higher educators responsible. Unless the Academy changes, the classrooms in K-12 will not be able to change effectively.
We must move beyond the “Henry Ford” mentalitiy of “education as product.” For more information on that, I encourage you to read Aldous Huxley’s prophetic, prescient work, BRAVE NEW WORLD and the PS written years later. Education is not a product. It is a product.
Brockbank and McGillfurther write, “For us dialogue that is reflective, and enables critically reflective learning, engages the person at the edge of their knowledge, their sense of self and the world as experienced by them. Thus their assumptions about knowledge, themselves, and their world is challenged. By this we mean that the individual is at the edge of their current understanding and the sense of meaning they give to and with the world. Existing assumptions about understanding, self, and the world are challenged. That learning becomes reflectively critical when the emergent ideas are related to existing sense of knowledge, self, and the world and a new understanding emerges.”
I believe this. What do you think?
Write back, dear readers. Kind Regards, Stephen York
I feel very much in line with this POV.
I never saw myself as a teacher, I am naturally shy and introverted. But, I ended up teaching A LOT of health & safety courses (CPR, First Aid, etc) for the ARC in my youth = because I fell into it and i needed to pay the rent ; )
But, when I started teaching HIV/AIDS for them, the world opened up – especially when I had the opportunity to teach Instructor Training Courses for them. I So much enjoyed engaging folks on the edge of their mental, emotional, ethical & spiritual constructs. The great fun was playing with folks regarding issues of sexuality, drug use, death, etc. What an incredible blessing to be allowed to be part of folk’s ‘opening’.
But, that time of my life passed on and I didn’t think i would ever teach again – it was a lot of energy for me as an introvert!
But, then I found a spiritual work that I am SO excited about, it became part of my path to share it! I teach Meditation & Healing Classes – mostly to adults, when i am lucky to teenagers as well. What an incredible blessing this is. It is so juicy and exciting and amazing and humbling to watch people change and grow right before my eyes!
My spiritual teacher (Instructor Trainer / spiritual mentor) that assisted me to do this work, told me the most important thing about teaching is this – If I am not learning more from my students than they are learning from me, I am doing it ‘wrong’ ; )
Well, I had no idea how right she was! and what a blessing it is to serve and learn from my students.
I thought i would just share that last part, but, it seems i got carried away ; ) thanks for ‘listening’. And thanks for sharing this inspiring info.
in life, wendy