EDU236X Beyond Bits and Atoms
Reflection Paper 05 : Blikstein & Cavallo
Blikstein, P. (2008). Travels in Troy with Freire: Technology as an Agent for Emancipation. in Noguera, P. & Silva, C. A. (eds.). Freire and the Possible Dream. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam.
“To propose a theme that purports to address a yet-to-be-determined community’s problem trivializes and contradicts the dialogic character of the educational enterprise – it negates the Freirean call to enable a community to participate in taking control over their indigenous needs; It raises the educator to the realm of patron when s/he should be no more than a facilitator of emergent emancipation.”
What is the role of a teacher? Traditionally, teachers teach. Teachers are the masters of the universe. Teachers are the imparters of knowledge. Teachers are the gurus. Teachers know better. Does a Freirean philosophy of education necessarily negate all of the above? If a community is capable of taking control over their needs, what then is the teacher there for? Can’t we do away with the teacher, then? What value does the teacher bring to the learning environment anyway? Does it mean a “free-for-all” environment, where the learners do and learn what they wish to?
I like the term “facilitator of emergent emancipation”. It conveys the idea of empowerment. It confirms the notion that there is intrinsic value in the learners. It contextualizes content within a community. Yet it also retains a crucial role that the teacher plays. Subscription to a Freirean philosophy does not mean swinging to the extreme – of leaving students to their own devices. On the contrary. A skilled teacher carefully designs his learning environment to allow issues to surface that are relevant to the learning community. A skilled teacher lowers himself from his self-conceived ‘pedestal’, engages the students, empowers them, and grows with them.
Cavallo, D. (2004). Models of growth - towards fundamental change in learning environments. BT Technology Journal, 22 (4).
“For people to change the way they think about and practice education, rather than merely being told what to do differently, we believe that practitioners must have experiences that enable appropriation of new modes of teaching and learning that enable them to reconsider and restructure their thinking and practice.”
I have always found it ironic that education professors have all these big theories about how education should be practiced, how people learn best, how School is the big institutional stumbling block to students’ learning, how teachers get in the way of real learning … and yet, when these so-called ‘proven theories’ are conveyed to teachers, they are merely ‘conveyed’. I find it ironic that professors professing to know all about education do not teach the way they say teaching ought to be. But once in a long while, I have the rare privilege and joy of experiencing a professor (or two) who teaches the way he / she teaches us to teach. What a transformational course these turn out to be.
That is precisely what Cavallo is alluding to in the above quote. Constructionism should be modeled to teachers in a constructionist way. It is only when teacher-practitioners go through the experience of constructing their own knowledge of constructionism, would they then own the knowledge, and restructure the way they think and practice education. Anything less than that can be relegated into the category of “just another workshop or professional development course”. Teachers should be empowered with their own “gears” to teach and think with. Not just told about them. Only then can we realistically bridge the divide between theory and practice. Otherwise, educational theories will just remain as educational theories, and teachers will always be seen as barriers to change.
“To propose a theme that purports to address a yet-to-be-determined community’s problem trivializes and contradicts the dialogic character of the educational enterprise – it negates the Freirean call to enable a community to participate in taking control over their indigenous needs; It raises the educator to the realm of patron when s/he should be no more than a facilitator of emergent emancipation.”
What is the role of a teacher? Traditionally, teachers teach. Teachers are the masters of the universe. Teachers are the imparters of knowledge. Teachers are the gurus. Teachers know better. Does a Freirean philosophy of education necessarily negate all of the above? If a community is capable of taking control over their needs, what then is the teacher there for? Can’t we do away with the teacher, then? What value does the teacher bring to the learning environment anyway? Does it mean a “free-for-all” environment, where the learners do and learn what they wish to?
I like the term “facilitator of emergent emancipation”. It conveys the idea of empowerment. It confirms the notion that there is intrinsic value in the learners. It contextualizes content within a community. Yet it also retains a crucial role that the teacher plays. Subscription to a Freirean philosophy does not mean swinging to the extreme – of leaving students to their own devices. On the contrary. A skilled teacher carefully designs his learning environment to allow issues to surface that are relevant to the learning community. A skilled teacher lowers himself from his self-conceived ‘pedestal’, engages the students, empowers them, and grows with them.
Cavallo, D. (2004). Models of growth - towards fundamental change in learning environments. BT Technology Journal, 22 (4).
“For people to change the way they think about and practice education, rather than merely being told what to do differently, we believe that practitioners must have experiences that enable appropriation of new modes of teaching and learning that enable them to reconsider and restructure their thinking and practice.”
I have always found it ironic that education professors have all these big theories about how education should be practiced, how people learn best, how School is the big institutional stumbling block to students’ learning, how teachers get in the way of real learning … and yet, when these so-called ‘proven theories’ are conveyed to teachers, they are merely ‘conveyed’. I find it ironic that professors professing to know all about education do not teach the way they say teaching ought to be. But once in a long while, I have the rare privilege and joy of experiencing a professor (or two) who teaches the way he / she teaches us to teach. What a transformational course these turn out to be.
That is precisely what Cavallo is alluding to in the above quote. Constructionism should be modeled to teachers in a constructionist way. It is only when teacher-practitioners go through the experience of constructing their own knowledge of constructionism, would they then own the knowledge, and restructure the way they think and practice education. Anything less than that can be relegated into the category of “just another workshop or professional development course”. Teachers should be empowered with their own “gears” to teach and think with. Not just told about them. Only then can we realistically bridge the divide between theory and practice. Otherwise, educational theories will just remain as educational theories, and teachers will always be seen as barriers to change.