The purpose of education in this society is to bring the kids up to be conversant with the most important ideas and the representation systems that are used to express them. –Alan Kay
Burke begins the first chapter by discussing his experience as an elementary school student viewing “a small square of light that promised a glimpse into the next world: the first walk on the moon…a sacred moment…we all experienced the same sense of awe, our open mouths spelling out our wonder.”
Today things are more complicated. There are all manner of information sources. Burke says, “Information, whether it is about a product, an idea, history, or science has become one more product in a market saturated with texts, each one competing with other…”
The teacher’s role is to provide students with “a tool belt heavy with strategies and the skill to use them appropriately when reading---and making---texts.”
Burke quotes James Gleick:
All those clamoring activities line up by rank, in order of the power of their claim on your attention. That book looks appealing but this magazine pulls harder. Even better is that new jazz recording, but then you prefer the exhilarating rush of an online session of the game so fittingly called Total Annihilation. It’s, as if, corrupted by haute cuisine and soft mattresses, we can’t go back to the simple pleasure of bread and butter and sleeping under the stars. (1999)
Burke argues, “Through textual studies students can and should bee required to—think and operate as practitioners of the domains they are studying…” Imagination’s role in education has been dismissed as “irrelevant or even dangerous.” As teachers we must encourage and support students in experiment with “a series of possible selves through our disciplines, while helping them develop the necessary abilities in those subjects in the hope that they will find the ones they wish to become in their adult lives...” Students are constantly engaged in reading the world and reading themselves in a search to discover “where they fit into the texts of the world.”
This "tool belt" of strategies is the key for us teachers. I've read many blogs that talk about Enactments, interactive read alouds, and background knowledge. All of these are great strategies, but they only work for certain situations and with certain texts. Students need this tool belt and need to understand when and where they should use them.
ReplyDeleteBTW: I know we aren't supposed to say we "love your page," but I think you've done a great job with putting your blog together. Good Job!
I agree with Burke that imagination has been dismissed from the educational process. I like the idea of trying to encourage students to experiment "with a series of possible selves through our disciplines"
ReplyDeleteImagination is something that societies have tried to copy from the United States. China has well educated students that are greater than the United States but the U.S. has more patents than any other country per capita except Israel. Education isn’t all to be a great. Freedom of thought being able to think and dream and go out a accomplish that dream. What is that makes people dream big dreams. Having dreams, freedom, education, and hope for a better tomorrow are things that will make people great.
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