identification as process expert not content expert allows you to =20
learn (and model learning) with your students and the building of =20
essential questions to drive the inquiry (as a process led by =20
students)----are fine examples of two components of inquiry based =20
learning---an approach that so many teachers and schools use on a =20
daily basis.
I read the "school is irrelevant" post---and got busy, so didn't =20
comment. I was thinking though that schools are the last common =20
cultural institution that kids and families share in the United =20
States. There isn't anything irrelevant about that.
Seems that the threads dance around two "purposes" for school work---=20
learning a specific set of skills and learning how to learn/apply =20
that learning in community.
Deborah Hazen
Lost
David Wagoner
=46rom Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems=94 published by the =20
University of Illinois Press in 1999
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
On Feb 22, 2009, at 7:18 AM, Bill Ivey wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I love the turn this discussion is taking. So if schools have been
> irrelevant for years... what are we doing *now* to make our schools
> relevant? What could/should we be doing as well?
>
> Chris said "Teachers will be more necessary than ever but their role
> will be very different. Curriculum will become more fluid and
> boundaries between disciplines will largely dissolve." Is that already
> happening in any schools? What does it look like?
>
> I will point to my Humanities 7 course as perhaps a step in the right
> direction. The course integrates English and Social Studies, and draws
> on science, art, music and theatre as well. Several years ago, I
> basically dropped the role of being the expert on content and decided
> to be the expert on the process and skills of learning. The kids come
> up with the questions that form the units, group them under different
> headings (I require at least one unit each in Aesthetics, History,
> Psychology, and World Cultures, and students add to and refine these
> headings), select questions which relate to each other, and write a
> theme question that drives the unit.
>
> They have a list of required genres (informational brochure, research
> paper, persuasive piece, literary analysis essay, compare and contrast
> essay, theatrical script and poetry). They may add genres as they see
> fit. They must turn in at least one text-based piece, do at least one
> Power Point-based presentation, and give at least one speech. They
> choose the genre and format of their "final presentation of knowledge"
> for each unit.
>
> I guide them through this process, choose the group novels and
> read-aloud books for each unit, help develop group activities, and
> guide them through their research and writing. I know the saying "the
> guide on the side, not the sage on the stage" has become something of
> a cliche, but that is pretty much what I am trying to do.
>
> So there's one example of schools working to have teachers take on
> different roles, make their curricula more fluid, and blur the
> artificial boundaries between disciplines. What else is going on out
> there, and where all should we be heading?
>
> Take care,
> Bill Ivey
> Stoneleigh-Burnham School
>
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