21:30 PST 16/10/96
[From Bruce Gregory (961015.1345 EDT)]
Martin Taylor (961015 11:50)
Let's turn the question back to where it started.
How does one induce a student with little experience of the world to learn
a constellation of stuff that is likely to be of great benefit in later
life, though the student cannot know what may be useful from his/her life
experience to date?
I know of no way to accomplish this. If what I am trying to
teach does not address a present goal of a student, the best a
student is likely to be able to do is to memorize the material.
And let's add a separate comment: most kids, if not all, start with an
extraordinary appetite for learning and trying to understand just about
everything. Most kids, after they have experienced a little school, come
to hate learning much of anything. What can we do to sustain the initial
thirst for learning?
Why would we want to teach something which will be of use in later life? Do
we assume that learning stops when teaching stops? Most of what people
learn happens after they leave formal schooling which seems to equate
teaching with learning.
Most of my solutions to teaching dilemmas came from sharing the problem with
the students ..... a metacognitive leap. It helps to develop a shared
community of learners. There is a sometimes interesting learning
communities net: LEARNCOM@VM.TEMPLE.EDU. It has a much lower level of
contributions and many are technical/scheduling type stuff but there are
occasional goodies. I suspect many of the subscribers are closet PCT-types
... and probably don't know it.
David Wolsk
Victoria, BC Canada (where most "good" educators are a bit frustrated by
the system)