Learning Schooling Teaching

1. “There is no place that does not see you, You must change your life.” Ranier Maria Rilke Learning Schooling Teaching Learning is a process of individual and social transformation.

2. Learning involves moving from first impressions into detailed appreciation of what is. “ The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. And then you walk fearlessly, eating what you must, growing wherever you can, like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is…who carries his vision of vastness and might around in his tunic like a live coal which neither burns nor warms him, but with which he will not part.” from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by A. Dilliard.

3. Learning is a process of movement into and out of disequilibrium. • Paradigm shifts, or shifts in schema, often occur concurrently with strong emotions and challenging or novel experiences. • The learning process can be painful and it can be full of joy. • What we choose to learn is intricately linked to the concept we hold of who we are in the world. Learning is linked to identity formation

4. Learning through assimilation happens when a skill is mastered through practice: we come to use knowledge without the need to consciously consider what we are doing. • Learning through accommodation happens when new ideas create new dendritic growth. Changing the way we think about the world is a bit like wearing a new pair of glasses, it can be disorienting and uncomfortable. • We often choose to master skills that reinforce our sense of belonging and identity within a larger social context. Like Dillard’s monk, we carry knowledge with us as we come to appreciate the universe as it is and move through it on our journey.

5. Schooling is a cultural process designed to impact individual renewal and transformation of cultural landscapes. • Cultural tensions create schooling built on a foundation of continuous compromise around: conflicts over culture and religion, idea distribution within society, racial divides, economic goals, and consumerism. (Spring, 2007) • Schools have the power to help us speak to one another across difference or to reinforce differences between groups. Tower of Babel by M.C. Escher • Schooling is a powerful conduit between one generation and the next.

6. Cultural expectations in schooling canpush students to see themselves differently. This process can offer a dual edged sword. “It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” W.E.B. DuBois

7. Schooling • Schooling impacts the formation of individual identity. • Schooling pressures can push youth to change themselves to fit culturally defined expectations of success. • The pressures of schooling can create cognitive dissonance in learners. “Cognitive dissonance is a a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and a new information or interpretation” (Festinger, L. 1957). • Individuals choose which parts of their culture to renew as they choose who they will be in the world.(Rogoff, B. 2003)

8. Teachers model behavior but teachers are not the only models that students learn from. Students learn from parents, peers, community members, media, and direct experience. • Teaching can occur anywhere at anytime, but schools are set aside as culturally appropriate sites for learning in order to create a space for individual, cultural, and social renewal. • Effective teachers consider students’ mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical needs. Good teaching considers the student as an agent negotiating multiple roles within multiple communities.

9. Teaching is about reaching out to create connections, sharing what is known and scaffolding experiences so that learners progress into increasingly complex understanding of the world. • Teachers encourage • students to hold more than one idea in their mind at once. • Learning involves taking big risks, teachers provide scaffolding to create safe spaces for student trial and error. “ Humanity's' racing across chasms on spider webs, and sometimes they make it and that… makes all the difference.” From J. Gardner’s Grendel Teachers encourage students to expand their understanding by taking risks and by making new connections.

10. Teaching • Teaching involves creating and expanding webs of connections where both students and teachers expand and grow as a result of dialog. • Teaching is a reciprocal act: teachers learn from students as students learn from teachers. • Teaching is a process of sharing inquiry and engaging in an ongoing conversation about meaningful ideas. • Teaching, riddling, wonderment, and puzzle solving are intricately linked activities. Teachers use puzzling questions to prompt students onward in their journey. Teaching can be posing a riddle: what is? “A box without hinges, key or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid.” Bilbo’s riddle from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

11. “A box without hinges, key or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”

12. Learning Schooling Teaching As we learn and grow we participate in the unending conversation that is going on at the point in history when we are born (Burke, 1971). We transform ourselves and our world as we journey, gathering knowledge through appreciating what is, trying multiple modes of being, and creating connected understanding through continuous experience and change.

13. Resources: Berlin, I. (2007). The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library. Retrieved November 11, 2007 from http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/quotations/quotations_from_ib.html (original work published 1969) Burke, K.(1971). The philosophy of literary form. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and education. New York: Touchstone. (Original work published in 1938). Dillard, A. (1974). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. New York: Harper Collins. DuBois, W.E.B. (1903). Retrieved March 13, 2007 from http://www.bartleby.com/114/1.html Festinger, L. (1957) A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance Evanston, Ill.; Row Peterson. Retrieved March 13, 2007 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm

14. Resources: Freeman, G. (October, 2007).Gestalt cycle of experience workshop. Educational workshop presented at 2007 Master in Teaching program, Olympia, WA. Gardner, J. (1971). Grendel. New York: Knopf. Greene, M. (1988). The Dialectic of Freedom. New York: Teachers College Press. Johnson, A. (2001). Power, privilege, and difference. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company. Kohl, H. (1994). I won’t learn from you and other thoughts on creative maladjustment. New York: New Press. Mooney, J. & Cole, D. (2000). Learning outside the lines.  New York: Simon and Schuster. Rilke, R. M. (1995). Retrieved March 13, 2007 from http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15814 Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New York: Oxford University Press.

15. Resources: Senge, P. (1990). Thefifthdiscipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Double Day. Singer, D. & Revenson, T. (1978/1996). A piaget primer: How a child thinks. New York: Plume. Spring, J. (1994 / 2008). The american school: From the puritans to no child left behind (7th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Tolkien, J.R.R. (1937, 1966). The hobbit: Or there and back again. New York: Ballantine Books. Walton, S. (September 2007). Learning and the brain. Educational workshop presented at 2007 Master in Teaching Fall Retreat, Tumwater, WA. Wertch, J. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zull, J. (2002). The art of changing the brain: Enriching teaching by exploring the biology of learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus

16. Images found at: http://www.esc.auckland.ac.nz/people/staff/rmel005/birth.html http://dali.urvas.lt/forviewing/pic29.jpg http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.custompuzzlecraft.com/Evolve/puzzle149reverse.jpg lh3.google.com/.../s800/52Galatea.jpg http://blogyourmind.libero.it/media/blogs/ByM/Christophe_4661b649bdc87.jpg http://www.socaldesignco.com/images/masks/Designer/Small/SnowflakeMask.jpg http://members.cox.net/coppermask/costumeclosetlogo.jpg http://www.elfwood.com/art/_shroom.jpg.html 1641918-sunlight_on_madrona_treesDeception_Pass_State_Park.jpg http://www.answers.com/topic/babel-escher-jpg-1 http://nirvanamusing.blogspot.com/2007/09/spider-web-of-rain-droplets.html http://www.trinity3d.com/store/Digital-Sculpting-Human-Anatomy-p-980.html http://encarta.msn.com/media_461547617_761571997_-1_1/figure_and_ground.html Music by: Michael Nyman from his Movie Soundtrack to The Piano