Reading this post was like deja vu for me!
I took a class just like this as an undergrad... (surprise, surprise) in the education department. I made it through that semester by taking solace in two facts: (a) I was also taking The Sociology of Education in the soc department, with a professor who actually taught the material and (b) most of us in my little liberal arts bubble wouldn't end up teachers, thus wouldn't have an opportunity to inflict such pedagogical torture on kids who needed to actually learn stuff.
It would appear that Newoldschoolteacher has neither of those to help her out. God save her.
The professor in my class repeatedly insisted that we were a "democratic classroom" and that she wasn't any more of an expert on the material than us. WHAT? I paid good money for that course, money that employed her to teach me. I hope that she was more expert on the material than I was! Also, when I "took responsibility for myself" and said that what would really help me was a little context for the articles we had read, the implication became that I was a lazy learner, wanting to be filled with knowledge like an empty vessel. Too much banking system in my past-- I needed to construct some meaning for myself.
But I was *trying* to construct meaning, thanks. I was just frustrated... my classmates in this course were smart, but you would never know it from the quality of discussions we had. We were wandering lost in the academic woods, with nothing to grab on to but "in my experience" anecdotes. So I learned about people's experiences. A lot about people's experiences. Sometimes interesting, and occasionally even relevant, but will it help me if anyone asks me about Fordham and Ogbu?
Actually, you can ask me all you want about Fordham and Ogbu... I learned about it in Sociology. But what about my classmates, should anyone ever ask *them* about it? Wait, wait, wait... could this be an example parallel to that of privileged children learning "base content" outside of the classroom? Hrm...
I took a class just like this as an undergrad... (surprise, surprise) in the education department. I made it through that semester by taking solace in two facts: (a) I was also taking The Sociology of Education in the soc department, with a professor who actually taught the material and (b) most of us in my little liberal arts bubble wouldn't end up teachers, thus wouldn't have an opportunity to inflict such pedagogical torture on kids who needed to actually learn stuff.
It would appear that Newoldschoolteacher has neither of those to help her out. God save her.
The professor in my class repeatedly insisted that we were a "democratic classroom" and that she wasn't any more of an expert on the material than us. WHAT? I paid good money for that course, money that employed her to teach me. I hope that she was more expert on the material than I was! Also, when I "took responsibility for myself" and said that what would really help me was a little context for the articles we had read, the implication became that I was a lazy learner, wanting to be filled with knowledge like an empty vessel. Too much banking system in my past-- I needed to construct some meaning for myself.
But I was *trying* to construct meaning, thanks. I was just frustrated... my classmates in this course were smart, but you would never know it from the quality of discussions we had. We were wandering lost in the academic woods, with nothing to grab on to but "in my experience" anecdotes. So I learned about people's experiences. A lot about people's experiences. Sometimes interesting, and occasionally even relevant, but will it help me if anyone asks me about Fordham and Ogbu?
Actually, you can ask me all you want about Fordham and Ogbu... I learned about it in Sociology. But what about my classmates, should anyone ever ask *them* about it? Wait, wait, wait... could this be an example parallel to that of privileged children learning "base content" outside of the classroom? Hrm...
Comments
~Paulo
Just a thought.
But I was a senior in an well-regarded liberal arts college. I wasn't oppressed. I had critical thinking skills already... and I went to class because I hoped to learn some new material to think critically about. It was more than 2 years ago, and I still am a little bitter that it was such a missed opportunity.
let's get a few things straight. in a college, you do not pay the professors to teach you. in fact, tuition goes to the college, and the college pays the professors... why do you think that is? what would be the point of that? think about it, and you'll hopefully come to realize that the point of it is to provide you an environment, centralized and accessible, for learning. now you should take a few minutes for what that means for you? because you didn't pay for the class, you paid for everything around the class too, in fact by the time you get to the real costs of higher education, the money that flows between student and instructor, were it ever to be traced is minimal except in the worst schools. the infrastructure is expensive.
But back to the meat of this: I think such extreme constructivist "teaching" as I experienced in the course I mention has at least one HUGE conceptual flaw: it pays a lot of attention to the context of individual experience, but for all intents and purposes ignores that any body of knowledge also tells a story, and that story is important to our understanding any one piece of reading in front of us. If the goal of a course is for students to understand and appropriately critque the material, that context needs to be there.
In the end, as you so kindly suggest, I used my research and analytical skills to look that information up myself, with some of the incredible infrastructure I was privileged to be able to access. But preparation for every class meeting basically turned into a research paper about the materials on the syllabus-- I waded through a lot of crap and wasted a lot of time... especially considering that we rarely talked about said readings in any way other than as a starting point for personal storytelling.