Week 3

Mirror, mirror: Constructivism and George

In Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he writes "Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world."

As I read the chapter on constructivism, I thought back to multiple classes where Freire's work was emphasized--a pedagogy involving reaching students where and as they were and challenging them with issues that they would likely encounter in real life (as opposed to just read about in an old textbook).

What's not to like about constructivism?  According to the text,  it involves

• real-world meaning-making
• learning opportunities through cognitive conflict, challenge, and puzzlement
• collaboration
• natural (instead of forced) reflection
• and learners taking responsibility for their own learning.

I liked reading about the instructional models tied to the theory and the potential benefits, but I hadn't considered that there might be potential risks and challenges.

This is where George comes in.  He wants so badly to be a constructivist that he dooms his students to boredom and complete lack of fulfillment.  I learned from this chapter that there should be a balance of both the old and new ways in order to teach successfully like this. I see this especially in a continuation high school setting, where the students are given individual work in packets and other projects and it seems like they can escape the institution without having really learned anything.  I would like to read more about this school of thought to try to figure out the answer to this problem.