Re: blind persons and the elephant
Jim Moulton (jmoulton@horton.col.k12.me.us)
Fri, 28 Mar 1997 12:06:30 -0500
Gwen, et al,
I remember Miss Lord, my second grade teacher at Coffin School in
Brtunswick, Maine above all others. I remember her because she saw my
writing, which so often ended up in crumpled balls in the back of my desk,
never being passed in on time, often lost, and said that it was good. She
changed my life.
I also remember my 9th grade French teacher, though I have forgotten her
name, because she taught me enough in French 1, primarily through
insufferable drill and extensive homework, to allow me to move easily
through French 2 -4. She too, gave me a gift.
Certainly content and method are both critical pieces of the experience we
call education, but there are so many who see the delivery of networked
technology to a school or classroom as the 'fix'. A "build it ind it shall
happen" belief.
I heard Secretary Riley say, at the 1994 Secretary's Conference on
Educational Technology that the Internet would be, "...the great equalizer.
That no longer will there be a difference between the resources vailable to
the students in Pasadena and the students in Harlem..."
It seems to me that the content may be the same, provided machines to get
to it, but the situation in which those resources are accessed, the culture
of the place each site calls 'school, that is the 'how' of the teaching and
learning experience the learners are involved in will be vastly different.
The same is true of southern Maine and Washington County.
So I guess I would hold to placing the how first, followed closely, or even
joined equally by the content, but in my heart I cannot say that the
content is above all else. Standards can be met by engaging students in
quality settings, using innovative and engaging resources around an
integrated curriculum, led by teachers who share a passion for learning.
The foundation is this passion; the curiosity for learning that must be
shared, nurtured and valued by student and teacher, community and family.
With that 'how' in place, adding in the wonderfully powerful and creative
content becoming available online, just imagine what will happen.
Jim
At 5:29 PM -0800 3/27/97, Gwen Solomon wrote:
>At the risk of misunderstanding ...
>
>Jim says, "It is how we teach more than what we teach..."
>
>Let's not forget that the goal is to help students to achieve at high
>standards. So while it is definitely important to teach well, we shouldn't
>put content in a secondary position.
>
>One of the problems is that teachers are expected to do everything well
>without having "well" clearly defined (by teachers? for teachers?) and
>there's so little support for teachers to achieve high levels of teaching.
>
>Gwen
>
>
>---------------------------
>Gwen Solomon, Director
>The Well Connected Educator
>837 E. Palm Drive
>Glendora, CA 91741
>818-335-6836 voice
>818-335-6846 fax
>gwen@gsn.org
>http://www.gsh.org/wce
>---------------------------
Jim Moulton, Staff Developer, Community of Learners
jmoulton@horton.col.k12.me.us
http://www.col.k12.me.us
(207)729-2959 Fax: (207)729-2967