In Will Richardson's "Why School? How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere," I found Richardson's notion of "unlearning/relearning" to be very interesting and important for us future educators to adopt in our own teaching processes. For Richardson the "learn, unlearn, and relearn" process is one modeled in the medical field as research and data regarding medical practices are constantly changing. As such, medical practitioners undergo a process of learning, unlearning, and relearning in their field, to keep up with providing their patients the most effective treatments and care. The education world is also one in which we are experiencing rapid changes everyday. There are new methodologies and practices being posted, tweeted, and talked about every second. As well, we are bombarded by infinite amounts of information being shared and debated regarding the best methodologies of teaching our students. Therefore, Richardson poses the question: "Why should we be so different?" Richardson asks us as educators to embark on this journey of "unlearning/relearning" as other fields have been doing. He quotes psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. The illiterate will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
In his call to action, Richardson shares 6 ideas that promote "learning/ relearning." I would love to promote, in my classroom, the second ideal: "discover, don't deliver, the curriculum." I find this notion fascinating, because it re-purposes the role of the teacher in the classroom. Traditional classroom settings that I grew up in were ones in which teachers delivered information on specific content area, and I was to retain the information and then be assessed. Teaching to allow kids to "discover" means moving beyond the traditions of this classroom framework. The focus then becomes no longer on the teacher's ability to "develop lesson plans" and show "what they know," and instead redirects the teacher's roles to "inspire students to pursue their own interests in the content of that subject matter." Richardson illustrates the importance in the teacher's ability to ask the student questions, and use insight to manage the students' varying choices regarding their paths of learning.
These new roles as an educator that Richardson illustrates create obstacles and are far from an easy task to fulfill. With this new model of the teacher as the promoter-of-discovery, educators must push their students to pursue projects that connect their own interests to that of the school required curriculum. I see potential difficulty in getting students not only interested in the materials presented to them, but also inspiring students dig deeper with in the content are to discover more. We as educators will need to do a lot of motivating for our students. Applying this model to my experiences with my students, it raises many questions. How do we as teachers engage our students to be interested in the content we present. Not only that, but interested so much so that they are eager and excited to explore or "discover" and create their own new learning paths within that content area that we teach. My content area, being English, I think of those students who are reluctant to learn the English subject, or as I often hear, claim to "hate reading/hate writing." Richardson's second model "discover, don't deliver, the curriculum" thus excites me to experiment with how I can engage and excite my students in the classroom and teach them to be discoverers within the English content. I am eager just the same to become a discoverer myself as I navigate through this process of "learning, unlearaning, and relearning."
Richardson, Will. Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. TED Conferences, 2012. EPUB file.
In his call to action, Richardson shares 6 ideas that promote "learning/ relearning." I would love to promote, in my classroom, the second ideal: "discover, don't deliver, the curriculum." I find this notion fascinating, because it re-purposes the role of the teacher in the classroom. Traditional classroom settings that I grew up in were ones in which teachers delivered information on specific content area, and I was to retain the information and then be assessed. Teaching to allow kids to "discover" means moving beyond the traditions of this classroom framework. The focus then becomes no longer on the teacher's ability to "develop lesson plans" and show "what they know," and instead redirects the teacher's roles to "inspire students to pursue their own interests in the content of that subject matter." Richardson illustrates the importance in the teacher's ability to ask the student questions, and use insight to manage the students' varying choices regarding their paths of learning.
These new roles as an educator that Richardson illustrates create obstacles and are far from an easy task to fulfill. With this new model of the teacher as the promoter-of-discovery, educators must push their students to pursue projects that connect their own interests to that of the school required curriculum. I see potential difficulty in getting students not only interested in the materials presented to them, but also inspiring students dig deeper with in the content are to discover more. We as educators will need to do a lot of motivating for our students. Applying this model to my experiences with my students, it raises many questions. How do we as teachers engage our students to be interested in the content we present. Not only that, but interested so much so that they are eager and excited to explore or "discover" and create their own new learning paths within that content area that we teach. My content area, being English, I think of those students who are reluctant to learn the English subject, or as I often hear, claim to "hate reading/hate writing." Richardson's second model "discover, don't deliver, the curriculum" thus excites me to experiment with how I can engage and excite my students in the classroom and teach them to be discoverers within the English content. I am eager just the same to become a discoverer myself as I navigate through this process of "learning, unlearaning, and relearning."
Richardson, Will. Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. TED Conferences, 2012. EPUB file.
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