Dear Mother,
I have just finished very interesting class at MSVU. In this class we have been looking at three different methods; one is a traditional method, we called “scientific model”, second one is, off course, Wenger model using his theory. The third one is the method from Wilson and Cervero theory, which was pretty new to most of my classmates.
Scientific model is that you see everywhere in our educational system now, it has objective and content, leaning experience, and evaluation. It draw out very clearly so that public would understand what they are going to do, and what their out come should look like, and e.t.c. You can control students well with this system. But at the same time, it is very rigid; there is no much flexibility for individual need.
The second method, “Wnger’s model” is my favorite without doubt. He calls for creating a community of practice. He goes back to our core leaning habit, which is how we came to develop this complicated society. We learn from each other always. He is telling us to use this skill we have from the beginning of human development, to learn and create our world. It looks like to me this is an ideal method for all learning, but at the same time, we face to many problems as well. His method may not appeal to many people because of lack of clear direction and outcome. People love organized purpose and directions, but Wenger’s method tends to be loose and free for that matter. Plus, newcomers might have difficulty to getting involved into this community of practice because of a resistance from old-timer. This method tend to be less organized, it could blind public what exactly it is offering to them, but very evolutionally.
The last method we looked at is a theory from Wilson and Cervero. Wilson and Cervero argue that if we want to create an effective learning situation we really have to face to the reality of this society around us now. They tell us it is significantly important to look at what it is happening at “planning table”, and in order to understand what it is happening there, we really need to train ourselves to be able to see who has power whose interests are considered. Wilson and Cervero say, “how the ‘people work’ – that is the politics” (Wilson & Cervero, 1996). It is relieve for me to know there are people who are able to point out our problem in learning system and stating how to deal with it to reach where we want to be. Because we cannot rewind our time back to re-make our society differently, we really need to acquire this skill - to be able to see how the politic at planning table is working. This negotiation skill became one of the most important skills educator need to have. If I look at this point from different prospective, this is a sad thing. Somehow, our society went to the place where we didn’t image to go to.
While we, educators have to deal with many skills to tackle with 360-degree obstacles right now, at the same time, we have to educate people to aware of questionable direction we are taking as a pass of our society. Plus this has to be done with very creative way because of a powerful resistance to any changes.
Dear Mother, we have a lot of work to do. Where are you? We lost you somewhere in our course of life. We are putting a lot of pressure to educators, not only they share their professional knowledge, but also they need to do the work you used to do at home as a family or as a member of your community. Educators are asked to take care of students’ identity development in deeper level, and they have to find a way to frill their identities’ needs. More and more I read about our education system or related subjects, more and more I miss you.
Mother, where did our community go? Should I say, “why did we leave our community?” We used to have it very closely, it taught us a bottom line of humanness so that we become ready to go to SCHOOL to soak ourselves into different kind of knowledge. We used to learn a lot from community, I don’t know what method they used, but it stayed within us. In a way, it is sad that we need to TEACH people to be a member of community, because as Dr. Gabor Mante talks on the show called “Democracy Now”, other species do not need to be taught to be what they are, they learn from their parents by being with them.
Dear Mother, because we wanted to develop our society to greater level, we sacrificed the most important thing in our life – family. This thought has been in my mind for while even before I started at MSVU, but as I take classes and read more about educational subjects, I have learned more and more about how important it is to have a healthy, peaceful, well cooperated family as a base of your start line in your life. This is the place we could not, should not scarify in order to get or to do anything in our society. Dear Mother, we need you back with us. The most important job in a whole universe we mistreated. Now the question is how we can get you back here.
We need good educators who can see and handle what our students have been missing, and educators who can see and negotiate power to create our community of practice. If we keep doing this and stay in right pass, someday, we may come to the point that we don't need to do this negotiation anymore, and we may have alive communities everywhere spontaneously. That is what I dream. Too optimistic?
One really good thing I learned from this class is that no matter what method we use, we should organize our thought and plan when we present to others. By doing that, not only we are able to explain our point to public well but also we can organize our own thoughts. When we start a something new, we really need starting point, and I believe that a organizational quality that scientific method has would give us the starting point, but just do not forget to be flexible.
There are many programs to learn and develop great skills for education, I believe, and we have to continue to pass these theories to next generations because right now, we are really depending on educators to make people aware of our social problems. We have to communicate as many as educators what we have to do at this time for our education system, but I do feel though, sometime soon, our social problem have to be tackled much more aggressively from Family study, and Women study and need to get message out. This is not a separated issue everything is connected. Somehow we came too far to re-start this “rebuilding our society” from our family side; as I mentioned earlier, maybe only way to challenge this big task is to start from our educators.
Now, I am in a position to trying to get into educating adult learners. I have to take this point into consideration for supporting them. I assume many of them, probably misplaced from Mother, and have come a long way with our society, to support them, I really need to understand these three theories; scientific model, Wenger model, and Wilson & Cervero model, and I should create a program that contain best part from each model. In our class, we had four different groups to present their cases based on these three models, and every one of groups came to conclusion to mix all three theories to create something good.
Most challenging thing I felt among these three theories is “Wilson & Cervero” one, because when power is on a table, it is very hard to negotiate through. "Money Talks," my grandmother used to say. Finding a person who could do this difficult task is a challenge, even President Obama seems having a hard time. Train ourselves to be a good negotiator is not easy, but to be at a planning table and trying to balance each interest will be challenging.
Well, Mother, we have to work together and harder to get you back in our life, so that people are ready to go to SCHOOL to bath into higher knowledge if they like to do so. We need your knowledge and skills now more than ever before.
We still have a great hope, please watch this interview, there is still a person who can connect our body and mind in our life time.
Sincerely yours,
M
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