The Wikiness

on teaching, or “pedagogy.”

You can tag this “on knowledge construction” (accrual), which I maintain begins and then begins again (persists) in the simple human act of inquiry. My back up here comes from Paulo Freire:

Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry humans pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

[“…in the world, with the world, and with each other” has a liturgic resonance, no?] What he is saying, IMHO, besides that learning is a social process is that if we want to really help students learn, we have to guide them in the practice of inquiry.

It’s inquiry, after all, that allows us to achieve any learning goals, inquiry that results in knowledge accrual and allows us to build upon prior knowledge accruals.

And just as it would be wrong for the management of the Chicago Cubs to become overly focused on one element of the team–its pitching, say–so would it be wrong to get overly focused on the enabling tools, overly “tech-obsessed.”

As long as a curriculum keeps inquiry at its center, recognizing it as human thought in action, it as transcending any medium of instruction, I think the future of education will be OK.