class 4 teaching C&I 320 Spring 2002

records: externalizing memory

maintaining group memories main function of all collective activity is to produce works or records that give pride, identity, and a sense of community and tradition to the group –young children still developing their memories. they need assistance. –group memory more than the sum of individual memories. it needs to be cultivated and maintained.

works produce a record of group’s mental efforts. In this way the group’s mental efforts become externalized, rather than remaining vaguely in memory. works and records become a way for the group to think about its own thoughts

works and record rescue cognitive activity from implicitness, making it more accessible to subsequent reflection and metacognition works and works-in-progress create shared and negotiable ways of thinking in a group developing works and records provides a sense of the division of labor that goes into producing a product

some initial ideas books with half page of each student, at the beginning and end a collection of best works a class ethnographer to report each week on class collage of images across year and so on……….

taking different perspectives

a 4-step exercise 1. State an emotional reaction to something you’ve read or heard. The goal is to describe the emotional reaction as accurately and vividly as possible. –It really got me angry when I read myth 3--”Good teachers are always fun.”

2. Describe in detail why you had that emotional reaction. Don’t edit or limit yourself. Get it out. –I mean what’s wrong with being fun. I had so many dull boring teachers and mean teachers, I would have given anything to have a fun teacher. Sometime we had a substitute who told jokes and goofed around with us, and that made such a difference. Teachers should be fun! Learning should be fun! People like Ayers ruin school for kids. I’ll bet he spanks his kids.

3. Take a deep breath. Stand back a little and look at “it” from some different angles. A good place to start is to read it again. –When I went back and read myth 3 again, I realized that I got so ticked off at the myth that I didn’t even pay attention to his explanation. He isn’t saying teachers and learning can’t be fun, but that it needs to be much more, e.g., engaging, engrossing, amazing, disorienting, involving. Maybe what I am

really reacting to is a fear that kids will think I am dull and boring. I don’t want kids to hate me the way I hated some of my teachers. I want them to like me, and maybe I think that if I’m fun, they will like me.

4. Go back to step 1 and take a different look. –I was reacting to being bored, to being stuck in, like Commenius said, “slaughterhouses of minds.” Ayers is talking about learning as being authentic, about how important the experience can be. I hadn’t really thought about learning that way. My getting really ticked off at him actually got me started thinking about what learning and teaching really is about. If I think about it, I remember

times when I really worked hard at something, and it wasn’t fun, but I really had a sense of accomplishment when I finished it. I was really proud of what I did. Maybe it’s like training for sports-- it’s not fun, but it’s really rewarding.

beliefs and values what we deeply believe and dearly value is often so deeply embedded that we cannot express it. We take it for granted--like air, or water to a fish. the value of exploring our emotional reactions, our discomforts is that they provide windows onto those deeply embedded values and beliefs.

we learn most about who we are when who we are is challenged. not about psychoanalyzing yourself-- it’s about examining the shared values, the shared sense of the way “it’s supposed to be” that constitutes culture.