Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id iBKHTrT14634; Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:29:53 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:29:53 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <BAY22-F1469F07D22A76EDDE5FB5ECFA20@phx.gbl> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "Eileen Eckert" <eileeneckert@hotmail.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1821] RE: research and pd X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Status: O Content-Length: 4680 Lines: 80 Bonnie, Thanks for posting such a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, response. I've been thinking about it and trying to form a coherent response, but my thoughts haven't yet gelled. One thought on the expertise of those with degrees in education: Does that really give one more insight into people's learning--teachers' or students' learning? It seems to me that education and learning are two sometimes very different things. My "terminal degree" (does that mean it will eventually kill me?) is in Adult Learning, and as I look at graduate curricula in Adult Education, I see a big difference between the two. Personally, I think that knowledge about learning can come from any discipline, or from no academic discipline, just self-disciplined observation, reflection, and I hope self-directed learning that includes looking beyond individual experience. Eileen From: "Bonnie Odiorne" <bonniesophia@adelphia.net> Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@nifl.gov To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1820] RE: research and pd Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:48:14 -0500 (EST) Hi, Eileen, I really had to reflect on that question. In fact, my allusion to "expert" referred to those of you whose field in which you have advanced degrees is education (or adult education, or ESL, or whatever). I often feel that, coming through the Humanities, I've come in through some kind of "back door," and I've felt very un-at-home with things education specialists have through their training come to take for granted: lesson plans, rubrics, quantifiable assessments (bulletin boards!). I feel very un-scientific when I teach. My training in the humanities has taught me how to observe, yes, but very often not quantifiably, or measurably. I'm taught how to break texts down for analysis (and most recently I've been learning how to teach writing skills by breaking those down into component parts in a composition/rhetoric framework). So I do lesson plans, have goals and objectives and skills acquired, and methodologies, and, yes, even assessments: competencies, tasks, embedded skills, and perhaps even rubrics. But in terms of determining "what works" I feel very much at a loss. I'm trained also to look at nuance, ambiguity, contradiction, how the political/economic/social networks might inform a text, its vocabulary, its grammar, intrinsic values. I'm trained to go with a student when he/she gets involved, to respond to his/her needs, goals, and interests, as well as to look for some "intrinsic" learning. some kind of 'why we're doing this' kind of question: what touches the deepest parts of ourselves? What makes us grow, even when it's uncomfortable, or counter-intuitive? What causes us to stay in our comfort zone? what restlessness keeps us going ever deeper? I tend to look holistically, and not analytically, at a teaching/learning situation. And lest these tendencies incur the charge "unscientific," I would ask, "what kind of science?" The kind of hypothesis, experiment, verification (or not), new hypothesis ad infinitum, or the kind of paradigm shift, Newton/Einstein, the kind where the presence of the observer influences what is observed, where a butterfly in Beijing affects a hurricane in the US, the kind where time and space are interdependent, where cosmology meets astrophysics meets fractals meets spirituality. Yes, I feel we must challenge ourselves, thoughtfully, deliberately. And when I recalled a humanities/social science debate, I remember also how useless and ultimately meaningless it seemed, and yet passions ran high. I don't propose assigning what we do a discipline or field: I believe it is, and must be, cross-disciplinary. We position ourselves at those intersections where, as we so often say, people fall through the gaps. Where social and economic systems, education systems and methodologies, and even value systems, seem not to be working. Where we see what we do as inadequate or too little too late, and WE DO IT ANYWAY, because in some sense we're called to do it by a restlessness that doesn't accept wherever we are, but wants to go further, probe deeper, move on. We don't see our students as undereducated or even underserved, but that their potential, their latent "capital" as someone put it, is underutilized. And yet if it were to be exploited, if students were to find a place to thrive and grow, would they then continue to be exploited? And we can pose the same question to ourselves, as professionals, in whatever fields we care to identify. Not quite a note, sorry. Warmest Regards, Bonnie Odiorne Ph.D English Language Institute, Writing Center Post University, Waterbury, CT
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