Hello Tatyana:

What you did with the dictionary sounds like what is referred to generally as "participatory action research" or PAR (google it?).  It's a kind of action research that is more "from below upwards" than from the top-down--where the teacher/researcher calls most of the shots, as it were.    Although a refined version of PAR would mean that the students themselves also participated in deciding to write the dictionary--so what you are doing is more action than participatory, if you see what I mean.  

The other point is that your example suggests the dynamic interplay that actually occurs between learning any "stuff" and the more remote but affective development of persons in  many aspects of human development (foundations)--where we newly-identify with principles that come to govern all of our thought, speech, and actions.   Learning "stuff" commonly has transferable meaning.  For instance, when we learn math, and have to be intensely focused on very specific and patterned relationships, we develop a clarity of thought that can and often does carry over to other fields of human endeavors.    Of course, teachers can be cognizant of that dynamism, or not.

But even Plato said about philosophy:  "Let none but mathematicians enter here."  I don't think he meant merely math as such; but rather the kind of clarity of mind that is essential to philosophical thought, and can come by way of learning math.  With math, if we are wrong, there's no fudging, and we have to back up to find our error so that we can solve.  

Thank you for sharing your wonderful--and wonderfully democratic--teaching experience.

Catherine King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego/Huntington Beach, CA

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tanya Exum 
  To: professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov 
  Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 5:44 PM
  Subject: [PD 4138] Re: When are colleagues condescending?


   
  What do we include into the term _knowledge_? Subject area knowledge? Cross-curriculum knowledge?
   
  In 1993, I had a very interesting educational experience. The State University of Physical Culture and Sports (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) decided to open a new degree program: Sports' Physiology. Students, who were active sportsmen, were being prepared to be sports doctors, with significant proficiency in English Language.  To assist in developing the degree  program, the Department of Foreign Languages decided to help in a form of issuing the multilingual (Greek/Roman/German/English/French) classroom dictionary of the cross curriculum terminology.   I, as an editor, had to deal with subject area specialists. At first, there was a lot of resistance ( "I am teaching Chemistry; it's the linguist's job", or "You, theorists, are so far from real life..."), but in the process, through debates and discussion of various approaches, in which our students were included, we reached consesus that dictionaries, which were compliled by linguists, who were not specialists in the specific "knowledge" field, might be misleading, and, in the end, detrimental for somebody's life. Our students became our front-line editors. Creating the dictionary helped _all of us_ to walk in each other's shoes and expend our knowledge.
   
  Would this be the example of the knowledge which was referred to?
   
  There is no doubt in my mind that including students into the thought process, into the meaningful reading, far exceeds 
  the volume of reading.
   
  Tatyana Exum
  SpEd Instructor
  Lake City Correctional Facility
  Lake City
   
   
   
    
   
   
   

   
  > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 06:59:38 -0500
  > From: Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu
  > To: professionaldevelopment at nifl.gov
  > Subject: When are colleagues condescending?
  > 
  > Steve and all
  > 
  > You offer a solution - or a means towards - assisting students in learning more and gaining inspiration. It's an interesting observation. However, to posit that it is *the* solution, to this reader, feels exactly like what "condescending" feels like.
  > 
  > You've offered a solution, an interesting one, worth consideration. But there are others. For me, discussion and dialogue come screeching to a halt when a discussant offers just the one option. Where else can a conversation go?
  > 
  > Janet Isserlis
  > 
  > 
  > -----Original Message-----
  > From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Steve Kaufmann
  > Sent: Wed 11/4/2009 2:03 AM
  > To: Catherine B. King; The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
  > Subject: [PD 4135] Re: When are teachers condescending?
  > 
  > I have the feeling that the reason many students appear to Catherine to be "
  > "deficient, uncritical, insufficiently inspired" in dealing with academic
  > issues, is that they have not read very much. The solution is to
  > encourage them
  > to read more and increase their knowledge. Without this knowledge I do not
  > believe that a language teacher can teach them "critical thinking".
  > 
  > Steve Kaufmann
  > 604-922-8551
  > <http://www.lingq.com/?referral=steve>
  > <http://www.lingq.com/?referral=steve>
  > 
  > 
  > <http://www.google.com/search?q=to%20>
  > 


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