Replying to LO30200 --
At writes in LO30200:
> What should a Learning Environment (LE) involve and how do we create it?
> I think that before we go into this, there is a fundamental choice to be made
> since it determines the nature of the LE immensely. The choice is this:-
> Should the learner self-organise (evolve) spontaneously in terms of
> what the LE makes available OR should the LE prescribe and
> audit the progress of the learner?
At, this sounds like LEM (Law of the Excluded Middle) thinking. Is there
room for a both-and choice in this case?
> This choice depends on the paradigm with which we look at all life -- it
> is evolution or it is an industry -- the learner is a living being within
> society or the learner is the specified product of an educational system
> -- the learner is autonomous or the learner is passive. I myself always
> had chosen and will choose self-organisation while resisting prescribed
> production.
One of the most interesting printed works I've read recently was "The Wild
Within" by Paul Rezendes. He teaches people the practice (art? craft?
skill?) of tracking animals in the wilderness -- not to kill or capture,
but to learn (hence the title). One of the interesting things about his
teaching practice is the interplay between giving rein to the students'
creativity, and instructing them carefully in exactly what to do (now one,
now the other).
At, if I were to trek with you in your deserts in midsummer, how much
"rope" would you give me, and how much would you bring me up short before
I learned a lesson the hard way?
In love of/through learning,
Don
--Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org>
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