February 22, 2009

Are we willing to roll up our sleeves?

Robert Fried says…

[I]f what we seek is a learning partnership with students, we cannot remain aloof from them or be seen as demanding their respect as a matter of right. Nor can we be viewed as seeking to “buy them off” by offering them a light workload in exchange for minimal compliance and decent behavior on their part. . . . We have to earn their respect . . . by being willing to roll up our sleeves as learners ourselves and to engage them in the pursuit of knowledge worth knowing, of skills worth gaining. [The Game of School, p. 117]

Feb 22, 2009 3:00:00 AM | Quotes, Teaching and Learning

1 Comment

1.

I love this comment because I feel that we have decided (and I can see the logic in this) that is safer to teach at a distance. But in order for real learning - transformative learning- we have to get close enough to those we aim to teach to hear their "heartbeat" as they engage with the material. It is this potential "messiness" that we fear.

Posted by: Denice Ross Haynes | February 24, 2009 at 02:14 PM

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