NP Dialects in Education (was SLSL language)

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

--- Malignd <malignd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Whatever he's calling himself these days quoting
> Dewey:
> 
> <<Responsibility for selecting objective conditions
> carries with it, then, the responsibility for
> understanding the needs and capacities of the
> individuals who are learning at a given time. It is
> not enough that certain materials and methods have
> proved effective with other individuals at other
> times.>>
> 
> This shouldn't be understood, except in error, as a
> call for new and different for the sake of new and
> different.  One recalls the New Math.  

I don't know what "new math" has to do with it, but
anyone that advances,  advocates,  employs,  a
teaching method or a cirriculum merely because it is
new and different should not be in the business of
advancing new ideas or teaching anyone anything.  

Anything which can be called a study, be it
arithmetic, history, geography, natural sciences, must
be derived from material which at the outset fall
within the scope of ordinary life experience. In this
respect the newer eduational practices and theories
(and the unity of theory and practice is essential)
contrast sharply with procedures which start with
facts and truths that are outside the range of the
experience of those taught, and which, therefore, have
the problem of discovering ways and means of bringing
them within experience. 

Undoubtably one chief cause for the great sucess of
the methods that Robert has described (in theory and
practice) has been its solid foundation in the
experience of the students. What you are advanceing,
MalignD, is failed policy. What Charles is advocating
is racist policy. What Robert is talking about are the
sucessful methods that are solidly contructed on sound
theoretical foundations. These methods have been
proven in classrooms. Only after  bringing the
material for learning from the experience of the
students can we begin  development from that
experience and into a fuller and richer and yes even a
more organized form, and yes, into a form that
gradually approximates that in which the
subject-matter is presented to the skilled, mature
individual. 
We begin, always, with the experiences that learners
already have and with the experiences and the
capacities that have been developed by their
experiences.  This is the starting point for further
learning. Proscription has no place in our classrooms.

Prescription has a limited use. This is, as Robert
said, basic stuff. 




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