"Introduction to Constructivism"

Taken from a demonstration I gave at NWP summer institute:

 “In the art of living, man is both the artist and the object of his art;

he is the sculptor and the marble; the physician and the patient.”

-Erich Fromm

            Students are being terribly mis-trained about the nature of knowledge, about the way that we learn, and about the connections that exist between all things that can be known, and they are being mislead by their own educational system. I have had students remark that I was drifting from my subject matter during my occasional forays into science, social studies and mathematics, and I expected those comments to some degree. I realized there was a problem when a student appealed to me in my English class: “Why are we reading so much? This is English class!”

            The general education that students receive in public school creates a false impression of the world being divided-up by subject when there are no such walls in the real world. Students are taught to think linearly, inside several different boxes, and to never let thoughts from one box interfere with those of other compartments.  A superior education is both broad and deep. It enables students to view the world in an objective, quantifiable way as well as with a subjective and philosophical eye. The late Dr. Philip Phenix, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Education at the Teachers College of Columbia University once summed up a person of superior education as (1964):

            

“[being]  skilled in the use of speech, symbol, and gesture, factually well informed, capable of creating and appreciating objects of esthetic significance, endowed with a rich and disciplined life in relation to self and others, able to make wise decisions and to judge between right and wrong, and possessed of an integral outlook. These are the aims of general education for the development of whole persons.” (Phenix, 1964)

             So what does this have to do with writing? In Write for Insight: Empowering Content Area Learning, Grades 6-12, is says “If students are to make knowledge their own…they must struggle with the details, wrestle with the facts, and rework raw information and dimly understood concepts into language they can communicate to someone else.” (Strong, 2006)

            If we want students to really learn information, and not regurgitate it, they must interact with it, through writing, and through communities of learning where they can teach what they have discovered to others.