Two-Column Notes

Date:

Name: Jamie Fletcher

Class/Subject:
EDTL 6940

6/6
Topic or Chapter
Education- A Forgotten Art
Grzegorz Mazurkiewicz
Page #

14

The Text Says

Notes (key concepts, direct quotes, etc.)
if it is possible to change peoples
perceptions of the world then this means
that it is possible to change the world.

15

We have a chance to create a better

world, however we need to learn how to
use that chance.

16-17

Teachers understanding of their role in

school.
State employee (implementation of
rules and regulations)
Highly specialized professional (pass
on carefully organized knowledge)
Social workers (support those who
are struggling)
Friends
Supervisors

I Say
My notes, commentary
Both of these quotes focus on changing the
world and that we if we can all just change the
way we think, we might actually be able to do
something crazy like change the world. Steve
Jobs said the people who are crazy enough to
think they can change the world are the ones
who do and I agree. If we teach in schools
that students can change the world, they just
might do it.
This is one of the main problems I see in
schools. Teachers arent sure who they are
supposed to be. You see the teachers that act
like they are best friends with students but the
students dont respect the teacher and
therefore dont see the importance of learning,
you see the social worker who spends all of
their time focused on the lives of students
outside of the classroom, you see the teacher
that believes that everything they speak is the
ultimate truth because they are an expert in
their field and students are to regurgitate
everything he or she says without questions
and then you see the teacher so focused on

17

when something is the most important

to teach, teachers use their traditional
teaching tools that employ passing on
information, not working with it, that
promote student discipline and the ability
to replicate and not passion and
creativity.

17

Another obstacle in reforming education

is a serious deficit in the operation of
democracy in school and assumptions
about structure and the sources of power
that determine interactions between and
among people (teachers and students and
students among themselves). Schools
operate as authoritarian institutions,
treating students and parents as materials
rather than partners.

17
It is impossible to prepare citizens for
democratic societies in institutions that
are not democratic
23

The starting point for inspiring an

authentic education is real experience.

discipline that the whole education process is

disruptive. Is there are a fine line between all
of these? Are we supposed to be a little but of
this and a little bit of that? Which teacher do
our building principals want us to be?
This reminds me a lot about test preparation in
schools. When it was OGT time, you saw
teachers standing at the front of the room
throwing out important people, facts and
events, for two weeks without any type of
activity where students worked with the
material.
According to this quote, schools arent
democratic at all and in some ways I agree
with this. Teachers are told what to teach,
however they arent told how to teach. The
teacher has the autonomy to teach however
they choose and they can create a democratic
classroom by allowing the students to decide
how they would like to learn.

This is a pretty valid argument. Practice what

you preach?

As far as Im concerned, the best way to learn

is through experiences. In science you do
experiments to see first-hand how certain laws
work or why experiments fail or succeed. Why

24

Connectio
ns to
previous
reading
(s)

should other subjects like history or English not

be taught in the same way? Authentic learning
draws on these experiences to make
connections and make learning relevant for
students.
Implementation of expeditionary
If expeditionary learning does all of those
teaching and learning, however, allows us things, why is there even a question about
to radically change the context of the
whether or not it should be implemented in
educational process in order to add
school? People are so quick to say no to new
students involvement and connect it to
types of learning because it isnt the way it has
the external world. Expeditionary learning always been done or they dont have enough
supports personal, emotional and
time in the year but I think that expeditionary
cognitive development, the development
learning is exactly the direction schools need
of needs and interests, the integration of
to move towards. The whole purpose of school
knowledge and skills from different
field trips is expeditionary learning so why not
subjects, and an increase of group work
focus on making those trips more about
skills.
education and less about a free day from the
classroom.
This article discussing the importance of expeditionary learning and in the Bog child, Fergus
learns a lot by working with the archeologists. Fergus didnt read out of a textbook about
bogs but instead went with them to learn more and explore which is what made it
interesting to him. It is experience that taught him more than anything else.