One of the best things about living here, and about not working full time, not having a jam-packed calendar of social events and, yes, not having to do my own laundry, is that I feel like I have had the time to recapture my own learning. For years, school and work have provided enough “required” learning tasks and mental challenge that most of my reading has been crappy romance novels or other similar “brain candy” – things read for sheer entertainment value rather than knowledge gain.
I brought an ambitious fifteen books on education theory, ranging from William James to bell hooks to Diane Ravich. I initially envisioned a blitz of reading in the first few months here, intense reflection during that brief time and then a return to my usual hectic work and social schedule with, of course, my life all figured out. The reality of my study has been much more meaningful, although I am just beginning to see where the threads may lead.
To date, I’ve slowly read and absorbed a critique of No Child Left Behind and testing (the author encourages curriculum reform as the answer), a “teachers will save them” proscription for running classrooms like well ordered machines and ensuring not a minute is wasted in the pursuit of college readiness, a self-congratulatory home school father’s account of his freewheeling educational approach, a psychologically-based examination of teaching and learning strategies, and I’m halfway through a radical analysis of racism and sexism in schooling. Added to this, I’ve been teaching in a school that is, in all the ways that matter, facing exactly the same issues as American schools, despite being in a purportedly “third world” country.
My core questions up leaving PBHA: I have come to believe that America
I still don’t know the answer to these questions. And, if anything, I’m coming to see how circumstantial the life choices we make are. But my deeply held belief this morning is that, whatever the solution, and whatever my involvement, it needs to help people to recapture their delight in learning.
In preparation for teaching my new students about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the point where the previous teacher left off last term), and in an attempt to bolster my (embarrassing) lack of knowledge about world history, I began reading up on colonialism and the world wars in a few donated text books. Then I got absorbed and starting reading alternate interpretations. Nathaniel mocked gently; here I was, sitting on the khonde with a whole afternoon of potential leisure stretching in front of me and a giant history tome on my lap. It has been a long time since I have had the mental capacity or the desire to engage in this kind of totally self-directed learning. And, of course, my retention is broader, my analysis sharper and my critical questioning deeper due to the intrinsic motivation leading to my study.
At school, some of the kids come up with lists of vocabulary words they want explained during the break – eager to expand their knowledge of literature and the English language – but too many have the “I’m just sitting here because I have to” attitude that traditional classrooms seem to engender the world over. Self-congratulations aside, I was compelled by the home school tales of self-direction leading to genuine curiosity, deep immersion in interesting subject matter and the development of an integrated understanding of the world.
Unfortunately, from my current vantage point, it seems like it is impossible to bring together the worlds of public schooling and deep but informal learning, at least in any sort of systemic fashion. And I’m loving teaching again, but with each occasional encounter with nonprofit training for adults here in
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