kitchen table math, the sequel: the knowledge deficit

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

the knowledge deficit

I'd been wondering what Bill Ayers thinks about knowledge.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not sure I know about what he knows because I refuse to read anything that long, organized in three paragraphs.

Maybe he hasn't learned about them yet?????

July 1, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Anonymous said...

Well, you have to work your way through the strawmen and snarky ad homs.

SusanS

July 1, 2008 at 4:48 PM
Anonymous said...

no, you don't.
it's pretty clear from the first line.
he's against it.

July 2, 2008 at 9:31 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

I've spent some time skimming his posts...

It's discouraging, to put it mildly. He never seems to mention actual students, knowledge, or teaching.

At Amazon, you can "Look Inside" his book on being a teacher. While the book has children in it, they seem to be spending a very large amount of time being helped to feel better about the fact that they aren't white.

On the first page he's playing "I Spy" with some five-year old African American children. He says "I spy something red with the letters S-T-O-P on it."

Then he critiques the question: "My choices tend to be the easiest ones, and when too self-consciously geared toward "learning," the most boring as well."

This objection notwithstanding, 7 of the kids "cry out" the answer in unison -- while I, the reader, cry out, "Where is the editor on this thing?" Is "I spy something red" a bad question, because "self-consciously geared toward learning," or a good question because 7 voices cry out the answer in unison?

Who knows?

Next it's a child's turn to play:

A big, brown truck pulled up to the stop sign opposite us. Darlene eagerly offered the next challenge: "I spy something brown." Kelyn's eyes lit up and a broad smile crossed his face. He sat up as tall as he could, and with his right hand spread-fingered and flat on his chest and his left hand pulling excitedly on his cheek, he shouted, "Hey! That's me! That's me!"

No one sensed anything peculiar or taboo or funny in Kelyn's response. After all, Darlene had asked for something brown, and Kelyn is brown. But for me there was something more. In that classroom, we had spent a lot of energy on self-respect and affirmation and on exploring differences. Kelyn's father was active in the civil rights movement and his parents were conscious of developing self-esteem in their children. Kelyn was expressing some of that energy, and so he responded with gusto."

etc.

The book is classic whole-childism.

At one point he writes an extended passage on a "ME curriculum for twelve-year-olds."

His concept of social justice seems to be entirely therapeutic.

On the plus side, he thinks "critical thinking" curricula are bunk.

July 3, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Anonymous said...

When you ask a question and every child in the room knows the answer, you've wasted time. The kids are in their comfort zone and you aren't teaching them anything new. Similarly if nobody knows the answer the kids are being asked something way outside their ZPD so you are once again wasting time. My take would be that you want about half to have the answer, then you know you're in the ZPD.

I often think that the great divide is poorly defined along political lines or pedagogy 'favorites'. The real divide is between folks who are dominated by emotion and those who are dominated by reason/logic. It's a Dr. McCoy and Spock sort of split.

This writing is from someone on the emotional extreme. He wants everybody to feel good all the time. Reason says that this is not learning anymore than bringing all the kids to a candy store is.

I remember once, a young girl said to me, "Mr. B you make my head explode!" I remember thinking at the time, YESSSSS, now we're cookin'.

July 3, 2008 at 11:06 AM

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