I heart knowledge

Today in my educational psychology class we were discussing constructivism versus direct instruction. This one guy in our class had actually gone to a sort of constructivist middle school, and was telling us about this "history" project they had done. In small groups, they created their own civilizations, produced "artifacts" that would have emanated from such a civilization, then BURIED the artifacts in some kind of artificial "archaeological site" in their classroom. I'm thinking sandbox? Then the other groups took turns digging up the artifacts and trying to determine the nature of the civilization.

Now, I don't know about you, but I really don't think I would have cared to learn about some made-up civilization plucked out of the air by the girl across the room who always wore those annoyingly large scrunchies. I think I would rather have liked to learn about civilizations that actually existed, even though, realistically, I could not have gone traipsing into the desert to find the shards of pottery and the discarded waste products of that society. At least we'd be keeping it real, as it were. Also, I'm wondering what skills were derived from this exercise? Digging?

Anyway, this guy was really supportive of his old school, and is now sending his own child to one like it. When others, including me, tried to argue against various aspects of constructivism, he always shot back with the fact that it worked for him. He and this other guy started talking about how we, as graduate students, had been "good at school" so, naturally we would support "traditional schooling." They said that everyone tended to "teach how he/she was taught." I have heard this argument several times before. Each time, the speaker exhorts us to "learn to step out of the mindset of our own experience."

The question I pose to them is this: what the hell are you talking about? I went to a public school. My teachers lectured. We didn't do group projects. We didn't really do any projects, except a big research project in 10th grade. And yes, mine did involve making paleolithic tools out of obsidian volcanic rock. That's hard, by the way. But mostly we listened, and we read, and we wrote. We sometimes talked about these things, but not all the time. We had quizzes on the reading. We had to do endless DBQ's and our history tests left our hands literally aching, if we had done well. We had many tests, and some of those were (oh no, don't say it) scan-tron. School could be boring, and difficult, and long. And what came of all this? Well, let's see. I went to college, I did well, I graduated, I got a job, I did well, I got another job, I did well, I went back to school. In reality I am not an incredible genius, even though I tell people that I am (actually, I might be). The fact is that I am well-educated. And many of my classmates are also well-educated. And I don't see why we have to abandon all those methods of instruction that obviously worked for us just because now we're talking about black and Hispanic kids from the city instead of white kids from the suburbs. Especially since these things are working at schools like MATCH, and KIPP, and North Star. Speaking of MATCH, the MCAS results from last year came back. MATCH ranked 18th in the state in English scores and 4th in the state for math.

Wait, did you just say that MATCH came in fifth in math? Oh, oh wait, I'm sorry, you said fourth. And was that for the city? Oh, really? For the state? I see. Funny it worked out that way, since the kids didn't get to do any projects. I mean, I think they actually learned math instead of building rowboats out of popsicle sticks to illustrate what numbers really are. No one thought they had a chance.

I'm sorry. Sometimes I just can't keep all the sassiness inside. Anyway, I was going to talk about the class that is my savior, the perfect contrast. It's what our department calls a "content course," which is amusing, since it implies that the other courses have no content. It's a world history survey class up to 1500, designed for the New York state mandate for two years of world history education in 9th and 10th grade. Apparently most new social studies teachers get hired for world history teaching posts because the older social studies teachers don't know anything about world history. It's quite a lot of content knowledge, but the idea it all sort of molds is that human societies throughout thousands of years have been so incredibly similar that it's weird. You find all kinds of cool parallels between civilizations and societies that were completely isolated from one another.

My professor is a real history professor from the real university I attend. He specializes in modern Islam and European colonialism in the Middle East. He wears bow-ties, tells us we're wrong, criticizes us when we stay stupid things, and generally emits an air of effortless superiority. It's absolutely awesome. Finally, someone who values knowledge, who doesn't believe it's just a useless jumble of unrelated baubles. He's brilliant, and it's obvious that he's brilliant because he knows so much. It's not that he's used "transfer skills" from critical thinking projects he did as a kid. No. He studied for god knows how long in libraries across America, the Middle East, and Europe. He learned other languages and lived in other cultures, and he just knows his shit. Today he gave a narrative of the last few years in American life that was brief but so incisive I felt I would tear up. I hate that my school doesn't think this type of intellectualism is worth anything. The guy in my class who was so pro-constructivism, he said "our schools produce kids who are good at school." First off, most of them don't. Second, what is wrong with that? This professor could be doing a million billion different things if he weren't teaching. In fact, he consults with law enforcement about the increasingly radicalized cultures of the Islamic diaspora! Contrast the utility of that with whatever it is you learn when you make a model space station out of plastic pipes and rubber tubing and you'll see what I mean.

Well, it's bedtime for me. Last night I dreamt my apartment was filled with pink, newborn mice that looked like maggots. They were everywhere. My roommate and I kept stepping on them. It was all because we left so many dirty dishes in the sink. I think they're still there, unless she washed them.