The Pedagogy Puzzle

This is the seventh and final post in the series that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education. Here is a link to the first post that also serves as an introduction to the series. Each post contains a link to the next post. Each text and classroom discussion brought forth many ideas - not always connected and sometimes even at odds with each other! Thus, the posts in this series might lack the comfort of coherence. Think of the points as scattered seeds of thought... As always, try to  make connections between the points and your own experiences.  Ask yourself if (or how) you see these points playing out in the world around you today . The assigned text was Chapter 12 - Thinking in Education  from the book Democracy and Education  by Dewey. The chapter is freely available online and can be found here .

This is the sixth in a series of posts that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education. Here is a link to the first post that also serves as an introduction to the series. Each post contains a link to the next post. Each text and classroom discussion brought forth many ideas - not always connected and sometimes even at odds with each other! Thus, the posts in this series might lack the comfort of coherence. Think of the points as scattered seeds of thought...

This is the fifth in a series of short posts that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education. Here is a link to the first post that also serves as an introduction to the series. Each post contains a link to the next post. As always, try to make connections between the points and your own experiences. Ask yourself if (or how) you see these points playing out in the world around you today . Each text and classroom discussion brought forth many ideas - not always connected and sometimes even at odds with each other! Thus, the posts in this series might lack the comfort of coherence. Think of the points as scattered seeds of thought... For this classroom session, the assigned text was The Child and the Curriculum  by Dewey. The version that we used in the course is freely available online and can be found here . The child lives in a narrow, personal world ; the curriculum is infinite and impersonal . The child...

This is the fourth in a series of short posts that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education. Here is a link to the first post that also serves as an introduction to the series. Each post contains a link to the next post. As always, try to make connections between the points and your past and current experiences in life. Ask yourself if (or how) you see these points playing out in the world around you today . Each text and classroom discussion brought forth many ideas - not always connected and sometimes even at odds with each other! Thus, the posts in this series might lack the comfort of coherence. Think of the points as scattered seeds of thought... For this classroom session, the assigned text was  Emile  by Rousseau. The reading is freely available online and can be found here . Personally, this was one of the texts that raised points on learning-teaching-education which I often didn't agree with. However, I be...

This is the third in a series of posts that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education.  Here is a link to the first post  that also serves as an introduction to the series. Each post contains a link to the next post. Once again, I urge you to go beyond the words written here. Try to make connections between the points and your past and current experiences in life. Ask yourself if (or how) you see these points playing out in the world around you today . For these classroom sessions, the assigned text was  Meno  by Plato. The reading is freely available online and can be found here . Learning Knowledge represents beliefs that you can confidently act upon. If you know that you don't know, then you can investigate . However, if you think you know it all, then there is nothing that drives you to investigate or question.

This is the second in a series of posts that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education. Here is a link to the first post that also serves as an introduction to the series. Based on conversations that I had with people who read the first post, I see value in stating something here. It would be easy to go through the points and nod along with what is being said. In fact, some of them are likely to seem like common sense! I urge you to go beyond the words written here. Try to make connections between the points and your past and current experiences in life. Ask yourself if (or how) you see these points playing out in the world around you today . For this classroom session, the assigned text was  Apology  (also known as The Death of Socrates) by Plato. The reading is freely available online. The version that we read for the class can be found here . Learning Different types of knowledge and skills are useful depend...

This is the first in a series of posts that stem from readings and classroom discussions in the course EDU S105 Philosophy of Education. I completed the course during the first semester of my master's programme. The course had 14 students leading to a seminar style classroom environment in which Professor Catherine Elgin encouraged us to grapple with ideas through questions and dialogue. I have attempted to classify my thoughts under the interconnected themes of the blog - learning, teaching and education. The post is short and  I encourage you to make connections between the points raised here and your past and current experiences . For the first classroom session, there were no assigned readings/texts. Learning People in cultures with no written language have excellent memories. So, even something as powerful as literacy involves a trade-off of lesser memory power. By talking with people who disagree with us , we extend our knowledge and viewpoints . Today, ...