Like any educator, I am following (or at least trying to follow) the major parties` positions on K-12 education. While those particular bones have plenty of meat, and some significant differences between them, there is one underlying truth to which both subscribe. Rs and Ds alike adhere to the same principle that there exists a body of knowledge, of "facts", which students should acquire. Much of the disputation in K - 12 education revolves around this body of knowledge, and the problem is that this view is wrong.
A good example is of course slavery. We have positions from slavery in the US didn`t exist to it did, it was bad to it was good, it was benign to it was indescribably evil and of course from it cased a civil war to it didn`t.
Any and all of these statements rest on the same plinth, that something is a "fact" and this is what I want to challenge. The fact-ers assert that A is true, demonstrably true, consistently true, and true over infinite time. I would argue that A is true now based on what we know now, based on who is describing A and how s/he is doing so, and that A can change over time, for example as we acquire more information or different understandings-
When teaching HS literature, I use to welcome students with a couple of sets of questions. The first was to ask if the knew what "hot" meant and if they could define it for me. Inevitably, I would hear 90 or 100 degrees so I would ask about Phoenix or Death Valley. Then I would hear 1000 degrees, so I would ask about welding or the sun. Then when they spoke about the sun, I would mention planet KELT-9B.
The point is of course that "hot" is not a fact, but a term relative to the user and his/her experiences and needs when choosing the term.
The second was to ask students to write down one word for "apple". Most commonly I would hear red, sometimes green. Occasionally, it would be sweet, crisp or juicy, and every now and then iphone. None would be even close to the botanist / horticulturalist / orchardist definitions I would then share. Here, all could agree on what an apple is, and all could see and even agree with different definitions, but the zone of commonality amongst the definitions was surprisingly small.
My knockout punch as it were was the matter of seconds and meters. Students would by now agree that our system of time (description, measurement, use) is based on the second and that different users would mean different things with this term. I would then share the news that the second has been re-defined several times and is about to be re-defined again (see below), as is the basis of our system of measure of length the meter.
The point is that knowledge is both arbitrary and ephemeral and should be treated as such. Textbooks are the product of editorial choices, and are either too qucikly produced so likely to contain errors, or take so long to produce that knowledge has changed and so likely to contain errors.
There is a third point, that knowledge is political (is Taiwan a country? is MLK Day a holiday?) and/or moral, but those discussions can easily sidetrack and I`d like to keep eyes on the prize.
As "facts" can and do change, a defined content posture is of necessity flawed, and this is where Ds and Rs are wrong.Your tomarto is my tomayto, your potarto my potatyo and your meat my poison. All should instead accept that the stuff on which education is built is a means to an end and not the end in itself. What matters is not what you now, but what kind of person you are and the names of the presidents or the capitals of the states do little to help here.
**Please leave your comments and questions below*
Further reading
Researchers Are One Step Closer To Redefining The Second NPR
Redefining the Second The New Yorker
Countdown to the SI Redefinition: Meter National Physics Laboratory UK
Scientists Are About to Redefine the Kilogram and Shake Up Our System of Measures The Smithsonian
No comments :
Post a Comment