A discussion about collaboration rather than control would be great.
Alfie Kohn's latest book, Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community
(1996) challenges us by suggesting that "our first question . . . should
not be 'How can we make them do what we want?' but rather 'What do they
require in order to flourish, and how can we provide these things?' . . .
. nourishing students's natural curiosity, helping them develop their
problem-solving abilities and experience a sense of community."
We are in the process of taking teachers through experiences that do this
in our Integrated Learning master's program . . . . When they take their
students through similar experiences, the results are amazing. Kids are
really turned on and learning is intense. Works with people of all ages.
The results of cooperation/collaboration bring so much more depth and
breadth to any project or undertaking, especially when the group has a
great diversity of people with different persectives who are not afraid to
express how they really feel about things . . . brings so much more
understanding and appreciation of the value of different ways of thinking
about something, different beliefs, and varied pathways with reasoning
behind all of them. What a tremendous learning community . . . risk-free
. . .creative . . . dedicated . . . thoroughly absorbing . . . emotionally
supportive . . . non-hierarchical . . . enthusiastic . . . and so much
more. Everyone is part of the flow . . . .
Would be neat to have this kind of collaboration spread on a university
level. . . and everywhere . . . intrinsically motivated . . . need more
involved in this paradigm shift.
June
June Main, Ph.D.
jmain@junix.ju.edu
Associate Professor of Education
Director, Educational Technology Lab
Coordinator, Masters in Integrated Learning with
Educational Technology
We invite you to visit our homepage
http://junix.ju.edu/HomePages/MAT/index.html
Jacksonville University
2800 University Boulevard N.
Jacksonville, FL 32211
--jmain@junix.ju.edu (June Main)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>