the encouragement lounge: To study is to co-create

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

To study is to co-create

"To study is not to consume ideas, but to create and co-create them."

-- Paulo Freire

How do you co-create ideas with your classmates? With your teachers?

A more traditional view of education is that teachers teach and students learn. Contemporary and progressive thinkers including Freire, Jane Vella, Stephen Brookfield, Parker Palmer and Kenneth Gergen believe that knowledge is co-created through dialog.

Think of an idea that emerged in dialog with a friend or classmate. When I do this, I get this sense of the energy between us -- the "stuff" that we create together. I love this notion. It seems almost magical to me, the knowledge that is created between us.

Cheering you on!

Harriet

1 comment:

AnonymousNovember 11, 2009 at 11:29 AM
What a great post Harriet - these folks' ideas about constructing knowledge in relationship with others (versus filling empty heads with it) really define my work as a teacher. Love it! ~Melanie
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Working adult students, on my mind...

I hope this blog will be helpful to friends and others involved in a variety of endeavors. However, I created the blog with students in mind and continue to develop it with that specific group as my focus.

I believe that with the increase in evening, weekend, and low-residency programs, students are working more and more in isolation. If we were all full-time students on campus, we would have the informal support that comes with being able to go down the hall and talk with a colleague, etc. But instead, we are working late nights and weekends at home in front of the laptop.

With that in mind, I hope the encouragement lounge provides brief moments of respite and energizing connection. This does not at all replace valuable face-to-face contact. Many aspects of the academic journey can only be addressed via in-depth conversations with colleagues and teachers. And I would always rather sit down and talk with someone than to communicate online. Nonetheless, my aim is to give you one more channel for quick hits of support.