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:

  1. 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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