education

Children as Participants and Teachers as a Researchers “We must deconstruct how we value children’s way of learning, as well as their ways of expressing what they are learning. We must think about the conditions that invite children to use a multitude of ways to express their knowledge, their thoughts, and their questions. Lastly, when […]

The Image of the Educator A social-constructivist perspective pushes educators to imagine children not only in terms of what they know, but also in terms of how they think, feel, respond, and act, as well as why they think and act in a particular way. Seeing children through the social-cultural lens necessitates an on going

Children as Co-construction of Knowledge and Identity A new perspective of the child has been promoted by socio-cultural perspectives, which took the idea of children as meaning makers further by proposing that what the child brings into the conversation is a significant attempt to make meaning within a particular history, culture, language, and symbol systems.

Children as meaning makers and theory builders With the rise of constructivist theories the child has been conceived in more active terminologies. For example, children are considered active seekers of meaning, wanting to explore, study, and understand the world around them. It was Piaget who originally studied children as theory builders in a systematic and

Changing Conceptions of the Child: From a Passive Recipient of Knowledge to a Valued Participant in Knowledge Construction One dominant conception of childhood is that of the child as an “incomplete adult” (Moss & Petrie, 2002). Historically children have been thought of as empty vessels to be filled by knowledge and culture. This view of

What is our role as educators in contributing to the development of the childs identity as a learner, a social agent, and a participant in our society? Introduction How we view young children – who they are within a social-cultural context and who they are as learners within educational spaces – influences our expectations of

Forging Alliances with Families We must forge strong alliances with the families of our children. Imagine the school as an enormous hot air balloon. The hot air balloon is on the ground when the parents bring their children in the morning. Some parents think the balloon is going to rise up and fly around during

Redefining Roles We need to define the role of the adult, not as a transmitter but as a creator of relationships — relationships not only between people but also between things, between thoughts, with the environ- ment. It’s like we need to create a typical New York City traffic jam in the school. We teachers

Discovering a New Way of Observing Observing in this way offers tremendous benefits. It requires a shift in the role of the teacher from an emphasis of teaching to an emphasis on learning, teachers learning about themselves as teachers as well as teachers learning about children. This is a Exchange 3/94 self-learning that takes place

Growing Comfortable with the Unknown School is not at all like billiards. When you play billiards you push the ball with a certain force and it hits the table and bounces off; there’s a definite way the ball will go, depending on force and direction. Children are not at all like this, predictable. But sometimes