Brain, Education, and Inquiry - Fall, 2010: Session 3

Professor, you suggested last week that structure, rather than just something society imposed on education, was maybe something that was itself a product of the education system. That its the structured education that conditions us to want or need a society and consequently an education system dominated by order and boundaries. I strongly disagree that the desire for structure and boundaries comes from the design of the modern education system; it is simply so much older than that. Part of my thesis project, actually (in English) has to do with religion, ancient and modern, is designed with this desire in the forefront. The opening chapters of the Bible depict the incident in the Garden of Eden, in which the punishment for disobedience is the removal of the protective walls, a loss of the boundaries meant to keep the good in and the bad out. This is itself a certain kind of societal teaching, imprinting on people at an early age the importance of obedience and the perils of losing the structure you started with. Though a different kind of education, in this case religious, perpetuates structure, the motivations behind such stories come, I believe, from an innate desire to have something to contain the chaos. A world without rules is something we resist from our very core, both from fear and because, as inherently finite, limited beings, we want our world to be more like us so that we have a place in it. (I am taking such religious texts as the product of devout societies, not the literal word of God- if this is something you disagree with, ignore this argument). 

If you look at structure as we've been discussing it as boundaries, it starts to look even more like something we seek and in some ways need just as human beings, not as products of a system that tells us we do. Parenting advice always talks about how both your toddlers and your teenagers ( ;) ) will aim to "push the limits" to "figure out where the boundaries are." As a child, you defy your parents *wanting* them sometimes to say no, to clarify where your place is in the world. We don't want to be floating in infinity with no ground beneath us.

The ambiguous figures exercise for me was very thought provoking. Sensory input, experience and previously constructed associations help craft ones constructions of objects, people and the world at large.

Not only sensory input but other associations your brain makes with that specific input and how it carries that input association to another level will give you even more information and potential understanding/ knowledge/something learned. The more associations you make allows you to take that construction and extend it across the spectrum to include a lot more thoughts and ideas.

If you limit yourself to just the input or one association then it would be limited as compared to allowing yourself or your brain to make multiple associations and extend it even higher then the picture itself gets bigger and you see more. If a person’s brain is able to make multiple associations or constructions within a given period of time when viewing a particular figure, object, does that translate to the person being more tolerant and flexible with perceiving, listening, understanding and even seeing other peoples viewpoint or perspectives on constructions of the like?

Perhaps it is most likely so, because if you are blinded or narrow in scope your focus is limited. You don’t see what is in the periphery beyond a given construction. However if you include a whole panoramic view, you may see other things that are influencing the construction, perhaps even things that you didn’t see included initially.

As you recruit more things in a construction, you get a more complete picture and the more concepts you have for what is out there. Therefore you would be able to incorporate that into your thoughts, reaction and behavior towards that given construction.

Society and culture tends to be homogenous and provides us with previously constructed stories and ideas based on certain collective perspectives utilized during a specific time period. As time progresses these ideas may remain concrete, become mended, improved, changed all together and developed.

Is it impossible to know what reality is if our understandings are constantly changing and new constructions are evolving?

What unconscious understandings are interacting with our conscious constructions which ultimately shapes our view of the world? Can you train your unconscious? (Would that be a good thing?)

Imagine if all classes were structured in the same way as this class. At first, this made me slightly uncomfortable and nervous because I am someone who secretly likes knowing exactly what’s expected of me in a class and a specific rubric for what I have to do to get a good grade. As much as I theoretically oppose structure, I actually desire it (like a safety blanket). Even though this class does not have a rigid structure, there are still expectations for the level of interaction and self-exploration on which we will be ultimately graded. Turns out, there is a fairly specific structure to this class. The difference is, the structure is not oppressively exhausting. The professor acts as a facilitator, gently steering the conversation and asking thought-provoking questions, rather than merely transferring information to us to memorize and then testing us on the material that was never actually put into practice or absorbed. In this transfer model of teaching, the key step in the learning process is missing. How could the students be expected to use the material that they are being taught in real life if they never learn how to apply it? The role of the teacher is key to the experience of the student and, ultimately, how they are able to retain and apply what they learn to contribute to society. Imagine if the teacher were an extension of their student; he/she could play many roles in the classroom-- motivator, challenger, critic, brainstormer, manager, and leader—in order to facilitate learning for longevity and application rather than regurgitation.

There were several comments made and thoughts shared in class that left me thinking…We were discussing different learning styles and the practicality (or impracticality) of a teacher being able to cater to those styles found within its students. In my opinion, not only is it practical, but necessary. I would even dare to say that if a teacher fails to acknowledge the diversity of their students than they fail to teach [effectively]. The teacher should base their role on how they need to challenge their students and increase the skills their students need to be successful learners. A part of learning is accepting or should I say, acknowledging difference. It is essential for students to be aware of this difference and see a variety of perspectives or approaches to learning. Yes, it is a difficult and often overwhelming task for teachers, but not an impossible one. Figuring out how to achieve this in the classroom is a learning experience in itself and after all, teaching is learning.

The statement was made that “different kinds of things need to be learned in different contexts”. (I agree!) I think that this speaks to approach that has dominated the education system since forever and its failure to step beyond the confines of the classroom. In a way, this relates to and gives some validity to the comment made my skindeep’s teacher, “the system of education we are following [is] redundant.” In thinking about this, I looked up the word “teach” and one of the definitions given was that teaching is “bringing understand to something or somebody, especially through an experience”. The emphasis that this definition places on experience is key because I think that experience provides us with those different contexts for learning. No one experience is exactly the same.

An interesting question posed was, “Is there only one way to survive?” I think that society likes to make us think that the concept of survival or the means by which we survive is universal, but is it? I don’t think so. I mean, I think that knowledge is essential for survival, not necessarily the knowledge obtained from school, but knowledge of who you are and what you believe or value which is different from person to person.

As part of my Praxis III Independent Study course, I have been working with high school seniors mainly trying to draw a feeding link between creative thinking/writing and academic spaces utilizing academic prompts and writing assignments (if that makes any sense, sorry about the wording). For example, these high school seniors are mandated to do a senior project on their topic of choice. They are given free reign over what they want to write about and research but there are still requirements to be met, field work to be done and presentations to be held that tend to, the students believe, become less fun and more mandatory useless work necessary to graduate. Currently they are working on their theses for their senior projects and creating arguments for them. It became very clear that, for many, the development of a thesis and/or arguments was easier said than done.

Many students chose to write about very obvious topics and didn't see why anyone should question the topic or ask them to back it up with facts or evidence. This brought me to think about the exercise we did in class when Prof. Grobstein showed us images within images. Almost everyone at first glance, individually saw one thing and with further concentration and scrutiny brought themselves to see a different image. I wanted to draw upon this and create a similar dynamic with my group of students to help them see not only what an argument was but also the value of arguing for your perception of something.

Using pictures of murals, I got the students  to engage in the material and think outside of the box. They all received a mural and interpreted it the way they saw it and then the mural was handed off to another student whom, whether they initially agreed with the original argument or not, had to really scrutinize the mural and use their brains to really see something else in the image and present a counter-argument. Anyway, I was really happy to actually see the students tapping into this idea we discussed in class, the diversity of understandings of concepts, images and texts. What is obvious to some is a lot less obvious to another and it requires, in some cases, assistance and mental manipulation for an individual to see something the way another can instantly see it. I think this can mean a lot if we go further into the talk about teaching, whether teaching generally for material retention or teaching to different learning styles.

 skindeep :

i believe that functioning in a system that we think to be flawed CAN  be congruent with changing it. "Insiders" have to change the face of the educational system, as opposed to give into some type of anarchy. There are member of school boards, teachers, and administrators all over the world who know that what they enforce is not necessarily the most effective, yet they do it anyways, trying to make as much change as they can. No matter how much we muse about upheaval and change, there are systems of change as well... and ignoring them causes chaos and disfunction.

RED DOT:

I once attended a writing workshop that was attempting to teach us about perspective and diversity, where a large black dot was put on the board and we were asked what it could be. responses ranged from buttons, door knobs, bullet holes, bottoms of beer bottles.. it was very interesting/ telling.

Eledford:

I think many of us probably justify being at these schools by internally configuring the experience by putting faith in ourselves to navigate these spaces well, but not necessarily the structure of the school on its own to serve our best interests.  are we succumbing to some sort of societal pressure? probably. but that does not, in my opinion, make it a bad choice/experience. 

Paul wrote this above and I thought it was pretty compelling:

Education is a changing the brain, according to one or another particular story about how/why it should be changed, so knowing something about the brain must be relevant for education?

There is certainly something intuitive about this: the more we know about the brain and the better we understand the ways that it works, the more we can tailor the way we teach to the contingencies of our anatomy. But it also presupposes a certain structure of knowledge and education: what does it mean to "know something" about the brain? It seems reasonable to assume that we need education to discover anything about the brain, so we must first have education to know things about the brain. And the things we know about the brain are, in turn, shaped by the frameworks we have acquired through our education. So the relationship, it seems, is potentially more complex than subjective knowledge about an object ("the brain") -- a scheme which only operates in one direction. We can only know things about the brain that we are prepared and capable to know, in one way or another, which presupposes some kind of education. Or do I have it wrong? 

 I though our discussion about structure and how structure within schools changes over time, was rather interesting. The set-up was thus:

• Elementary School: little structure
• Middle school: little/more structure
• High school: lots of structure

But I think that also depends on what kind of structure we're talking about. Certainly, there is less structure when it comes to activities and assignments for younger elementary students, but their daily schedule is highly regimented, perhaps as much as older students in middle and high school. They have a morning class period, recess, midday class, lunch, and afternoon classes. I know that, for my elementary school, we had the same subjects at the same time everyday, the same recess groups, the same lunch periods, the same library days... 

And someone posited the issue of whether students going into school for the first time need structure, look for structure, or desire structure. If they do, or if they don't, why? Is it pre-school education that shaped them that way? The kinds of schedules they had at home? The anatomy or physiology of their brains? What would kids look like, in school, if we didn't give them as much structure when they were younger?

Or what would we look like, now, if we had started off with a lot of structure and moved toward less through our secondary school career?

Is what Paul said, lining up our transition from undergraduate school, graduate school, and "life" analogous to the latter part? If life is less structured (or perhaps, depending on what you do and how you do it, unstructured) is a highly structured education preparing us at all?

I don't want to make any assumptions and I'm trying very hard to remain neutral, but like I said in class (I think, fallible memory), I'm not a huge structure person. I do better when I'm given room to try out my own ideas and choose my own path to my own goal. That's one of the reasons why I've enjoyed college so much, I think. I get to choose my courses and, thereby, my coursework, my destination, my path...

And, likewise, I think there are people who thrive in structured systems. It needs to be said, and loudly I think, that neither highly structured nor loosely structured systems of education are good or bad or better than the other, it all depends on the student and how they learn best.  

Arguing one way or the other only really speaks to one's personal preference rather than what is "best for everyone."

Here is a link to a test some of you might like to take; it's based off of Multiple Intelligences theory and I think it's pertinent to what we've been talking about in class. 

Lastly, I want to brush on the instance of "seeing a chair as a chair." Yes, we can all look at that office chair and identify it as such. Yes, as it was said, someone who has had no experiences or observations concerning chairs might not be able to identify it for what it is. But are we all seeing the same chair, exactly as the next? Does it matter if we do, or don't? How could we know if we are? You say the chair is red, but how do we know we see the same color "red?" Your red could be my blue, but we would never know. If education is a means of teaching us how to perceive, or TRY to perceive, the same things as other people, to come to a consensus, is that useful? Should we be reaching for a consensus? Is it useful in some cases and not in others?

Question mark. I do not know. What do you all think? :O

 Sorry guys I had to...Because of discussion of the constructions of the brain and differences in visualization and perception really, to say the least, bothered yet intrigued me so I am interested in what some people see...Please Respond!! No explanation necessary...

Not all students learn the same way. Well what shapes these learning skills....how we have been taught? It's similar to the pictures we were viewing at the end of class - what guides our sight? How do we pick out what we see in the images over something else?

Should the objective of education be to bring everyone to the desired outcome? Or should it be to allow everyone to progress their own outcomes? This made me think of competition. I've always thought that a little competition was a good thing. If different goals are set to provide different outcomes, do we lose competition? Is competition a result of structure? Does having an objective limit you?

Not all constructions are the same. Do we construct what we want to see? Is it harmful to do so? Also, it is important to take into consideration the distance from things of which we construct. Examining things from far away may allow us to construct things differently than up close. Is one way "better"? Sometimes you need the perspective. Sometimes you need the little details.

Input is always ambiguous. Then how does the brain choose which construction?

We also talked a lot about thinking inside or out of the box; perhaps thinking out of the box takes more time and forces one to evaluate his/her own self (creativity) that may or may not be concrete to the individual at that point in time. 

Finally, who creates the education system? Does $ drive it? Is it political (e.g. funding received for high marks or goals met)?