Why this blog?

"... Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Do not search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - Letters to a Young Artist, R. M. Rilke

Rooted in the promise and challenge of growth ...

these are letters from a young teacher.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Education as a moral endeavor

Did I mention I'm an eternal student?

Alongside writing my thesis proposal this fall, while also working part-time as a pre-school teacher, I couldn't resist registering for "just one class" at the UW. I don't technically need any more classes to graduate, but it had been a great desire of mine to take a class from Donna Kerr, a professor I'd seen present her research-in-progress at the Faculty Research Symposium last spring. When I heard she was teaching Education as a Moral Endeavor, I registered immediately.

My favorite thing about this class has been the basic approach and format of it. It is, in some ways, a typical graduate level course, complete with course texts, upon which a final 12-page course paper shall be based. Pretty basic, right? Wrong. Donna's approach to all of her classes, I have gathered, is to make sure that students are able to both read the course texts "generously" - that is, to hear first what it is the authors have to say, before launching into analysis and criticism - but also to hear what the authors have to say about students' own concrete experiences.

Let me explain a little more: We began the course by composing a two-page story from our own lives. "Think of a time," she said, "when you experienced or observed something profoundly immoral, or something profoundly moral, that still has you in its grips, that just won't let you go. Start there." In other words, before we were to touch any course texts, we first conjured up a bit of what we were bringing to this class, and perhaps, something that was bringing us to this class. The following week, we shared our stories in table groups. And then: "Now, let's just put those stories to the side. We will come back to them, I promise. But now, it's time to put our own stories to the side and completely rid ourselves of - just for a bit - our perspective. As we approach these texts, it's time to read generously, to listen to these authors as if we were listening to our own inner voice speaking..."

It was an exercise reminiscent of my theater and storytelling experience: instead of reading a text like I was sitting across the coffee table from the author, I was to become the author, myself, and learn how to summarize and access the major points of their works by saying "I believe..." and "I assert..." How very new, and how very intriguing ...

Now, let me introduce my personal cast of characters:






I invite you to peruse the previews Google books provides of these books by clicking on the links. It will let you a bit into the world of this course, not to mention into the worlds of each of these authors, each of which is more dynamic than the next.

This course, given Donna's background, leans heavily toward the philosophical corner of thinking about education. I feel right at home in this corner, and look forward to sharing more about it as the quarter progresses.

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