Something familiar struck me about a passage I crossed in the Pedagogy of the Oppressed the other day: Humans, however, because they are aware of themselves and thus of the world—because they are conscious beings—exist in a dialectical relationship between the determination of limits and their own freedom. As they separate themselves from the world, […]
Read more "Limit Situations, Double Binds & Transformative Learning"This content was cross-posted on the Philosophy 12 course site. “It is to the reality which mediates [people], and to the perception of that reality held by educators and people, that we must go to find the program content of education.” Paulo Freire As we set out to encounter Metaphysics, my ambition as teacher is to […]
Read more "Metaphysical Emergence and the Discussable Object"As I continue to wade through Paulo Freire‘s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, it is easy to see its range of influence within faculties of education across North America. The intentions expressed in Freire’s praxis of critical pedagogy form the basis of (what I sense to be) most teacher-certification programs, graduate diplomas and masters programs. And yet we continue […]
Read more "Liberation Citizenship for the 21st Century"“There isn’t a profession in Canada that shouldn’t be required to understand the aboriginal experience.” So says the Commissioner of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission yesterday, a statement that will likely rankle those in Conservative conservative circles, but which I believe may not go far enough in addressing the Commission’s mission and mandate. From the […]
Read more "On Reconciliation"Organizing Inquiry Topics These last few weeks, the TALONS have taken their study of Socials 10 west, from the fledgling union of Confederation to Hudson’s Bay, Manitoba, and the resistance that unfolds along the Red River Valley. In seeking out the story of Louis Riel, and how his execution – as well as the subsequent relationship between the government and the Metis, Inuit and other First Nations of the Northwest […]
Read more "Inquiry into the Northwest"I discovered the above quotation (then highlighted, and apparently even underlined it) in a (photocopy of a) book that Q lent me this week, Discussion as a Way of Teaching. And with each of my classrooms providing affirmations or further questions about various aspects of the introductory chapter, I wanted to see if I could synthesize […]
Read more "Discussion in a Democratic Classroom"This is cross-posted on the Philosophy12 Blog. There is a certain pleasure in being allowed to start things off in a class like #Philosophy12; while others may garner the satisfaction that comes from rising to the challenge of the various assignments and syntheses of ideas, as classroom facilitator my critical tasks have thus far revolved […]
Read more "Epistemological Ecology"A new course at our school this semester that I was fortunate to be tapped to teach is Philosophy 12. Originally written – by Quirien Mulder ten Kate – as a senior-level interdisciplinary approach to philosophy that would offer T.A.L.O.N.S. alumni an opportunity to continue working in a cohort of gifted learners beyond grade ten, […]
Read more "Open Online Philosophy 12 Start-Up and Invite"On Monday I’ll be giving a brief talk to the Langley cohort of Simon Fraser University’s Learning & Teaching with Technology Field Program about Personal Narratives as a framework for learning. Not particularly adept at the nomenclature surrounding and separating ‘frameworks,’ lenses, methods, and mostly considering myself self-taught when it comes to this stuff, I […]
Read more "Storytelling as Learning Tool"A very interesting talk given by Tobey Steeves Friday afternoon at the BCSSTA Conference in Vancouver that is well worth your time to explore both in the slides above, and the corresponding ‘pencast’ embedded below that captures the session’s audio, and my notes about the discussion of public education’s role in a democracy, and how […]
Read more "21st Century Learning: Entrepreneurial Citizenship vs. Democracy"