Now, the obvious solution to the above, prima facie, is the promotion of critical thinking skills and Okagaki & Sternberg-21 recommend this via the explicit demonstration of cross-disciplinary principles. However, this method is inherently flawed in that it does not foster critical reflection on those prescribed principles, and the continuous pursuit of feedback on their application can easily become a force for normalization (see Fendler-13).
Counter-intuitively, the problem of teaching for knowledge is not that content is always flawed, but that teacher hegemony serves to separate the student from their own learning. According to Csikszentmihalyi-5, it is the external and continuous manipulation of student attention that causes people to give up on the pleasures of learning.
Hence, teachers who rely on a pace-setting and marks-orientated style of leadership are apt to erode any honesty, creativity, enthusiasm, and satisfaction among their students (see Goleman-16). And as noted by Zimbardo-28, when one combines well-defined power-roles, gradually encroaching authority, high exiting/disobedience costs, and diffused responsibility with a legitimizing ideology, compliance can easily trump the empathy, ethics, and wishes of the individual.
Further exacerbating the problem, disengagement can slow student progression and bate the teacher into oversimplifying the curriculum just to cover everything. According to Ellis-12, this reduces the content to poorly connected facts of little meaning which not only bores the students, but also reduces the opportunity to develop higher order thinking skills.
In sum, teaching for knowledge only rewards the students who play the system and give the teacher what they think they want.
The Player
One of the most insightful things I noticed as I made my way through the first twelve years of Shultz’s Peanuts, was that the characters will often start out as infants and grow up into children, which they remained for as long as fifty years - as if to imply that there is no such thing as an adult, only a bigger kid. This is how I like to conceive of the teacher: a fellow player who is trained to lead.
In sharp contrast with the instructional teaching for knowledge, it embraces the uncertainty of the world to cultivate a sense of wonder, and ideas exist to be played with and not just collected or admired in books. The role of teacher is simply to provide the toys.
Now, before we get into my methodology, I want to establish that this is grounded in the interests of society. Kane-19 suggests that play at all ages can strengthen resilience, well-being, identity, free-thinking, and autonomy, which makes it essential preparation for the interconnectedness, complexity, and unpredictability of 21st century living. But more fundamentally, Elkind-10 suggests that play is an instinct most central to our intellectual and social development.
Article comments
1 - Anon
This may totally be besides the point, but the paper assumes that an ideal of encouraged learning exists whereas there are situations that learning is deliberately stunted by that hegemony who hold the capital on said information to keep it within a select few of those who can afford it while the rest rot. It also assumes that learners who learn outside the system around aren't hunted down and killed.
2 - Belle 2
Jonathan,
Very interesting!! I agree with your ideas and I try to encourage my student's love for learning, but I feel as though I'm losing my edge. Which resource do you recommend over all the others? I need practical suggestions to enhance my classroom. How do you suggest implementing your ideas in the current educational climate which has all the focus on standarized testing? My usual teaching assignment is three different subjects, six classes, 40 minute periods and 150 students!!
3 - Jonathan Scanlan
Hi Belle,
In regard to implementing this within classrooms, I'd suggest simply playing the system and testing it at this stage. See what works for you.
In my own experience however, sometimes this can work too well, and it is very easy to fall into the trap of trying to regulate the classroom noise and energy when the students seem to be doing all the work for you.
Another problem is that this can also be incredibly resource intensive. Building activities on a full schedule is problematic because it will often overwork you.
Now, I have yet to test this properly but one way I am planning to cut down the workload, and increase autonomy, is to hand students a simplified version of my syllabus documents at the start of a unit and then have them brainstorm and plan the work ahead - leaving me to edit and refine.
Essentially OpenSourcing their education, and including them in the planning process will - I expect - give you better indication of what students will find intrinsically interesting and promote a sense of ownership over the materials.
4 - Belle 2
Thanks for the advice. I'm excited to give it a try. Summer is such a great time for me to read and plan for the next year, can you recommend one great book to help get me started?
5 - Jonathan Scanlan
Best book among all those linked above, is FLOW. It's entirely about engagement and life satisfaction.
So far as education in particular, it is unfortunately the case that no one is writing about the incorporation of play in the middle and senior curriculum. I've actually had to resort to primary education texts.