This is part 2 of yesterdays blog. For part one scroll down.
Dialogue Stretches Students' Thinking Skills
Product-oriented education is obsessed with the answer, rather than the thought behind the answer. Dialogue, on the other hand, draws answers out of students, while demanding that students think in the process. Anyone who has seen the movie Shadowlands, recounting the life of C. S. Lewis, has seen the art of dialogue at its best. At Oxford and Cambridge, young men came to class ready to dialogue with their mentor about what they had read. C. S. Lewis posed question after question to the students, each time insisting that the views they held be proved and supported. While a workbook asks for a single word to be regurgitated, dialogue asks for an original thought to be articulated and supported. Because homeschool class sizes are small, homeschooling parents have the unique opportunity to use dialogue to stretch their child's reasoning and thinking ability by asking open-ended questions, such as, "What would happen if . . . ?", "Which solution do you think is best?", "Can you support your belief?"
Beware of unit activities that end with phrases such as, "tell your children . . ." or "read to your children . . ." as the consistent bottom line. Of course, as parents we are continually speaking and reading to our children, but if our curriculum ends there, we are merely teaching on the surface. Only when we engage in dialogue with our children do we dig into the heart of learning, encouraging our children to think and understand.
I encourage homeschooling parents who desire to raise thinkers to employ the methods of discovery and dialogue. Real thinkers cannot help but be educated. As my friend, Erin Blain, says, "Be obsessed with education, not graduation." Allow graduation to take its proper place as the icing on the cake of education.
I found the above article here.
http://www.home-school.com/Articles/phs19-jessicahulcy.html
Product-oriented education is obsessed with the answer, rather than the thought behind the answer. Dialogue, on the other hand, draws answers out of students, while demanding that students think in the process. Anyone who has seen the movie Shadowlands, recounting the life of C. S. Lewis, has seen the art of dialogue at its best. At Oxford and Cambridge, young men came to class ready to dialogue with their mentor about what they had read. C. S. Lewis posed question after question to the students, each time insisting that the views they held be proved and supported. While a workbook asks for a single word to be regurgitated, dialogue asks for an original thought to be articulated and supported. Because homeschool class sizes are small, homeschooling parents have the unique opportunity to use dialogue to stretch their child's reasoning and thinking ability by asking open-ended questions, such as, "What would happen if . . . ?", "Which solution do you think is best?", "Can you support your belief?"
Beware of unit activities that end with phrases such as, "tell your children . . ." or "read to your children . . ." as the consistent bottom line. Of course, as parents we are continually speaking and reading to our children, but if our curriculum ends there, we are merely teaching on the surface. Only when we engage in dialogue with our children do we dig into the heart of learning, encouraging our children to think and understand.
I encourage homeschooling parents who desire to raise thinkers to employ the methods of discovery and dialogue. Real thinkers cannot help but be educated. As my friend, Erin Blain, says, "Be obsessed with education, not graduation." Allow graduation to take its proper place as the icing on the cake of education.
I found the above article here.
http://www.home-school.com/Articles/phs19-jessicahulcy.html
No comments:
Post a Comment