Blog #4: Naomi’s Questioning Letter and Garth’s Response Letter

Hey Garth,

Ok so as I was reading Bean and since he clearly states that his ideas about critical thinking are based on Dewey’s principles of experiential learning it got me to thinking about how often these principles, ideas and theories are being used every day in classrooms by unassuming teachers. I know that when I first started teaching I thought that lecturing was the best way but then as I taught, and noticed the dreadfully bored faces of my participants, I realized that they needed to be doing something to engage in their learning. That’s when I first began integrating activities into my presentations. So this is what I was thinking about when I was reading Bean and mulling over his theories about critical thinking. I was also thinking about the different kinds of learners like the visual the auditory, and the textual learners. What I was thinking was that with all four types of learners critical thinking works. When you give kids a problem to solve no matter what the best way is that they learn they seem to be able to do this through the various ways critical thinking can be employed. Do you agree?

Further more it seems to me that Emig too employs the teachings of Dewey in that Emig believes that both reading and writing are actively engaged processes. Do you agree?

I felt very much like the theories of Emig and Bean were very similar. Britton however, seems not to share their sentiment that not every literary experience leads one to be actively engaged.

I was a bit put off by Britton’s theory on participant and spectator roles in reading and relaying stories. I do not believe in the inactivity of the spectator. I feel that the “spectator” at the very least needs to be doing one or a few of the following: Actively listening, imagining, asking clarifying questions, comprehending, understanding, agreeing, disagreeing , and the list could go on and on. For me the way that Britton described it was almost as if the spectator just sort of blankly sat there letting the story tellers words bounce off there skin and trickle to the floor in a big pile of syllables at their feet. I do believe that the participant aspect holds up but I believe that this can apply to more then just the story tellers intention of asking for something in return of telling the story be it advice or input otherwise.

What I do see that all three have in common is and active aspect, if not a belief that all learning is active, when it comes to their theories. I wish I had more time to pull out my old Dewy book and draw connections between the theories of both Bean and Emig, perhaps that is because I am a firm and there for biased believer in exploratory learning, but alas I just don’t have that kind of time. My friend I hope you find the following questions to be interesting or at least enough not to bore you to tears.

1) Do you feel that some of these ideas of active problem solving as a teaching method come inherently to many teachers?

2) Do you think that Bean and Dewey are in complete agreement or do they differ slightly?

3) I disagree with the spectator role that Britton describes. I believe that even his spectator is actively doing something, what do you think about the participant vs. spectator theory?

4) Do you see Emig as staying closely to the Dewey ideals as with bean?

5) What did you think of the misconceptions Bean discusses?

6) Do you think more teachers would be willing to integrate more writing into their courses if they had bean quick misconceptions tutorial?

Garth Priebe’s Response to Naomi’s Questioning Letter: Blog #4

Dear Naomi:

So nice to hear from you! One of your first questions was embedded in your letter, and I will respond to that first before I tackle the enumerated questions at the end of your text. Yes, I do believe that no matter what a student’s particular learning style, the most important aspect of active & critical learning is that the student must “wrest[le] with the conditions of the problem, seeking and finding his or her own way out” (Bean 2). As Dewey points out and as Bean concurs, it is only in this manner that the student really thinks—in fact, is forced to think. This can under certain conditions be a painful process, but as Aristotle pointed out in his Poetics, there is a joy in gaining knowledge. It seems to me that so often, students lie with their heads on their desks, bemoaning how boring a subject is, and the solution to this is where Bean, Dewey, and Aristotle completely agree. It is up to the instructor to awaken the students “to the existence of problems all around them,” problems that are naturally motivating and bring the pleasure and joy that Aristotle refers to (Bean 2).

To answer your first enumerated question, I think that teachers learn how to engage students in active problem solving. This is a learned skill, and to give education colleges their due, I think most teachers learn it there. Interestingly, some of the worst instruction I have ever had came at the hands of college professors who had never taken an education course. These instructors lectured for the entire class period with no student activities. Obviously, this is not true of Dr. Muhlhauser, or we would not be discussing the merits of “the power of well-designed problems to awaken and stimulate the passive and unmotivated student,” nor would we be addressing the link between both writing and thinking as critical thought processes. But now, let me address your second question.

Judging only from Bean’s first chapter, I believe that Dewey and Bean are in complete accord with one exception; Bean believes that “the act of writing itself is an act of discovery” (Bean 4). In other words, Bean is a strong advocate of writing as a critical learning process, while Dewey seems to focus most heavily on the quality and exploration of a problem divorced from the advocacy of a particular process such as writing, but the truth is that these men would disagree on very little. For example, Bean tells his students that “good writing . . . grows out of good talking—either talking with classmates or talking dialogically with oneself through exploratory writing” (7). So really, what would these men argue about? Nothing.

In response to your third question, yes, I agree with you, the spectator is always doing something, and I have serious reservations and concerns about Britton’s contention that “poetic discourse is the form that most fully meets the demands associated with the role of spectator . . . making something with language rather than doing something with it” (Britton 58). Now, of course “making something with language” is the same as doing something with it as we contend, but our (yours & mine, Naomi) chief objection to Britton is that he has divorced “poetic discourse” from the “transactional,” a form of discourse that uses language to get things done (158). This is where Britton seriously needs to rethink his definitions. There are so many poems, short stories, and novels (fiction) in which the author’s purpose is a transactional one, i.e., he or she wants to change our minds about something, wants to plant an idea in our minds, and wants us, the readers, to take action on a subject. We, the readers are therefore, forced into some kind of action/decision. Remember that even a no decision is a decision. The author of a serious fictional work has something to get done, some purpose and drive behind the work, and its intended effect is that we take action also. If a poem wants to change our mind about something, then, it is a transactional form, not a poetic one, so Britton’s definition of poetic discourse is, in fact, a misnomer. In other words, Britton is wrong.

Britton complains early in his essay that “literature, as far as schools and universities were concerned, was not something that students do, but always something that other people have done” (154). This suggests to me that he realizes the importance of a student becoming a participant rather than a spectator. Furthermore, when Britton writes that literature is something that students do, he means creating, the cognitive act of creating graphic symbols on a page into mental meaning. This is very comparable to Emig’s contention that “Reading is creating or recreating a verbal construct that is graphically recorded” (123). This is where the overlap lies; Bean, Emig, and Britton all realize that the greatest learning must come from participation in the creative or critical act of writing about literature, with this proviso; Britton wants us to realize that it is when the child “come[s] to value the written language as a vehicle for stories,” it is then that he or she will form an intention to write (166). The connection that we as educators of middle school and high school students must make is that our students already know how to write, so if we can only awaken them to the exciting world of problems they will be ready to go, i.e., ready to write critically and persuasively.

In answer to questions 5 & 6, Bean’s four misconceptions, explaining why teachers don’t implement critical writing into their classrooms, seem perfect to me, for I have often heard associates voice these same concerns. As an English teacher who is teaching Social Studies, I, too, am very concerned with covering the breadth of material that I am expected to cover. In fact, even now I can hear my administrator worrying over whether or not my class is on pace with our calendar. But the truth is that if I don’t slow down and stop the constant flow of facts that supposedly, my students are expected to read & memorize, I will lose them. Time must be allowed for the students to engage with critical thinking and writing. For example, last week I stopped worrying about covering endless facts and gave the students time to address a problem in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Many people don’t know that Jefferson was forced to censor an anti-slavery attack against King George because our southern colonial delegates would not affix their signature to a document that criticized slavery, one of their cherished economic and cultural practices. Because Jefferson’s document was tantamount to a declaration of war, he was forced to censor the offending section so that the thirteen colonies would present a united front to King George and Parliament. The question that I asked my students was whether or not they agreed with Jefferson’s concession. They were asked to explain in writing why or why not, and to offer alternative actions that Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress might have employed. Doing this as an writing exercise took days, but I felt constrained to give my students some kind of participation in Social Studies and its endless stream of facts besides discussions, lectures, questions, graphic organizers, and so on. As to how many teachers might be convinced to employ critical writing in their classrooms after reading Bean, I don’t know. Surely, Bean’s essay would persuade those who were serious about learning to at least give it a try. After all, it is not a revolutionary concept that teachers are supposed to have their students writing in the classroom. I hear it a lot these days, and of course, I agree with it wholeheartedly.

Sincerely,

Garth Priebe