This week I want to return to one of John Dewey’s comments regarding education: “I believe that education thus conceived marks the most perfect and intimate union of science and art conceivable in human experience” (p. 8). If this true, which I hope it is, then I want to elaborate a little bit on what this belief may mean for me.
In my classroom, I hope to present a wide range of the arts, including literature, paintings, video, music, and many more, to my students. While I have a strong preference toward novels, short stories, poems, and dramas, I believe many other forms of art can help supplement my lesson plans. I can accept the fact that not all students are going to approach literature with the same passion as I do, but perhaps, I can engage them by other means. Too often, I think English teachers forget how to incorporate other forms of the arts into the classroom, and consequently, they miss a great opportunity to broaden students’ conceptualization of the arts and risk losing students’ interest in the overall notion of the arts.
From my experience as a mathematics teacher, I have also seen the adverse effects of thinking within a narrow framework. Most students take mathematics courses out of obligation, and they find the content of the course extremely disconnected from their immediate world, causing a lack of interest to develop quickly. In order to reach these students and capture their curiosity, mathematics teachers need to spend more time finding real-world examples. The dreaded question for many teachers is “If I am never going to use this, then why do I need to learn it,” but choosing homework problems and creating projects that ask students to transform their conceptual and procedural knowledge into more sophisticated systems of knowledge can help prevent this common high school query.
Luckily, I will be able to practice in both the fields of science and art, but not every teacher is going to have the accreditation to bridge this gap. Is this a problem? Can teachers in one of the fields foster learning environments that ask students to think as though they were part of the other field? Of course. Within the union of science and art lies a fundamental objective that all teachers can attain: encourage students to think critically and creatively. Technology will help all educators bridge the gap more successfully. With the use of blogs, wikis, and other techno-savvy mediums, teachers can empower students to approach collaboratively content-specific problems. These mediums have the capacity to help students work with each other and teachers to sharpen their thinking skills.
Future teachers—as you head out to the classrooms, be ready to cultivate the mind and nurture creative thought.
In my classroom, I hope to present a wide range of the arts, including literature, paintings, video, music, and many more, to my students. While I have a strong preference toward novels, short stories, poems, and dramas, I believe many other forms of art can help supplement my lesson plans. I can accept the fact that not all students are going to approach literature with the same passion as I do, but perhaps, I can engage them by other means. Too often, I think English teachers forget how to incorporate other forms of the arts into the classroom, and consequently, they miss a great opportunity to broaden students’ conceptualization of the arts and risk losing students’ interest in the overall notion of the arts.
From my experience as a mathematics teacher, I have also seen the adverse effects of thinking within a narrow framework. Most students take mathematics courses out of obligation, and they find the content of the course extremely disconnected from their immediate world, causing a lack of interest to develop quickly. In order to reach these students and capture their curiosity, mathematics teachers need to spend more time finding real-world examples. The dreaded question for many teachers is “If I am never going to use this, then why do I need to learn it,” but choosing homework problems and creating projects that ask students to transform their conceptual and procedural knowledge into more sophisticated systems of knowledge can help prevent this common high school query.
Luckily, I will be able to practice in both the fields of science and art, but not every teacher is going to have the accreditation to bridge this gap. Is this a problem? Can teachers in one of the fields foster learning environments that ask students to think as though they were part of the other field? Of course. Within the union of science and art lies a fundamental objective that all teachers can attain: encourage students to think critically and creatively. Technology will help all educators bridge the gap more successfully. With the use of blogs, wikis, and other techno-savvy mediums, teachers can empower students to approach collaboratively content-specific problems. These mediums have the capacity to help students work with each other and teachers to sharpen their thinking skills.
Future teachers—as you head out to the classrooms, be ready to cultivate the mind and nurture creative thought.
1 comment:
Very nicely said, Kevin. I like the way in which you're thinking, and I daresay (as someone who came to find Math impenetrable) that your interest in the arts and humanities will make you a better math teacher, just as my hunch that the reverse will be true.
I'm excited to hear more about how YOU will find useful connections between these fields of study so as to better reach your students.
Here's a link to a blog post from Courtney, one of last year's MACers, that I was reminded of when I read yours:
http://tinyurl.com/3a7orj
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