something to ponder

I came across this in reading for my other class:

"In 1991, Howard Gardner, a leading cognitive psychologist, diagnosed the problem with today's students and the solution to the problem in what had by then become canonical terms. The problem, as Gardner saw it, was that education does not remove or correct people's everyday 'folk theories.' People readily fall back on these folk theories even when they have been, or are being, exposed in school to 'correct' or, at least, 'better' disiplinary-based theories. Only people who 'really' understand these disiplinary theories, Gardner argued, can avoid this..." James Paul Gee, "New People in New Worlds: Networks, the New Capitalism, and Schools."from Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis. Routledge Press, 2000.

There's some research involving this dynamic with new teachers which finds the same - that within a year, sometimes even months, new teachers will fall back on folk theories (which often contradict disiplinary based theory and research) to guide them as teachers. Only those who really understand or get the theories and embrace them with some enthusiasm are likely to resist the pull of commonsense notions of teaching and learning, such research has suggested. (it's why Hillocks warns that new teachers should avoid the teacher's lounge).

pam