Hevrutah


Schooling: Wrestling with History and Tradition: A Weblog Exercise

ED500 Foundations of Education

Professor Shutkin, Ph.D.

 

Explore this ancient paired study process:

1.     Work with a partner, a (new?) friend, a study buddy:

•         This study process is designed for exploring different aspects of a text and wrestling with (considering, responding to, arguing with, riffing on) both what you find in the text and what you and your partner have to add. In this wrestling process, you and your partner are creating something new with this text.

•         Usually, two people study together. If necessary, you can use the same format in a group of three, but no larger.

2.    Take turns reading the text aloud to each other.

3.    Read one line at a time. Before you go on to the next line, see if either of you has any ideas or questions that you might want to talk about.

4.    Your initial job is to encounter the text together with your partner.

5.    You and your partner together decide what to read, how much you read and what to focus your discussion on.

6.    As you read:

•         Reflect on your lived experiences in school, as a student and/or as a teacher.

•         Take notes about these lived experiences (if any) and the narrative they (begin to) tell.

•         Write down and discuss questions and assumptions you can come up with relating your lived experience to the text you are reading.

•         Notice what you notice. What jumps out at you?

o  What is in the text?

o  What is missing from the text?

o  What does[n’t] make sense?

o  What does the text teach?

o  What should the text teach?

7.    Working independently, include at least one other text in your studying. Whether historical or contemporary, this text becomes part of your weblog as well. The process spirals and continues:

•         Reflect on your lived experiences in school, as a student and/or as a teacher.

•         Take notes about these lived experiences (if any) and the narrative they (begin to) tell.

•         Write down and discuss questions and assumptions you can come up with relating your lived experience to the text you are reading.

•         Notice what you notice. What jumps out at you?

o  What is in the text?

o  What is missing from the text?

o  What does[n’t] make sense?

o  What does the text teach?

o  What should the text teach?

8.    Organizing /writing your weblog:

•         Posting to your WebLog,

•         Choose to write a narrative about one cogent experience or several illuminating experiences.

•         Consider how this narrative relates to educational foundations: how your lived experience represents an instance or special case of the history of education; and/or how current and/or past policy initiatives influence the day to day life in your school in expected and/or unexpected ways. (These are suggested not required queries.  They are not intended to limit ways of relating foundational events, ideas or questions to your lived experiences).