Rethinking education…

Hello classmates,

This post is horrifically late, but given my situation over the past 48 hours, I’m very grateful to be able to work a keyboard and to be back on campus!

I am Joseph Ettinger, completing my TIL graduate program.  I never though I would write those words: “completing my graduate program.”(!)  My time here at CSU Chico has been a gift from life, and I couldn’t be more pleased to begin another brand new career, this time in teaching abroad….

On pages 14 and 15, Hanks describes the implications of Lave and Wenger’s work:

“Lave and Wenger situate learning in certain forms of social coparticipation” (14).

“…it implies a highly interactive and productive role for the skills that are acquired through the learning process” (14).

“The challenge of this book is surely deeper: Learning is a process that takes place in a participation framework, not in an individual mind” (15).

It is interesting that we superficially recognize that learning is “social” in nature–we learn along with thousands of other students here–but the authors are talking about rethinking learning, and if this rethink were to be widely appreciated then our school systems would look quite different than they currently do.

What would they look like?