Knowledge Without Context

Well situated learning is quite the read… It’s actually not that bad once you have a discussion in class and can piece together your own ideas of legitimate peripheral participation with the rest of your peers. When reading through the first chapter of Situated Learning I was struck by the idea that the author’s viewpoints creates, “a fundamental distinction between learning and intentional instruction. Such a decoupling does not deny that learning can take place when there is teaching, but does not take intentional instruction to be in itself the source or cause of learning” (40-41). It is hard at times to separate the ideas of learning from the context of a classroom as opposed to learning in real world scenarios without someone lecturing at you. This quote made me realize the obvious yet elusive idea that learning is much more than what you pick up from being in a classroom all day. Though it seems obvious that learning would happen in everyday life without verbal instruction or homework, most minds would pair the words “learning” with “schooling” and cease to delve deeper into the idea. I like that Situated Learning makes a point to separate and differentiate between the institution of school compared to the general act of learning; leaving us future teachers to feel like we are still needed despite the constant criticism of the standards based institution of education.

After reading the books first chapter, then attending a tutoring/workshop session, I saw evidence of a contextual community within the educational system. While the general claim is that “the organization of schooling… is predicated on claims that knowledge can be decontextualized” (40), these English 130 classes are basing their grading on the context of writing papers for a scholarly setting. By creating this context of academia, we cannot help but to assume students are at the level of writing that is at an acceptable level for the professor’s standards. Sadly, because many students will emulate a professionals writing style, they give up their creativity and unique voice due to their lacking in contextual knowledge of the field. Instead of participating with established professionals of respective fields, we are reduced to copying others until we believe we have enough knowledge or degrees to stake any new claims or write in an original voice.