Learning versus Schooling: A Blog About Both
Recent Blog Posts:
MOOCS - Changes Are Coming...In How We Know If Someone Is Learning
One of the goals of these newer forms of learning may indicate that satisfaction—like a T-shirt from a 5K race—can be personal rather than institutional. And this is an enduring disposition: that people like to learn things. Even school can’t entirely destroy that passion, though in some cases it sure looks as if it tries.
The Natural Ends of Schooling
Recent publications about schooling and parenting, such as Amy Chua’s endlessly discussed Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s Academically Adrift have given rise to much questioning: What’s wrong with parents? What’s wrong with students?
What has not really been asked is, What’s wrong with school?
A Tale of Two A's
What role did grades play in their class experience? Did grades motivate these students? Did they encourage cheating? Hard work? And what does the trace of that experience in the black-and-white letter on the transcript tell us? Is one A deserved and one a sham?
Grades As Key Symbols
Anthropology reminds us that the individuals in our single classrooms did not invent themselves. They carry with them traces of their past successes, failures, hopes, of the structures of motivation inculcated by strangers cooing over the stroller in the park, by the report cards hanging on refrigerators, by the colleges’ boasting about the “quality” of their incoming classes as measured by GPA and SAT.
I am an anthropologist seeking to understand the patterns in the world
we see around us, whether in China, the United States, or anywhere else.
My interests have ranged from the study of ethnicity, nationalism,
identity, and the self in China, to truth and deception across cultures,
to cheating and plagiarism in US colleges, to food, sustainability, and
culture, to the nature of education and childhood. I always connect my
academic research to my teaching and my life experience, which means I
am always busy trying to understand things I see!
My current obsession is the divorce between learning and schooling. I am in the process of finishing a book called Learning versus Schooling: A Professor's Reeducation.
As a lifelong student and teacher, and as a parent, and friend, and aunt, and neighbor, I have come to see that it might not be ideal to force every young person to stay in school for two decades. I see evidence all around me of how this backfires, from diagnoses of ADHD to rampant cheating. Some of this comes from the structure of schooling, and from the multiple, sometimes contradictory, aims that the society claims for schooling. That doesn't mean that our young people are evil, lazy, or incapable of learning. It might mean, though, that they might thrive outside our classrooms.
In my own teaching I continue to experiment with ways to engage students in the adventure of learning, understanding that most of them will not end up as professors. Some experiments work better than others--which is to say, I continue to learn, too!
Follow my blog as my thoughts about this topic unfold. I bring in information from anthropology, from psychology, from looking at how education works across cultures, and from the experiences of my students, my children (now in college), and anybody who provides information about learning and schooling. My ideas have changed completely since I began asking why so many college students plagiarize, way back in 2004. You can see the first installment in my book My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, published in 2009.
I envision a field called Critical Anthropology of Education, where we examine the most basic underpinnings of education. This might or might not involve schooling. Join me!
My current obsession is the divorce between learning and schooling. I am in the process of finishing a book called Learning versus Schooling: A Professor's Reeducation.
As a lifelong student and teacher, and as a parent, and friend, and aunt, and neighbor, I have come to see that it might not be ideal to force every young person to stay in school for two decades. I see evidence all around me of how this backfires, from diagnoses of ADHD to rampant cheating. Some of this comes from the structure of schooling, and from the multiple, sometimes contradictory, aims that the society claims for schooling. That doesn't mean that our young people are evil, lazy, or incapable of learning. It might mean, though, that they might thrive outside our classrooms.
In my own teaching I continue to experiment with ways to engage students in the adventure of learning, understanding that most of them will not end up as professors. Some experiments work better than others--which is to say, I continue to learn, too!
Follow my blog as my thoughts about this topic unfold. I bring in information from anthropology, from psychology, from looking at how education works across cultures, and from the experiences of my students, my children (now in college), and anybody who provides information about learning and schooling. My ideas have changed completely since I began asking why so many college students plagiarize, way back in 2004. You can see the first installment in my book My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, published in 2009.
I envision a field called Critical Anthropology of Education, where we examine the most basic underpinnings of education. This might or might not involve schooling. Join me!
Anthropologist
Department of Anthropology
The University of Notre Dame
USA
The University of Notre Dame
USA
