Showing posts with label pedagogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pedagogy. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Is there a teacher in this classroom?
When we are practicing service-learning, simple understandings of server and servee dissolve. In service-learning practice there is a reciprocity that complicates general language labels. Should we then maintain the labels of teacher and student in a classroom that is oriented around service-learning pedagogy? It seems to me that if we are going to hope for a dynamic serving and learning experience for students in community organizations then we should emulate the same dynamic environment in the classroom. In the service-learning oriented classroom those traditionally labeled "students" should have the opportunity to offer input in course design and goals. Those traditionally understood as the "teacher" should leave the podium for a few moments and join the class in the growing process. But is this too much to hope for? Such a model or practice challenges long standing traditions in academia. The neat and easy to understand labels of teacher and student would become more vague, and perhaps most of all the obvious relationship of power between teacher and student would become something closer to equal. Service-learning can be something radical, can traditional academia handle it?
Labels:
academia,
pedagogy,
service-learning,
students,
teaching
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