EMMA: New Ground

either/or

I'm still working my way through the radio program, but have a few observations.

Firstly, I'm hesitant to rely on dichotomies. I don't think that a classroom is either hierarchical or emergent. The feminist pedagogy of democratic classrooms, or other models of teacher as facilitators, embrace a methodology that is process oriented, but with clear learning objectives. Additionally subject-centered teaching, where topics are foregrounded, is another example of a non-hierarchical pedagogy. I'm not necessarily arguing against a practice of emergence, I just want to be sure that we don’t develop a conceptualization of creative process or classroom pedagogy in binary terms.

Secondly, thinking about emergence and looking at these web references, I see the development of systems and note that the systems are often of multiple entities (i.e. 100 people can guess the precise weight of a cow, but one can’t) and I wonder if part of our challenge is, as Matthew references, being such a small class with such divergent artistic viewpoints.

posted by Ashley @ 4:16 PM