Comments on: teaching, reflection and hegemony

By: Weekend Reading - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Weekend Reading - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 14:10:33 +0000

[...] Deitering has a fascinating write-up of Stephen A. Brookfield’s Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. What’s interesting about [...]

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:16:27 +0000

Hi Nancy – nice to meet you! I’m not sure where the suggestion that librarians should find answers is coming from, but I am going to guess that it is in the “the answer must be there somewhere piece?” If that’s correct, then I think my response would be that Brookfield is talking here about teachers trying to solve their *own* practice problems, not that teachers are trying to solve problems for students. I think the desire to teach learning skills is common to both information literacy librarians and classroom teachers (Brookfield’s audience) and that’s where I see the connection happening.

(the “we shouldn’t find answers” is a great example of a paradigmatic assumption in librarianship – thanks!)

I think if we believed that the view through the students’ lens was always more correct than that of any other lens, then that would be a great example of a hegemonic assumption – but I don’t think that’s what the author is talking about? I think he’s talking about adding another point of view – and in this section I’m summarizing several chapters into a couple of sentences so any lack of clarity is mine, not his – in most cases by asking the students directly what they think?

Thanks!

amd

By: caleb

caleb — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:22:04 +0000

just fyi I recently filled out a conference presentation proposal that discussed how I would engage the audience. i thought it was an odd thing to ask on the form, but now i understand.

By: Nancy Bertolotti

Nancy Bertolotti — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:26:43 +0000

Hi Anne-Marie,

Your blog is very interesting. Thank you for sharing your pre-writing thoughts.

In response to this post, you have raised several interesting discussion points. I do not think, however, that librarians/teachers are here to find answers. We are, rather, here to help individuals find information that can lead them to reflect on and discover their own answers.

I am also a little concerned about the author’s idea that we can look through the lenses of our students. Wouldn’t this assumption be hegemonic in itself?