Collins, mauri. (1995) Eve: the archetypical constructivist.

Electronic post to RESODLAA@usq.edu.au discussion group for the Research SIG of the Open & Distance Learning Association of Australia. Friday, September 22.

Subject: Eve: the archetypical constructivist 

 >   Constructivism is all around us.
 >
 >Marilyn Brien  brien@tenet.edu

Indeed it is, Marilyn

I have had the opportunity this past year at Penn State to be intimately
engaged in constructivist learning environments.  

We have discussed the theory some, and dealt with some of the issues 
you have been discussing on this list...but have also been actively involved 
in USING constructivist theory in very real, practical ways to structure 
learning situations to maximize learning on both cognitive and behavioral 
levels for application (as opposed to learning for regurgitation).

The following does not denigrate any of a child's primary caregivers, but I
am speaking from my own perspective as a mother of five sons and four daughters:

I wondered why the theoretical aspects of constructivism came so easily to
me, and after a bit of pondering it occured to me that women, myself included, 
have been engineering constructivist learning environments for their offspring 
since time began. 

We first negotiate meaning with our children as they build a vocabulary to express 
their needs and their understandings of their world.  We know their experiences may 
not be ours, but we can, in most cases, agree together on enough shared and common
meanings to make extensive communication of both concrete and abstract concepts 
possible.

Our children exist in a problem-based learning environment in a very real sense...
from 'how do I get my mother's attention?' to "how do I tie my shoes" to learning to 
feed themselves, or observe cultural sanitation norms, to riding bicyles and figuring 
out how to get to play with the neighbour kid's toys.

So what do mothers do?  We MODEL behaviors for our children to imitate, and COACH and 
SCAFFOLD them through the many iterations of successive approximations until they 
achieve a level of maturity-linked mastery comfortable for all concerned.  Those 
behaviors can be physical or cognitive...mothers constantly model their problem
solving skills, reasoning...beliefs.  

When there is more than one child, we often guide them through human cognitive 
flexibility hypertexts as the child has explained to them all the different perceptions 
of an event (especially when THEY have behaved in an unacceptable manner) as viewed 
by the different participants.

We prompt them when they are confronted with new learning situations to dip into 
solutions they have already constructed to extract and utilize those elements that are 
usable to the new situation...our homes are "microworlds" where our children can
practice their social negotiation skills and work with multiple "what ifs' without 
having to deal with all the complexity and danger of the outside world. And yet 
their contexts are very real and very messy...with lots of ambiguities and loose 
ends..no neat, tidy textbook problems here.

We encourage our children to use all their 'intelligences' (a la Howard Gardner') in 
the process of knowledge acquisition and constantly assess their learning by requiring 
demonstration and performance of acquired competencies...and occasionally we even
require them memorize and to recite something back to us word-for-word..(in training 
for the years of school learning ahead of them).

Much of a child's learning is "just-in-time" learning...a problem requires a new action 
so they learn it THEN USE IT...(and often over and over to automaticity)...and much 
of that kind of learning stays with them their whole lives. (See "All I ever needed to
know I learned in Kindergaten")

It is such a pity we take learners out of their native rich and complex learning 
environments and sit them in school rooms..in desks, in rows, and impoverish their 
learning experiences...and judge their performance by requiring them to demonstrate all
their new competencies with pencil and paper...

deep sigh....

/mauri
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Internet: mauri@cac.psu.edu       > () <          State College 
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Last update August 1, 2002 by Dr. Mauri Collins (mauri@emoderators.com)