Monday, February 4, 2013

Constuctivism

I have to so a presentation on this subject and so am looking for information.


Confucius said, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

 What he is expressing here is that we have to experience something ourselves in order to really understand it. If we are hearing something it might be interesting. If we are seeing something it might be beautiful. But only if we have it happening to ourselves – actively doing it – we can really know how it is.
Picture something nice as winning an Olympic gold medal or picture something terrifying as the loss of a loved one. Can you know this by hearing it or by seeing it? Or do you have to do it and experience it yourself to really know it?
Along with this realization comes the awareness that you cannot understand someone or his actions from hearing or seeing it from the outside. You have to feel empathic compassion for him to really know what it is like. To know and not to do is really not to know. Only by applying our knowledge we can validate it’s harmony with reality, it’s truth.  http://www.myrkothum.com/confucius-says-the-top-10-quotes-by-confucius/
This is me again: So I need to teach Constuctivism to my class and it is pretty much the quote above.  We construct our own knowledge by doing and being active in our own learning.  We cannot sit back listening to a lecture and really learn what is being said.  We need to do it to understand it or construct it ourselves so it is now part of us and part of our knowledge going forward.  We construct knowledge by attaching it to things we already know, so no one sees the same thing the same way.  No ones knowledge matches anyone elses...we may think that someone thinks just like us...but they really don't.  Interesting?  I think so!

1 comment:

Grandpa and Grandma B said...

Thanks for sharing - I like the rest of the quotes. There is another important challenge and that is to learn from our experiences that when others tell of the dangers or challenges they have experienced that we realize that we don't have to try everything to know for ourselves.