Alex Schechter
International Relations
9/21/15
From grades 10-12, I attended Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Beaver is a private coeducational day school for grades 6-12. Before that, I attended the public school in my hometown. I was miserable there. To the teachers, I was merely a number rather than a human being to them. It’s hard to blame them though based on the fact each class size ranged from 30-40 students. I had lost my passion to learn, because I was not being challenged. I was merely going through the motions and letting life pass me by. Switching to Beaver is the greatest decision I have made. Beaver looks beyond traditional education to form a creative learning experience. This is why I believe that being a constructivist seems more plausible for myself than before. Constructivism deals with how people learn. By going to Beaver, I learned that it is not human nature in which we learn about society, but rather social construct.
In grade 11, as a Junior at Beaver, I attended NuVu which is a collaboration between Beaver and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “NuVu is is a full-time innovation school for middle and high school students. NuVu’s pedagogy is based on the architectural Studio model and geared around multi-disciplinary, collaborative projects. We teach students how to navigate the messiness of the creative process, from inception to completion.” Rather than learning out of a textbook, NuVu infact has no courses, no subjects, and no grades. Instead, students participate in a studio model, similar to what is used at MIT. At NuVu, my, “classmates” and I were constructing what and how we were learning. For example, we came up with the idea to create an application that was a game meant for a special brand of tablets being distributed to school children in Kenya. Over the course of a four week period, we were able to make the right connects, learn how to develop the application, and actually have it used at schools across Kenya. By being a part of this project, I not only learned how to develop an application, but also improved my business skills as well as collaborative skills just by being, “hands on.” We were actually constructing the information we were learning. We were using the prior knowledge we already had and were improving on it. These are the main principles of constructivism, in my opinion.
At Dickinson, although the studio method of learning is not used, I believe that many of the courses that are taught here use a constructivist method of teaching. In classrooms at Dickinson, teachers encourage students to ask questions, and assess what we previously know, and what we are learning. Instead of solely focussing on repetition methods of learning, the learning at Dickinson is interactive, hands on, and builds on what students have learned in previous courses. For example, I am taking, “Chemistry in the Kitchen.” There is a laboratory section of this course in which we meet once a week and complete a lab. Although there is a general outline of what we need to do, we still control what we are learning and work together in groups. Now that I understand what constructivism is, I’m glad that I’ve been able to attend such great schools such as Beaver and Dickinson.
In International Relations, Constructivism is the theory that certain aspects of IR are socially constructed instead of consequences of human nature. Although Constructivism can be hard to grasp, and I am still trying to figure out what its essentials are, it offers ideas that are useful and relevant.
Hi Alex,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post. I thought the way you integrated the concepts we discussed in class with your own personal school experiences provided the reader with a better understanding of what we've been learning in class. The analogy between how we are taught at Dickinson and the constructivist school of thought is really thought provoking, and I agree with your points.
Hey Baylie!
DeleteI appreciate the kind feedback, and I’m glad that you were able to understand the points that I was trying to get across. I thought that by writing about constructivism in an, “educational sense” would help the reader better understand the core concepts of Constructivism. Although the blog was not completely about Constructivism in terms of an IR perspective, I think that the core concepts were explained in a different matter.
Coming from a small private 6-12 school I appreciate the parallels you were able to construct (pun intended) between the was small schools function versus regimented large schools. I think strict learning falls into a Liberal category because the system is designed for absolute gains, versus a more socratic model, such as Dickinson, where we can make our education what we want (Constructivist). I like how you picked a topic that is very relevant to people who chose Dickinson.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the socratic model being seen in classes, especially our international relations course. I also think it is ironic that I have the most socratic like discussions in my largest class. We each act in a certain way though, but things can change! Different people might have more strong willed opinions about one topic than another. The students can be seen as states and we are constantly changing! One day is not like the next! There are no social norms in our class!
DeleteThis was definitely an interesting post to learn. We do not tend to associate the type of schooling that we have received with international relation theories. I have found that you can relate constructivism to many things. I agree with you about the small class size. By getting to know your peers, you were able to discover yourself and they were able to find their way as well. This could be seen as alter-casting. I attended a public high school, but in my smaller classes, I think we did form a close knit class family that produced "norms" for what was to be expected by the students and the teacher. Also, you could possibly view different teams as states. The lacrosse and baseball teams were constantly arguing over which was the better sport. The identity of a baseball player or lacrosse player factored into what your mindset was. However, I did know some baseball and lacrosse kids who were still friends so constructivists would agree that nothing is ever set in stone.
ReplyDeleteAlex,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog post and how you related personal experience into such a broad IR theory. I agree with your thoughts on hands on learning being better for students in some ways because it applies more to the real world. I like that things like this are being done at Dickinson because it shows that we are being better prepared for our next step into the real world. I also thought it was a good comparison between constructivism and your experiences when you talked about how your identity changed from your bigger high school to your smaller more interactive school. I think that highlighted very well one of the main ideas of constructivism.
It was really interesting to see how constructivism can be applied in the classroom. Seeing how this can be applied outside of an IR perspective actually reinforced what we had been learning in class and gave me a better sense of what constructivism is like on the world stage with your examples of your educational experience.
ReplyDeleteIt was really interesting to see how constructivism can be applied in the classroom. Seeing how this can be applied outside of an IR perspective actually reinforced what we had been learning in class and gave me a better sense of what constructivism is like on the world stage with your examples of your educational experience.
ReplyDelete