Educating the Reflective Practitioner
I've been searching for this paper by Donald Schon for a long time now -- found it by remembering the bicycle riding example of tacit knowledge. It was this paper that struck a chord in me with regards to learning and knowledge. Although it was written in 1987 its concepts are so relevant. Some wonderful anecdotes about practice are worth remembering, like this one: Vygotsky, who worked just after the Russian Revolution, worked with peasants, some of whom had been to the collective schools and some of whom had not. And he gave them little tests. And the basic pattern of the test was "Put together the things that go together." So he showed this peasant a hammer, a saw, a hatchet and a log of wood, and he said, "Put together the things that go together." And the peasant said, "Well, clearly, what goes together is the log of wood and the hatchet and the saw because you use the hatchet and the saw to cut the wood for firewood." And Vygotsky said--and this was his regular strategem--"I have a friend who says that the saw, the hammer and the hatchet go together because they are tools." And the peasant answered, "Then your friend must have a lot of firewood!"Add tag Permalink | Wednesday, April 21, 2004
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