Cynically Confused Constructivist

At the hearing of the word "constructivism", I cringed and began having nightmare flashbacks of educational theory classes back in graduate school. I have never been a fan of educational theory because every theory sounds too perfect – with captivating phrases like “authentic exploration”, “intrinsically motivating”, “dynamic collaboration” or “meaningful reflection”… what on earth does it all mean, realistically? And if it's so great, why didn't we make a nation wide announcement and get started on changing the system?

Ultimately, I became so confused from trying to remember which theory was based on exploration and which concept explored reflection and which model reflected on collaboration! So to be perfectly honest, I am mildly allergic to the scholarly-sounding lingo used by educational theorists and secretly looked for something that is both academic and realistic – a theory that takes into consideration the limited resources available in my classroom, the strengths and weaknesses of my students, the struggle for time to finish the curriculum, and the dreadful need to prepare students for standardized tests, etc.

However… putting aside all cynicism, I do recognize the need for educational theories (theorists). If we educators only focused on the problems we face from day to day in our classrooms, we will drown in despair and be consumed by the frog-in-the-well syndrome… no forward progress will ever be possible.

I’m not sure how I feel about the definition that knowledge is constructed and learning is created from experience from the overview reading. As much as we resist the concept, many things are black and white in school – the earth is slightly oval in shape, 2 + 2 = 4, George Washington was the first president of the United States, and libro means book in Spanish! These are the basic objective knowledge that a student would need in order for any sort of construction to begin – without the building blocks, how can there be any constructivism?

As I read on, I was very encouraged to see evidence to confirm my suspicion that "constructivism" is not the magic pill for learning - it cannot be used everywhere, every time. Being a 7th grade Social Studies teacher, I suddenly realized why I am having so much trouble accepting the whole concept of an ill-structured & open ended problem... "[Constructivist environment] is typically not very useful when learning introductory knowlege (facts, concepts) of a discipline. It is also not very useful in environments where learners are novices" - there lies my problem, my darling 7th graders are relatively clueless when it comes to basic facts and very few of them can be thrown into an ill-structured problem without sinking. This was a personal breakthrough, it shattered my incorrect assumption that constructivists expects me to teach every lesson with an open-ended question and let my students "construct" the answer for themselves regardless of its accuracy.

Last but not least, I enjoyed listening to Roger Shank's introduction to his book Engines for Education. In this short but energetic audio clip introduction, Roger Shank called for an Education Revolution - immediately my eyes rolled back and thought to myself... here we go again - another hot shot trying to "revolutionize" education by bringing back something that didn't work 30 years ago with a new package wrapper or a different slogan. Once again, I fought hard against the cynic in me and allowed myself to imagine a school system that dares to break the lock step curriculum, in which every child is doing the same thing on the same page in the same day - the possibility was surprisingly refreshing and would inspire even the most jaded educator amongst us.

Shank is right, it would be wonderful to create a fun and exciting learning environment in which students couldn't wait to go to school and learn for the sake of learning. On the other hand, all my previous mentors are right too... "not every day can be a song and a dance - sometimes the kids need to use the textbook and answer the questions on a worksheet" - can there be a balance between the two?