{"id":35313,"date":"2024-01-27T22:52:49","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T06:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35313"},"modified":"2024-01-28T03:01:17","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T11:01:17","slug":"pedagogy-of-portals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/pedagogy-of-portals\/","title":{"rendered":"Pedagogy of Portals"},"content":{"rendered":"

My cousin and I had two favorite childhood games. The first was “Little House on the Prairie.”\u00a0 We lived in the country so it was easy to perform in such a setting.\u00a0 We’d act out our favorite episodes or make up new drama that allowed us to practice our problem solving skills.\u00a0 The second game was simply called “School.”\u00a0 This required a bit more planning to make it feel real.\u00a0 At the end of each school year we’d raid the old textbooks, readers and used planners the teachers would pile up on tables for kids to take home. These were our props we’d use all summer in the attic of her garage.\u00a0 We’d take turns playing the parts of teacher and student, we often threw in some disciplinary problems for each other to work through.\u00a0 These games led me to dream of being an actress when I grew up.\u00a0 Turns out, if you act like a teacher and a student long enough – that’s what you become.<\/span><\/p>\n

I watched Robert Coven’s video \u201cBreaking Through: Threshold Concepts as a Key to Understanding” as both a student and an educator.\u00a0 I appreciated his distinction between precision and accuracy.\u00a0 When we ask and only answer the obvious question, we get an answer but it’s not necessarily the right one.\u00a0 This seems to fit my way of learning and processing, as well as simply living in the world.\u00a0 \u00a0 I’ve never lived the precise, cookie cutter life.\u00a0 I’m an expert at improvising in the moment because I never know what’s going to happen moment by moment.\u00a0 I usually dismiss the first answers as too obvious, and instead seek what’s missing.\u00a0 “What is missing is often more important than what is known.”[1]\u00a0<\/span> I prefer discovering adventure rather than planning for one.\u00a0 I enjoy the kind of browsing that leads to more questions.\u00a0 This annoyed my teachers all through high school and my fellow students in college. I’d always ask the questions that would cause the professor to veer off the planned lesson. As a teacher, I worked outside the public school system because traditional pedagogical practices were tight and stiff.\u00a0 Conformity was the goal, not creativity, which rubbed me raw like an over starched shirt.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listening to Coven reminded me of Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator.\u00a0 His book \u201cPedagogy of the Oppressed\u201d transformed my teaching philosophy, affirming what I already knew to be true: students are teachers too. “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach.”<\/span>[2] I don\u2019t position myself as the expert in my field, dropping bits of knowledge into a learner\u2019s mind to memorize and regurgitate during exams. I\u2019m a facilitator of learning, serving as a guide to discover new facts, different interpretations, different lenses, ask different questions.<\/span>[3] Meyer & Land speak to this by asking, \u201cAre the questions that you ask sufficiently open and non-directive to allow your students to think about issues and to find direction for themselves?\u201d[4]<\/span><\/p>\n

When I started reading Meyer & Land, I first thought about my favorite reading genre – fantasy.\u00a0 Thresholds as \u201cportals\u201d made me think of Elven arches holding massive stone carved doors that enter into the next level of a magical journey.\u00a0 The excitement to read on was quickly dampened when I realized that math and accounting would be a major thread in the conversation.\u00a0 Math is the threshold I have never been able to break through.\u00a0 What was interesting, however, was how the Holy Spirit (and a new listening app) helped me push through the barriers.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, I had to translate the academic speak into common folk language. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit is good with tongues, so the initial transition didn\u2019t take long.\u00a0 Next, I had to make it connect to something present and applicable to my life.\u00a0 I connected with two portals: 1) my math skills and 2) my son\u2019s troublesome behavior.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a word person so as I\u2019m reading, I\u2019m also listening on the app, and watching the words highlight in blue as \u201cLiz\u201d – my chosen AI voice – provides the read-along.\u00a0 Using the Smart note strategy, I try to capture a few words and phrases that felt intuitive so I could use as focal points:<\/span><\/p>\n