# Education is a values-directed activity - Learning is a process of becoming by which one is transformed into someone who knows a thing - [[You know something when you can recall and apply the knowledge in an appropriate context]] - Knowledge is bound up in contexts where it can be applied - The context involves the entire environment: living and non-living beings, physical surroundings, learner's posture, etc. - Learning can explicit or implicit - In explicit learning, the learner (or teacher) has in mind what that they want to become and undergoes activity specifically to realize that change. - In implicit learning, the learner realizes a change as a byproduct of other activities that are not intended for the purpose of learning. - Learning is an "always-on" process - one is always being formed, either implicitly or through explicit intention. - Education, therefore, is a system of change management explicitly designed to transform individuals. - Education is a values-directed activity: it always has "the good life" in view - "What is the good life?" answers the key question "Who is truly well-off?" and "How do I become truly well-off?" - The answer to these questions form a vision of the explicit change that we wish to bring about - Education is a system involving the learner, teacher, community, larger societal context, resources, and too many other factors to concretely name. - Because of the complexity of an educational system, the system must be designed following [[Gall's Law]]: it must be evolved from a simpler system that works - A pedagogical approach is a codified system of education that addresses some of the elements of the system - All pedagogical approaches are necessarily incomplete due to the overwhelming complexity of educational systems - All pedagogical approaches are bound by the context in which they were formulated, be it real or fictional, and must be adapted in order to fit a new context - Pedagogical approaches which design for this contextual adaptation have a better chance of being adopted and thriving - A pedagogical approach tends to focus on several components in it's construction: - Assessment - Memorization - The role of the teacher - The role of the parent - The role of assessment - How do we know that the educational goals have been achieved? - Academic subjects don't exist as independent things amenable to isolated study - They are instead an arbitrary and imperfect taxonomy that provides helpful names for things - Subjects (disciplines) are best learned within a larger context - What pedagogical style do I believe is most effective? - "Start how you mean to end" - Learning is "always-on", so create plenty of opportunities for the learner to grow into the human being that you wish them to become. - Self-directed - the learner learns best that is motivated by an internal desire to know - Project-based - the learner learns by engaging in the