David Maruyama (00503517)December 10th 2011

Teaching, Learning and Knowing is a Bus

David Maruyama (00503517)

EDUC 401 B01

December 10th 2011

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/Calgary_Transit_Articulated_Bus.jpg

David Maruyama (00503517)December 10th 2011

Introduction of metaphor

During the school year, I would get up early in the morning to get ready for

the long ride to school. I would take the 38-bus down to the train station, where

then I would transfer over to the 73-bus. If I were bored, I would mentally take

count of how many people would get on and off the bus at particular bus stops. Also,

even though I had my headphones on, I would occasionally catch snippets of

people’s conversations. My daily associations with Calgary Transit made me think

that teaching is like a public transportation bus. The word bus originated from the

word omnibus. According to Harper (n.d.), omnibus was coined in 1829 to represent

a “four wheeled public vehicle with seats for passengers”. Omni is Latin for “ for all”

(Harper, n.d.). Essentially, this type of bus is used to transport, for most of the time,

any person from place to place.

If I were to place my metaphor onto Davis’ (2011) “Conception of Teaching”

tree, I would place it on the coherence theories side under the coherence in/of the

human world branch. I would not consider my metaphor under the correspondence

side of the tree since my bus’ view of educating is not about drawing out what we

already have within ourselves or to simply draw in knowledge (Davis, 2011).

Rather, the bus challenges and facilitates us, like how it requires us to adapt to

random situations (ie: not being able to grab a seat or perhaps sitting beside a

crying child). Buses helps to facilitate our lives by providing a way to get us from

place to place, like how teachers help facilitate student understanding. The term bus

may also be placed under the coherence in/of the more-than human world, since it

David Maruyama (00503517)December 10th 2011

could lead to new opportunities, like going past your bus stop to see where the bus

goes. It’s equivalent in education is to teach students for jobs that have yet to be

invented.

Teaching is giving opportunities

Initially, I thought that to teach was to pass down knowledge I learnt to the

next generation. I realized throughout the term that teaching is more than spewing

information out and hoping that the students take it up. If I were to simply tell them

what I know without encouraging students to go further, then they may just be at

where I am situated in time. In other words, living in the generation I was living in.

Teaching then, is giving opportunities, like how people on the bus can stop at

whatever bus station they want to stop at. With how Davis, Sumara & Luce-Kapler

(2008) puts it, “teaching seems more about expanding the space of the possible and

creating conditions for the emergence of the as-yet unimagined” (p 172). As a

potential teacher, I would give students the location of these “bus stops”, by teaching

them what I know. Students then are able, for the most part, to decide on what “bus

stop” they want to go to. That does not mean that students have to stop at the same

station, for there is a vast amount of stops for them to choose from. As for me being

the teacher, I also benefit for I’ll be able to explore with my students. Also, like what

Davis has mentioned in a couple of lectures is that teachers are meant to be “experts

in learning”. That means that we continue to learn along with the students. “At best,

teaching is cast as a cycle of construals: the teacher tries to construe the student’s

construals so that a new set of experiences might be organized in order to prompt a

David Maruyama (00503517)December 10th 2011

new round of construals” (Brent et al., 2008, p. 101) As teachers, we cannot make

students uptake knowledge through osmosis, rather students need to be able to

make sense of the knowledge. To see my students go outside the realm of the

present would perhaps be the most gratifying part of my future job.

Learning is journeying

As people get onto the bus, the vehicle takes them from stop to stop. Along

the journey, the passengers get to experience the world around them, whether it's

the scenery outside the bus or by hearing other people’s conversations. There is so

much going on, but one can only take in so much information at a time. People are

selective to what they take in. The same goes for learning. There could be different

interpretations of what was learnt even though the experience may be similar in

nature (Brent et al., 2008, p. 100). Going back to the bus example, the layperson at

the front of the bus can glance out of the window and see two dogs staring at each

other at a park while the dog breeder at the back of the bus gets to see a Pit Bull

initiating a fight against a Siberian/Chihuahua mix. Simply put, no two students

would experience their education the same way despite going through the same

program or even teachers. Their previous knowledge and experiences shape the

way they see the world and how they would construe new knowledge within

themselves.

Knowledge/Knowing is among the interactions between ANYBODY on the bus

David Maruyama (00503517)December 10th 2011

There are all sorts of people that you would meet on a typical day. They

range from old elderly couples to that young teenager with purple hair. Each person

has their own funds of knowledge that is unique due to their experiences in life.

According to Bibby (2009), adults have a negative view of teenagers and that

“every new generation of teenagers is somehow inferior to previous ones” (p. 38). In

a sense, we adults think that the knowledge that teens have is useless. Age is not the

only category where certain types of knowledge are discriminated against. Even

though the Stanley (1990) article on Chinese segregation is outdated there are

merits in its argument of how western knowledge is valued more than eastern

knowledge. There is also Henderson’s (2000) article that speaks on the notion of

western thought being superior to traditional indigenous views. All three of these

sources lay out the idea that the hegemony on knowledge is European and middle

aged. As a future teacher then, I would need to help bring out these other voices.

Bringing back the idea of the bus metaphor, I would encourage students to bring

their own experiences to the classroom and have them interact with one another. I

hope this would encourage my future students to interact with the world around

them; to all sorts of people that they would probably not normally interact with. In

doing so, I also hope that they do not lose their own unique identity by mindlessly

taking up the dominant view of knowledge.

David Maruyama (00503517)December 10th 2011

Reference List

Bibby, R.W. (2009). Beyond the stereotypes: An inside look at Canada’s emerging millennials. Education Canada, 50(1), 38-43.

Davis, B. (2011) EDUC 401: Issues in Learning and Teaching Plenary 5 [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://blackboard.ucalgary.ca/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&

url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCours e%26id%3d_94262_1%26url%3d

Davis, B., Sumara D., and Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging Minds: Changing Teaching in Complex Times (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Harper, D. (n.d.) Omnibus. In Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=omnibus&allowed_in_frame=0

Henderson, J(S).Y. (2000). The context of the state of nature. In M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp. 11-38). Toronto, ON: UBC Press.

Stanley, T.J., (1990). White Supremacy, Chinese Schooling, and School Segregation in Victoria: The Case of the Chinese Students’ Strike, 1922-1923. In N. Janovicek & J. Parr (Eds.), Histories of Canadian Children and Youth (pp. 126-137). Don Mills, ON: Oxford