It would devalued the idea of buying and selling education, to place its origin in the USA Teachers Colleges; but there is no question that during the 20th Century the professors and related teachers in schools of education have made it into a sink or swim situation; more so. in those autonomous enough, with doctoral programs in their offerings, to be identified as the Teachers College of this or that prestigious university; a rather pathetic relationship, since few of them were ever to interact with each other; placing the given Teachers College -with the exception of few independent schools of serious pedagogy; i.e Bank Street- in a lower academic rank, caste; a syndrome and malady that is spreading to other disciplines; as more millenials prefer to go on the Whatasp self-centered multi spatial and virtual route to learning and doing without having to be forced to hear such idiocies as “learning to learn”.
It has always been -and still is- an idea that is important, but it is not only poorly phrased, named, it is sold under false information that is a new one, branded with the name of the person/professor selling it, embodied in some kind of programatic recycling of ancient methods and ways of going around exploring and reconstructing the world or in one of those regulated, atomatized, systematized, hierachisized, and pausterized educational materials, unquestioned and bought by educational buyers/customers. The given “educational product/system” are hardly original; much less the one, quite fashionable a few decades ago, that says: children must be taught how to learn to learn. Really! And what were humans and others -and how- doing for over a large amount of years, a lot, before the particular professor in Teachers College, IV League U, decided to recycle and sell it as new?
Of course, people need to learn how to study using certain established and quite old methods and languages, codes, so they become skilled and knowledgable on how to explore, understand, review, critique and reflect, perhaps transform, a particular phenomema or simply accept that they are like poets and mystics, and prefer to wait for “revelations”; but teachers colleges are not monasteries nor rich Parisian ladies salons supporting 19th Century poets. Learning to learn what and how or learning to reflect on our own approaches when we go around the world and follow the maxim, “using it to our advantage and share it with others”, or to compose, theorize, reflect and find new ways or not are who we are; not separate from us; though, we often change it.
It seems as if knowing the history of how we have gone around learning -no to learn since we always knew the fundamental “how”- even if one refuses to do it; like some of my young students used to, when responding to each other and not even be willing to listen -“Whatever!”- and then raising their right hand and placing it close to the face of the other in a unique “stop sign”: whatever method or style or content signifier used by the other. Whatever approach is used, we learn and we have known how to reflect upon it before the Teachers College professor -quite popular during the Compensatory Education movement based on behaviorist/positivist ideas on perception and repetition- repackaged and sold it to a very much ahistorical educational market.
No wonder, schools of education and teachers colleges are leading the way into a post Prussian mass education approach: not only were they hard core militaristic imperialistic generals; these cuasi-robotic leaders created the “perfect” mass education system for their peoples and times; to deliver to large and normalized groups, skills and contents. A mass educational system later on reduced to the lowest common denominator, and polished by the marketing industry in the USA. A system that is not working anymore, including the old professors selling “learning to learn” packages or phonics diskettes aimed at changing sounds in kids mouths. Young millenials are not going after studying education -a trend that many universities are becoming aware of and changing their ways and focus.... to be seen...
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