Becoming Autodidactic
One of the most important ideas that can be derived from the Boundary Principle is the idea that education is never given, it is always taken.
If you can imagine the outstretched hand of a teacher as representing everything that can be done or ever will be done to teach children fractions or multiplication or whatever, none of it matters a hill of beans if a student does not reach out and take what is offered. And you can see that this does not work the other way. A student can, at least theoretically, find knowledge on his or her own. It is perceived to reside mostly in classrooms today because of convenience, but knowledge is not confined to these locations.
We might call this the Self-Teaching Standard. Education is never given, it is always taken. Creating students that are eventually self-teaching, or autodidactic, should be an objective of every curriculum. And this is one of the most important reasons for the existence of the Boundary Principle--to limit the assistance text (and perhaps teaching) can offer students, such that they are encouraged to interact positively with both to gain knowledge and understanding. But this limiting is done in a principled way, not as a gotcha technique one would find in, say, a mystery novel.
Students should, from the very beginning of their educations, learn to educate themselves. One of the first steps students can take is to question text (and teaching), reinterpret it so that it makes more sense to them, move it around in their minds to better understand its limitations--and its power. This can never really happen if text and teaching are allowed to hold knowledge in one hand and a student's hand in the other.
The Boundary Principle tells us that there is such a thing as teaching too much--an argument that can fit squarely within either a constructivist or a direct instruction philosophy (the two are not mutually exclusive). Text must simply create an environment that allows for its manipulation.
Text must simply be an outstretched hand.
If you can imagine the outstretched hand of a teacher as representing everything that can be done or ever will be done to teach children fractions or multiplication or whatever, none of it matters a hill of beans if a student does not reach out and take what is offered. And you can see that this does not work the other way. A student can, at least theoretically, find knowledge on his or her own. It is perceived to reside mostly in classrooms today because of convenience, but knowledge is not confined to these locations.
We might call this the Self-Teaching Standard. Education is never given, it is always taken. Creating students that are eventually self-teaching, or autodidactic, should be an objective of every curriculum. And this is one of the most important reasons for the existence of the Boundary Principle--to limit the assistance text (and perhaps teaching) can offer students, such that they are encouraged to interact positively with both to gain knowledge and understanding. But this limiting is done in a principled way, not as a gotcha technique one would find in, say, a mystery novel.
Students should, from the very beginning of their educations, learn to educate themselves. One of the first steps students can take is to question text (and teaching), reinterpret it so that it makes more sense to them, move it around in their minds to better understand its limitations--and its power. This can never really happen if text and teaching are allowed to hold knowledge in one hand and a student's hand in the other.
The Boundary Principle tells us that there is such a thing as teaching too much--an argument that can fit squarely within either a constructivist or a direct instruction philosophy (the two are not mutually exclusive). Text must simply create an environment that allows for its manipulation.
Text must simply be an outstretched hand.