You either haven’t read a word Alphie Kohn has read OR you’re poisoning the well for those who haven’t, yet…

Social Constructivism as envisioned by Kohn & his predecesors, Heidegger, Vygotsky, Friere, Illich and, yea! Dewey, himself, doesn’t at all force their readers to choose between *idle play and drudgery* as you’ve protrayed in the passage I repost, below!

For better ideas on what is intended by these giants of original thinking (and working…that is, *vocation*), I refer you all to these few sites of some more recent advocates of social constructivism, familiar to many of us, I’m sure:

REFs on Social Constructivist and Critical Pedagogy & Curriculae:

Paulo Freire Institute at UCLA
http://www.paulofreireinstitute.org/paulo_freire.html

DESCHOOLING SOCIETY
by Ivan Illich This document is available online courtesy of Paul Knatz and PK Imaging.
http://reactor-core.org/deschooling.html

and GettaLoadA THISone, at th’ same time, (talkin’ ‘Bout Socially Constructivist Curriculae!):
Reactor Core: Alternative Food · Alternative Health · Alternative Thought
http://reactor-core.org/
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. — Victor Hugo
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In the country of the blind, the one eyed man is called insane. ~~ Join me; open your eyes.

Block Quote from Herr Doktor Casey’s screed (indeed!):

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Herr Doktor Casey SEZ:
For Kohn, there are two modes of human activity around which one could organize education – work and play. In Kohn’s hands, work and play are a polarized dualism: play embodies the spontaneous, creative and liberating side of human activity, voluntarily undertaken, while work is alienated and oppressive drudgery, done in the service of the ‘other.’ We play because it gives us pleasure; we work because we are forced to do so, usually to provide the essentials of life. Real learning takes place, Kohn believes, when we are engaged in creative, self-directed play, and not stuck in alienated work.

Kohn is the latest incarnation of an ultra-libertarian, anarchistic tradition of educational thought, perhaps best represented by A. S. Neill’s Summerhill. Every educational issue he has addressed has been seen through the same prism of the anarchic celebration of play and derogation of work. Take assessments. Virtually every test and every form of assessment – not just excessive and misused standardized testing – is a form of oppressive work to Kohn. Even a rubric for a performance based assessment is something to be avoided, because it imposes external standards on the creative act of writing or speaking.
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