Darcia Narvaez - Building Knowledge by Overcoming the Dualistic Mindset in Education
Abstract
This article reviews recent research on the process of learning in education. The research findings reveal that students are active learners whereas instruction in schools continues to treat them as passive objects that vary in their capacity to uptake knowledge. In spite of this widely-known insight that learning arises out of action, many educators, particularly in poor developing countries that still rely on old-fashioned school systems adopted from the colonial past, rely on ready-made information following a dualistic view of mind and body. Presented with rules to memorize, students are not encouraged to question or develop their own rules but to accept what adults provide. However, the static dualistic mindset is of little help in a complex and ambiguous world. It stifles real learning and problem solving, and thwarts the adoption of social and political responsibility. Real life understanding should not be discarded as irrelevant but as an essential part of an bottom-up, active learning process guided by knowledgeable mentors.
