Cultural Models...

The idea of cultural models that Gee is generating much of his focus in this chapter on is fascinating to me. "People that have no cultural models would have to think everything out for themselves minute by minute when they attemp to act."(p. 146) This is nearly impossible to do in our world today. We are constantly bombarded with something on the outside that makes up who we are. It is a neat thing to see that who we are and who we will become is who we have been surrounded with in the past, present, and the future. How we will change in the future will be in large part due to how our cultural models change. I think that rather than saying that cultural models are good or bad, I would just say that our paying attention to what they are and how they affect us in life is extremely important. This idea really makes me shiver when I think of how many people there are and how many differences we have. Embracing those differences and allowing people who are different from you to teach you more about life is such a cool thing. By teaching I feel like I am doing this for a living. The diversity (not only in race) of my students will be a challenge for sure, but I am excited to see how they are able to shape who I am as a teacher and as a person.

like reading a videogame manual....

"While video games actively encourage such situated and embodied thinking and doing, school often does not." (pg. 87) The lack of analytical thinking in curriculum is a huge problem. Throughout this chapter there were many examples that were given to provide evidence for the type of situated and embodied learning that has proven to be effective with children and adults. It was also mentioned that the traditional way of viewing learning is not as effective if we want to teach our students to be lifetime learners. I feel like the embodied learning reflects a lot of the ideas of the constructivist learning theory, in which we add new experiences with which we already know. As teachers I feel like we need to reflect more on the embodied action and spend more time in designing a means for students to be able to construct their learning so that they dont look at a textbook the same way I would look at a videogame manual. We need to set up the stage, use terminology that they can understand so that they can grasp the bigger concepts in subjects such as science or economics.