Places of Learning,”Introduction”

In the introduction, I disagreed with some, agreed with most, and have questions concerning a few of Ellsworth’s statements. Beginning on page one, the author’s bias toward the low worth of the continuity of established knowledge to be communicated and propagated is quickly and clearly established. But this “dead” knowledge should not be so easily discarded. It does at the very least serve as a starting/jumping point, a point of reference, a datum?

On page two, Ellsworth mentions in the second paragraph “…there is no self who preexists a learning experience.” I understand her perspective of the process of experiencing knowledge is experiencing ourselves in the making, but to deny the existence of any self prior is absurd. I agree with the model of the fluidity of the changing shape of the self as it travels through learning experience after learning experience. But the self does “preexist” as the fluid itself. The volume, color and shape of the self may change while “in the times and places of the learning self in the making” occur; however I disagree with the nonexistence of the self prior to this.

In the second paragraph on page three, Ellsworth mentions the need to let go of “strict binary discourses” and move toward new mindsets that do not address them as “separate and in relations of opposition but rather as a complex moving webs of interrelationalities.” I completely agree that this is an appropriate direction and reminds me of a quote from Einstein, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” I also find myself thinking not about “new mindsets” but actually old ones? When I was reading this page, the old iconic yin and yang symbol popped into my imagination. The yin/yang symbol consists of a reverse “S” dividing in half a circle into a light and dark side with a dark dot on the light side and a light dot on the dark side. At first glance it is a binary of opposing forces. Yet the swirling nature within a circle implies a dynamic interrelationship while the dots signify the essence of each opposing side residing within its counterpart. This interrelated duality is similar to Venturi’s both/and concept versus the either/or.

On the first half of page six, I greatly appreciate the metaphor of the solar system and orbits relative to the practice of schools. Ellsworth purpose for this book and for the perspective of pedagogy is most clear to me here. She is not trying to bring alternate views into the fold of existing educational practices, but rather study these anomalies to provide new courses/directions of thinking. We all know the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." I believe Ellsworth is taking the next step in education by not just teaching a student to fish but rather provide an environment for a student to teach him/herself? This road may proliferate a multitude of directions for pedagogy.

Finally, I could not fully wrap my head around what Ellsworth meant on page four at the end of paragraph three about the “material nature that involves biological and molecular events taking place in the boy of the viewer…” What molecular events is she talking about?