“Teaching as a Subversive Activity”

I haven’t read it, even though it has been around for ages, but D’Arvy Norman’s Flickr post has me intrigued. Anyone familiar with the work?

page 61 by D'Arcy Norman.

In their book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Postman and Weingartner were talking about inquiry-based education, and how throwing out the “curriculum” and instead having students ask genuine questions that they would then work to answer together – that this would provide a powerful, relevant, and highly personal experience and a richer education. When I got to page 61, I did a doubletake. Was there a misprint? Did a vandal insert a blank page? No. They left the page blank intentionally – not even a page number – for the readers to add their own questions. It’s a simple technique, but one that profoundly changes the experience of “reading” a book, much as genuine inquiry can profoundly change the experience of “education”.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.