“Learning and Choice”

Group #10:

Amendolara

Cáceres

Soria

Learning

Based on Plato’s concept of aporia,Burbules believes that teachers

should lead students into a state of aporia

and then lead them out again.

But, …

… what is “aporia”?

Aporia

• From the Greek a-poros:

“lacking a path, a way”.

• It is the sense of being lost, of having arrived in an unfamiliar location.

Aporia

• It implies a lack of clarity about how to proceed, requiring a judgment

or a choice to be made.

( As when we are lost in the Web.)

• Let’s see three examples to illustrate this...

1) “Allegory of the Cave,”by Plato.

• After a time on the surface, the freed prisoner acclimated and started to see more things around him…

• The most important is the Sun, the “source of the seasons and the years: the steward of all things in the visible place.”

That is, when he saw it,he reached complete knowledge.

2) “La Vida es Sueño,”by Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

• Segismundo -the main character- is in prison.

• He lives in the darkness and does not know who he is.

• When he discovers himself, he reaches the light.

3) “The Matrix,”film by the Wachowsky

Brothers.• Morpheus: You're here because you know

something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. Do you know what I'm talking about?

• Neo: The Matrix?• Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is the

world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

• Neo: What truth?• Morpheus: That you are a slave. A prison for

your mind.• Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?

• Morpheus: You've never used them before.

So, what do the examples mean?

In the three works, the protagonists experience aporia: they do not know who they are, where to go and what

to do.

Now, there can exist a reconstructionof true knowledge.

But, …

How do we get out of an aporia?

Choices• The paths students take lead them to

unfamiliar places or to get information that is more useful or interesting.

• They being lost again (aporia) end up or taking a decision

(choices)

So, what are choices?

Learning and Choice• Choices are an opportunity to engage with difficulty, involving a

sense of challenge and excitement.

• In the Web, the confusion is aboutwhich choice to make.

These experimentations with choices

are associated with learning.

Sources:• http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/freetoview.asp?

j=elea&vol=1&issue=2&year=2004&article=2_Burbules_ELEA_1_2_web

• ttp://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:e2jI0F1CLXkJ:www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/97_docs/rizvi.html+burbules%2Blearning+choice&cd=2&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=ar

• http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/97_docs/burbules.html

• Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. “La Vida es Sueño” (Summary)

• Plato, “Allegory of the Cave” (Summary)

• http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matrix (Quotes from “The Matrix”)