The Social Foundations Classroom |
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| Abstract: | In this article, we promote the use of autobiography in the social foundations of education classroom as a means of connecting education to real life experiences, history, and fostering epistemological development of college students. Autobiography involves students' awareness of the relation between theory and lived experience. As a form of reflective knowing, autobiography may help students understand complex terms such as "learning," "knowledge," and "education" by exploring various contexts that influence such understandings. Reflective knowing explores some of the experiential and purposive contexts that influence knowledge creation. Intellectual maturity and self-awareness may arise from circumstances that can lead students to be more confident critical thinkers and problem solvers. We describe how we have used autobiography in our social foundations of education classrooms and explore how influencing the pedagogy of teacher education critiques traditional epistemologies toward a redefinition of education for a democratic society. Now reflecting on my educational history, I realize that everything I have learned in the past has taught me something about myself. Whether I was aware of my development at the time hinges] on individual circumstances. I have thrived on learning, brought about by major changes impacting my life. These variations and my necessary adaptations have taught me the most important skill I need to know. Because of changes in my life, I have succeeded in learning how to learn. (Rita, Bucknell University, learning autobiography, September 1999)1 If I can make present the shapes and structures of a perceived world, even though they have been layered over with many rational meanings over time, I believe my own past will appear in altered ways and that my presently lived life - and, I would like to say, teaching - will become more grounded, more pungent, and less susceptible to logical rationalization, not to speak of rational instrumentality. (Greene 1995, 77-78) |
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