Be a Gardener, Not a Carpenter: Make Your Class Active Now: A Guide for Students and Teachers with a Link to Neil Postman's Questions in Arabic

This version was created for free distribution at the 1st International Conference on Smart Learning for Community Development. Here is the description of the conference: The conference focuses on effective technology-enhanced learning theories, methodologies and tools for a teaching excellence framework in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). http://dspace.qou.edu/contents/smart/index.html http://www.conferencealerts.com/show-event?id=179057http://www.conferencealerts.com/show-event?id=179057 Conference 20th March 2017 Ramallah, West Bank, Palestinian Territories Website: http://dspace.qou.edu/contents/smart/index.html Contact person: Mahmoud Hawamdeh This ebook is a special edition that has been offered for free distribution at the conference. Anyone who registers for the conference is offered this free ebook. The aim is to promote the use of the Postman Questions in higher education. The title of this book comes from a talk given by Alison Gopnik about parenting. Gopnik observes that many parents view their roles as a carpenter, which is to “shape or mold the child to come out a particular way. So your job as a caregiver is to do a bunch of things, acquire a bunch of expertise that will lead to a particular kind of child, which will lead to a particular kind of adult.” She offers a contrasting example of the gardener, who “takes care of the garden by creating a meadow which allows a variety of people to flourish.” Her warning for “smart learning for community development” might be “if you tell students what to study, they might not make the breakthroughs that your community needs to develop new ideas.” Gopnik concludes, “So the gardener picture is more like creating a meadow where there's many, many different kinds of flowers, many different ways of developing. That variety of possibility is what allows the garden to flourish or the meadow to flourish even when things change.” Search: "Parenting" Looks Nothing Like Evolutionary Caregiving alison gopnik youtube.com/watch?v=eTMpYDqsz2s The specific recommendation to the Smart Learning for Community Development is “we need innovation and creativity,” so don’t be carpenters! Be gardeners and encourage play and free exploration.