I am passionate about learning and literacy as a vehicle for and a product of learning. Cazden’s (1981) performance before competence is the key here. It is through our daily lived (situated) performances that we learn and become literate in our world or learn to play the game [of life] as Gee & Hayes (2011) put it. Inspired by Gee & Hayes (2001), I’ve recently become seriously interested in game-based learning and its affordances in this area. I’m currently (2013) trialling game-based learning using Gee & Hayes (2011) as the primary text.

 

I have been learning with people of all ages for many many years now and I am/have been involved with democratic education internationally through:

1. the International Democratic Education Network (IDEN) and the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) - conference presenter 2003 (New York), 2005 (Berlin), 2006 (Sydney)

Read what David Gribble has to say about democratic education

2. the Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) - New York - conference presenter 2005 (I'm the Australian Representative for AERO)

3. the Australasian Democratic Education Community (ADEC) - Member of the Executive, hosted 2002 National Conference - Conference presenter 2001, 2002, 2008, 2009

4. I designed and started Sowilo and was a founding consultant and educator at Lumiar.

See Escola Politeia which has been developed with support from former Lumiar staff, IDEC and others who are passionate about children, learning and the importance of democratic education!

5. I was a visiting educator at Windsor House School in North Vancouver during 2002

6. I was an invited international panel presenter at the Life After Capitalism Conference within a Conference (World Social Forum) in beautiful Porto Alegre, Brasil in 2003

So, if you are interested in starting a school where children are truly trusted, respected and nurtured, and would like someone to talk to...I would love to hear from you! Please email me

 

My interest in Psychology came from a strong desire to understand why people do the things they do.
This lead me into education as I wanted to work proactively, rather than fixing up the problems after things have gone awry.
In the future I want to expand the usefulness of the site by including a Discussion Group.

References:

Cazden, C. (1981). Performance before competence: Assistance to child discourse in the Zone of Proximal Development. Quarterly newsletter of the laboratory of comparative human cognition, 3, pp5-8.
Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E.R. (2011). Language and learning in the digital age. Abingdon, Oxon. England: Routledge

This page last updated 5 March 2013
© 2013 ASHuber