Arts of the Contact Zone

Pratt:

"But in their execution the deploy specifically Andean systems of spatial symbolism that express Andean values and aspirations....If a classroom is homogenized with respect to the teacher, whatever students do other than what the teacher specifies is invisible or anomalous to the analysis" (p. 3 & p. 5).

McNiff:

I was looking at the drawings on page 3 and I was wondering about the webpages we looked at in class that we categorized as unorganized and chaotic. I agree that the webpages were a disaster, but I wonder if there is some method or system to the pages that pertains to another smaller sub-group of people. Personally I think the webpages were hard to navigate, chaotic and useless for finding information quickly and efficiently; but there must another group that disagrees.

Secondly, Pratt describes what is accepted as legitimate in the classroom based on the teacher's point of view or an authoritative figure. I think this has a lot to do with independency. I think if I child is taught to think independently of what others (even their parents) think then they become a lot better at being able to think more critically....

Reflection:

So, the student can understand that what they formated for the teacher such as an assignment may not be and doesn't always have to be recognized or congratulated by the parent/teacher. However, the student should always be encouraged to share their work because feedback is important regardless if someone agrees (in essence student is traditionally rewarded/congratulated) or disagrees (student needs to make changes or did something wrong). In the later of the two, the student should be taught that in either case the agree or disagree means that the work needs to finally be judged by the producer/creator. The student should be given (at an early age) the ability/independency to rewrite. Disagrees should be read as other points of view/things to consider while agrees should be to rethink those parts that the you/the writer may have initially been unsure about or to just simply add more example. I'm wondering if there is really an endpoint in writing if there is constant discovery and learning.