Knowledge construction.
The knowledge construction process moves to a different level because here teachers help students
to understand, investigate, and determine the implicit cultural assumptions and frames of reference and
perspectives of the discipline they’re teaching.
In other words, we help kids understand.
I’ll give an example. What are the values that underlie knowledge? How do historians or scientists
construct knowledge? We begin to look at some of the assumptions of knowledge.
Look at the values and assumptions that underlie terms like “the westward movement,” for example.
What does that term mean? What does the author mean about the west?
It wasn’t west to the Lakota Sioux. It was the center of the universe. That was their home. It wasn’t
west for the Mexicans because it was north. And it wasn’t west for the Japanese—it was east. So if it was
west for one group of people, that was the Anglo Americans who were headed toward the Pacific.