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K then instructed them to work their way around the room stopping at each large paper thinking hat (from De Bono's Thinking Hats). Children wrote down wonderings (blue hat), facts (white hat), living things they liked (yellow hat), labelled diagrams (green hat), drawings of animals in their habitat, (red hat) and worries or concerns about backyard beasties (black hat). This effectively found out what children knew and would like to know. K then invited the class to share what they could see from looking at the hats. As they contributed she acknowledged and extended their ideas and reformulated questionings from the wonderings hat. This was the basis from which she planned her unit on "backyard beasties. .
CI closely mirrors the natural way children learn about their world, through wonderings and curiosity. Current teaching practice encourages a more learner centred pedagogy; learners are encouraged to assume ownership and responsibility for their own learning. Fraser, (2000) suggests that CI is one of the most confused topics in education today. This became apparent while I was searching for definitions of CI. Many American educators use the term CI where New Zealand (NZ) educators would describe their practice as thematic. .
It is the negotiation and dialogue between learner and teacher that underpins the NZ understanding of CI. The NZ view is similar to that of the "problem-posing" ideal education that Freire (1970) describes. Freire describes traditional education as functioning on a "banking" system whereas as the teacher as holder of knowledge "banks" information into passive learners. .
In the problem-posing model teaching and learning are a dialogical partnership with equal input and responsibility from both parties. In the banking model students are not require to develop knowledge but to memorise information narrated by the teacher. I feel that current NZ teaching practice is more learner centred than the teaching Freire described however I believe that there is still too much emphasis on teacher led learning.
