Teaching by Doing

I found myself thoroughly interested with this chapter (4th) of Wong's book. The concept of learning by doing is nothing new to me, but I loved the way she explained how it related to dialogic pedagogy. With Wong quoting Mao, "Our chief method is to learn warfare through warfare" (128) and adding the comment about the pear (the only way to know what it tastes like is to actually taste it), I couldn't help by think of teaching. I found myself trying to relate this to other areas (Non-TESOL) of teaching as well. For example what would a regular English, history, or psychology class look like if this methodology was accepted. I could easily see the method working for teaching writing. (Learning how to write by writing.) That seems like common sense. I wonder though, what would a high school literature class look like? Learning literature by doing literature? I'd imagine it would go beyond character sketches and book reports, but I can't think of anything that would be considered "doing literature." Perhaps writing book reviews for a school or local news paper. The same types of problems come to me when thinking about history. How do you learn history by doing history? Writing news articles for current events? Perhaps this is simply my naivety about the different types of things people in these disciplines "do"... (although I am certified to teach in each area). Maybe this warrants more research on my part. What ideas can you think of?

I feel like this approach is similar to the "practice what you preach" mentality. If people are doing work in their discipline they'd be more prepared to help students do work in the discipline. As I read, I was thinking about some of my own learning experiences of learning by doing and the concept that practice reinforces knowledge. Prior to college, I attended beauty school. Beginning by taking classes and then slowly adding in hours on actual clients, I learned how to cut, color, style, perm, etc. The more hours I spent with clients, the more I wanted (and needed) to know. Even after I graduated and got my first job in a salon, other stylists told me that all beauty school teaches is the basics. After a few years of doing hair, I can say they were definitely right. I feel that I learned more by doing hair than by learning about doing hair. My experience with teaching is similar. I've taken countless classes on teaching during my undergrad, but nothing can prepare people better for teaching than by actually teaching. No class can really prepare people for parent-teacher conferences or managing the insane paper load of a high school English teacher. I think back on my own experiences and have to wonder how I can provide the same types of eye-opening, engaging learning experiences for my students.