Three Billy Goats Gruff

I was imagining a journey, a landscape of some kind, and a picture from an old storybook popped into my head: "Once upon a time, there were three billy goats, and the last name of all of them was Gruff. They had eaten up all the grass where they lived and so they decided to go over the bridge, across the stream, to the other side where there was a meadow of green, green grass..." This storybook scene is the environment where, Piaget would say, we construct our knowledge, and our curiosity pulls us forward to learn, find nourishment, grow. In my metaphorical land, the theorists are like the bridge: presenting strong concepts that help us cross over from what we don't know as teachers to what we want to know or are learning. The goats represent phases of ourselves as learners and teachers. Dewey would see that first, littlest billy goat coming over and note that the process of learning is child-led. Montessori would know that the little goat is more capable than he first appears, and would make the boards of the bridge close enough together for his hooves to trip-trap across, encouraging him to do it himself. Piaget and Erikson would note that the goats go over in phases, related to age...but Erikson would say that if one of them needed to return back over the bridge sometime later, he could. Vygotsky would notice that the three billy goats collaborated beautifully and thus all got over the bridge, whereas if they had gone individually the two youngest would have been unsuccessful. Kohlberg might ask us to consider the moral behavior of the troll and goats. The troll lurking under the bridge represents fears (as a new teacher, as a child), obstacles, challenges. Maybe sometimes the troll represents corporate influences on education. All kinds of things could inhabit the troll's skin, and I'm sure I'll run into quite a few trolls on my journey. When I meet a troll that demands to know what I'm doing trying to cross the stream, I will stamp my hooves, and remember the goal: that all together, we're going to that green meadow.