DePung Learning Environments
Contact Information:
mdepung@yahoo.com
314-496-1810
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HomeAbout DePung Learning Environments
Hello! Welcome to DePung Learning Environments. I am so pleased that you have chosen to visit. I would like to offer you something worthwhile to consider while you are here, and then I would like to offer you a course of action for your educational needs.
Students and Parents
True education provides a natural environment for our brains to be able to learn. It is not a place but rather learning conditions and a philosophy that can be practically implemented. We are wired to learn very naturally as human beings. We create knowledge all the time, from infancy on, by processing stimuli and connecting it with what already exists inside of us. We desire to know, to learn, to seek, to grow; we can’t help it. The etymology of the word education indicates a drawing forth—(< L., educere, to lead or bring forth). The external stimuli draw forth our internal need to know and then we construct knowledge useful to us, an inner essence of learning. True education asks questions to collect information (the inner essence wanting to know), makes connections (the inner essence creating knowledge with external world), and creates communications (the inner essence expressing this new knowledge to the external world). Education is a recursive process of curiosity and connections and creativity.
My point here is that you, the learner, understand that many times when you just aren’t getting something that a teacher, school, coach, etc. wants you to get, it is because there is a disconnect between that which is the external stimuli and your organic, whole natural learning process. With subjects in school, that often occurs because the subjects have been artificially separated. This is necessary to some extent in order to learn the discipline and become skilled in it, but the crucial process of making connections back to a bigger picture is often left out, not to mention the opportunity to express the bigger picture in ways that are meaningful to you.
I would like to help you do that in any area in which you are struggling. I cannot effectively tutor in specific subjects in which I have not been “schooled,” but I can help in many ways. When once you understand the sorts of questions that are effective and the need of the inner you to make connections and ways that you might communicate, then you will be successful—meaning that you will construct the knowledge that you need. Of course, I can help very much in areas where I have constructed significant amounts of my own knowledge, especially reading, coaching writing, and literary studies, all of which overlap significantly with many other disciplines.
School Districts, Administrators, Professional Development Committees
If you are reading this and have need of an engaging, transforming workshop, let me know. I have made various presentations at different levels and would be glad to work with fellow educators to help, encourage, inspire, and motivate them to greater professional success.
I hope this has made you curious about education and given you a desire to make some connections. If you wish some specific help, please contact me. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
All the best,
Michael DePung
For the nearly 3,000 students I have taught over the course of my career, I had two emphatic goals: Learn how to learn and Learn to love to learn.
Contact me and let's start a learning adventure together.
Michael DePung
Qualifications:
M. Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction, B.A. in English, B.Sc. in Secondary Education (7-12)
Published in professional literature
Completed Gateway Writing Project, local chapter of National Writing Project
Led various teacher study groups
Designed and implemented action research projects
Taught 17 years full-time in public school, grades 7-12
Have lifetime teacher certification in Missouri
