[Xmca-l] Re: A request for assistance

Tue Aug 19 03:53:40 PDT 2014

Dear Aggeliki

I get into this line of discussion, hoping that I have something to 
offer, as it is very close to my heart, my experiences and my current 
work. I work in an early childhood department of education and I teach 
mathematics pedagogy and learning courses to our undergraduates -who 
mostly ome from a working class background. I try to organize my courses 
around interdisciplinary work using digital media and expressive arts so 
that to prepare them for becoming designers of playful and art-based 
activity for the young children -so that to experience mathematical 
learning not as direct teaching but as connected and related. I realize 
that very often my students have a very limited 'taste' of what might be 
aesthetically appropriate for the early ages, what is play, how play 
could be possibly linked to joy, how work can be joyful or even how play 
can require discipline, logic and intuition. Of course, this 'limited 
taste' reflects to some extent a matter of working/middle class 
diversity (although such distinctions are not exactly relevant today ). 
Some of my students haven't visited a museum in their life and know 
merely commercial play as it is advertised in shops and TV.

The discussion over playful learning and how this relates to social 
class (especially in the early ages) is quite important and, perhaps, 
much more relevant today than it was a few decades ago. The topic is not 
new -but seems to come up again and again, although through different 
theorizing, empirical evidence and priorities in educational politics 
but also educational commerce  (e.g.- see what is being bought today at 
such an ease by anxious parents and educators?!!...).

I can think over two publications in the field of mathematics education 
that may be of some use here.
One is a  book by Cooper, Barry and Dunne, Mairead  [see exact reference 
....(2000) /Assessing Children's Mathematical Knowledge: social class 
sex and problem solving./ <http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/27498/> Open 
University Press Buckingham, 215 pp. ISBN 0335-20316-7] that discusses a 
sociological analysis (based mainly on Bernstein) on how 
explicit/implicit ways of educating influence children's success and how 
this relates to social class and gender.

Another one is Valerie Walkerdine's well known book entitled 'Counting 
Girls' Out: Girls and Mathematics' published in the 80s. Although the 
title does not disclose its relevance to social class, this book is also 
closely related to the discussion of playful or 'progressive' education 
and its appropriation by working and middle class families (note: 
perhaps one needs to attend to the 'new middle classes' phenomenon due 
to the upgrading or even downgrading in social classes. In the 80s, much 
more than it is  now, the family was for many households the 'mother' 
and the family was extended into the preschool years to the teacher -who 
was supposed to be the 'mother figure'. I have found very useful the 
discussion carried through the book over  how 'playful' activity  (and 
progressive pedagogy) influences differently social and working class 
'mothers' and how related discourses tend to inscribe their 
interactions, behavior, pleasures, tacit assessments and evaluative 
comments. How, then, the child can resist or appropriate such discursive 
machinery?  Ηow much play requires the 'meeting' of diverse discourses 
that, mainly relate to social class, ethnic, gendered diversities. 
Walkerdine provides some explanations throughout the book based on 
Foucault and feminist theory. I have enjoyed this book and although the 
book is not new it deserves an extra reading. I was recently responsible 
for editing its translation into Greek. Perhaps you might want to have a 
look in a lecture videotaped by Bodosakis foundation as an introduction 
to these very complex issues [ 
http://www.blod.gr/lectures/Pages/viewlecture.aspx?LectureID=786]. I 
guess you speak Greek. If not, ignore the video...

with best wishes
anna chronaki

On 19-Aug-14 8:00 AM, Tonyan, Holli A wrote:
> Hi Ageliki,
>
> I can think of two resources for your topic.
>
> Lisa Delpit's book Other People's Children directly addresses this.  She argues (I haven't read it in a while so forgive the fuzzy description) that a "child centered" focus harms children who are from cultural backgrounds outside of white, middle class backgrounds because they need more explicit instruction in a cultural community that is not their own.
>
> Carollee Howes book Culture and Child Development in Early Childhood Education is relevant, but less directly so.  Howes includes a number of programs that she originally saw as "skill and drill" programs and she goes to some length to articulate their beliefs and practices in the context of their community.  She's not arguing for "skill and drill" per se, but she is situating those approaches in local meaning through interviews with directors and teachers in programs that were identified by community members as excellent programs and which surprised her from her ECE background.
>
> Delpit's book, particularly the second edition, is the clearest articulation of the argument you present in the third paragraph below:
> However,
> there are some people who might be willing to concede that more
> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist might be OK for young
> children from educated middle class families ... but that they won't work
> for poor and otherwise disadvantaged children. THOSE kids need direct
> instruction to transmit "basic skills", and giving them anything else is,
> at best, a distraction from giving them what they need for school readiness.
>
> The preface to the second edition includes Delpit's description of the reactions that her colleagues have had to her arguments including those who agree (often in private and not in public) as well as those who oppose her.
>
> Hope this helps!
> Holli Tonyan
>
> On Aug 16, 2014, at 7:11 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou <agn3@lehigh.edu<mailto:agn3@lehigh.edu>> wrote:
>
> Dear XMCA community,
>
> I'm looking for a piece of information, and I wonder whether someone on the
> XMCA list has it at their fingertips.
>
> I'm writing something that deals with Vivian Paley's storytelling and
> story-acting practice. Among other things, that activity is an example of
> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist approaches to early child
> education--the kinds of approaches that have been getting squeezed out by
> preschool practices that exclusively emphasize teacher-centered, didactic
> transmission of specific academic skills by direct instruction.
>
> A lot of people think that pushing down didacted/academic teaching
> practices into preschool education is a good thing in general.  However,
> there are some people who might be willing to concede that more
> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist might be OK for young
> children from educated middle class families ... but that they won't work
> for poor and otherwise disadvantaged children. THOSE kids need direct
> instruction to transmit "basic skills", and giving them anything else is,
> at best, a distraction from giving them what they need for school readiness.
>
> My problem is this.  As we all know, a lot of people think that, and they
> say it in conversation, and they make written arguments that rest
> implicitly on that premise. In fact, this outlook is very widespread and
> influential. But I've found that very few of them seem to be willing to
> actually SAY it explicitly in their published work. I'm talking about
> academics and policymakers. There are pro-direct-instruction websites that
> say it pretty straightforwardly. But journals want academic citations in
> articles, so I'm trying to find one.
>
> *So does anyone out there know of any published work where someone actually
> SAYS that in writing?  That is, that more child-oriented, play-based, and
> constructivist preschool practices (however they actually describe them)
> might be OK for young children from educated middle-class homes, but are
> useless or even harmful for poor and disadvantaged kids, who need more
> teacher-centered, skill-based direct instruction?*
>
> I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.
>
> Thanks,
> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>
> ________________
> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
> Professor of Psychology & Global Studies
> Personal Webpage: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://lehigh.academia.edu/AgelikiNicolopoulou/About&k=eRI2VDBB0Ws5kaCopmd0GA%3D%3D%0A&r=qf%2BkY0WzGaFiU9hp3%2Bd0t5Pou2Gry2wwk%2B1QGKOKBwI%3D%0A&m=nmQJWXRp5Mwrx2ct1gjgnwNUV1KUlNHqKFvn0P33J90%3D%0A&s=6a17755971ebaeca66e7a24d577fa559f5749d719fe3d9e43f0e55734c76a872
> Departmental Webpage: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://cas.lehigh.edu/CASWeb/default.aspx?id%3D1430&k=eRI2VDBB0Ws5kaCopmd0GA%3D%3D%0A&r=qf%2BkY0WzGaFiU9hp3%2Bd0t5Pou2Gry2wwk%2B1QGKOKBwI%3D%0A&m=nmQJWXRp5Mwrx2ct1gjgnwNUV1KUlNHqKFvn0P33J90%3D%0A&s=83b487928946eb760073a00968fd37eb3a53224b009ff50818ea4793fe26367c
>
> Holli A. Tonyan, Ph.D.
> ------------
> Associate Professor | Department of Psychology | California State University, Northridge
> Postal Address: 18111 Nordhoff Street | Northridge, CA 91330-8255
>
> Tel: (818) 677-4970 | Fax: (818) 677-2829
> Office: ST322
>
> http://www.csun.edu/~htonyan
> http://csun.academia.edu/HolliTonyan
> http://www.csun.edu/~ata20315/GE/general_experimental_psychology2.html
>
> **check out**
>
> Tonyan, H. A. (in press).  Everyday routines: A window into the cultural organization of family child care.  Journal of Early Childhood Research.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1476718X14523748
>
> Tonyan, H. A., Nuttall, J. (2014).  Connecting cultural models of home-based care and childminders’ career paths: An Eco-cultural analysis.  International Journal of Early Years Education, 22, 117-138, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2013.809654
>
> Tonyan, H. A., Mamikonian, A., & Chien, D. (2013).  Do they practice what they preach?  An Ecocultural, multidimensional, group-based examination of the relationship between beliefs and behaviours among child care providers.  Early Child Development and Care, 183:12, 1853-1877.   http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2012.759949
>
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