> So perhaps the observations of the authoritatian nature of low
> SES classrooms have less to do with disempowerment, and more
> to do with shared values of people who consitutue them. Whose
> values are we using to make judgments about appropriate
> notions of authority when we make negative judgments about
> the ways in which people conduct classes in particular settings?
> I just read a small item in the newspaper about a researcher
> who'd found that Korean children are enculturated to be silent
> and listen and not to participate verbally in classrooms, and
> that these children have higher reading scores than children
> in American classrooms predicated on the assumption that
> talk promotes learning. This researcher is developing a program
> for American school children based on the Korean model. What
> do you think the chances are that this model can be effectively
> imported? If you agree with me that it ignores the activity
> setting of American classrooms and is thus unlikely to work
> well, then you might also question the imposition of mainstream
> middle class communication genres on all learners in all
> settings.
I think we have to consider more than the activity settings in which
education takes place. Or rather, when classrooms are compared in terms
of "the amount of learning that takes place", we need to ask what is
meant by "learning". If we accept that learning is an integral part of
participation in an activity system (Engestrom) or community of practice
(LPP), the accumulation of "knowledge" and of reading, writing and
computational skills is an inadequate measure of "learning". We also
need to ask: What sorts of identity are being formed in the different
classroom activity settings? What sorts of disposition for participation
in what sorts of activity?
By coincidence, I have been reading a discussion of CBT ("competency based
training"?) on the action research list (ar-list) in parallel with the
discussion of reading, etc. on xmca.
The following message from Elery Hamilton-Smith, received today, seems to
me to be very relevant to our discussion :
> During that debate, <about CBT in the 1960s> Brian Simon said something
> like, 'We cannnot just train people to dispose a specific set of skills
> and concepts in clearly defined circumstances ; rather we must educate
> people to bring to bear in their chosen field what knowledge they can
> discover to be relevant and what skills they can muster in order to
> respond to questions which haven't yet been asked in circumstances
> which we do not know.' I'd personally add that we also need to educate
> people so that they can make wise choices about how they might
> contribute to shaping those circumstances when they do arise.
Gordon Wells, gwells who-is-at oise.on.ca
OISE, Toronto.