Re: confused in california

Alla Matusov (alla who-is-at ematusov.com)
Wed, 07 Jan 1998 19:49:02 -0800

Hello everybody--

Mike wrote--
>Hi All who responded to my query to the effect:=A0=A0 If we know there are
>some effective ways of organizing classrooms (this shakey assumption
>being based on prior examples in the discussion preceding), why are
>they so rarely observed?=A0 I also focused on success among kids who
>usually arent successful.
>
>I kind of read the responses (with exception of Gordon's I think) as saying
>that the question makes no sense for differrent reasons: How do we know
>what a "best" is ( how do we know what a good is, how do we know what
>a bad is could also be asked). Doesnt what is good depend on what people
>are trying to do? Isnt it all, so to speak, context specific?
>
>It can be anticipated that=A0 I would have a lot of sympathy with these
>and other questions raised. But I had a paradoxical reaction. For a long
>time I have read of the efforts of people on this list to understand
>how to organize kids instruction so that, for example, they learn how
>to read, how to do arithmetic, how to think critically, etc. That is
>certainly what people argue they are trying to do when they get money
>for their research.
>
>What is the point of research on classrooms and schools and development
>and communities, etc. that we are doing if we have as an apriori
>conclusion that we cannot generalize from beyond individual cases?
>
>I think I know how to make the argument for restrictions on
generalizibility
>and there is a fine tradition that claims there should be none expected.
>
>Is that what people think? Is it irrelevant to understanding educational
>processes that 90+ percent of classrooms use recitation scripts with
>known answer questions and activity-centered education with the properties
>that Gordon is valorizing exist only now and again? Does Ellice's
>work showing that kids thought to be able to engage only in Drill and Kill
>that is tracking them downward are capable of complex discursively
>mediated education amount to no more than a parlor trick, or the imposition
>of middle class standards on kids who are going to be tracked down
>no matter what?
>
>I do not mean to presuppose a correct answer to this question for myself
>or for the group. Its just that so much of the response so far says that
>we should not be taking responsibility for the study of the effects
>of our interventions or observations of others' interventions that it
>makes me wonder what we do take responsibility for.

I think that the issue of values is different from the issue of the context.
I think that the paralysis of liberal researchers so eloquently described by
Mike come not from contextaulism or even relativism but from the fact that
they are trapped by conservative meta-ideology of efficiency.=A0 In my view,
for some reason, liberal researchers (including myself) have problems to
recognize that transmission of knowledge model of teaching is very
efficient.=A0 In my view, the problem is exactly in its educational=
efficiency
rather than in its lack of efficiency.=A0 Of course, the question becomes it
is efficient for what?

I argue that the current educational (school) system is much more efficient
on the mass level for current economy than any constructivist pedagogy.
Traditional school produces enough (for economy) decision makers and people
of creative professions and those who convinced that they are incapable for
that.=A0 Schools help social distribution of intrinsic motivation in the
society.

I think that focus on values is the most important in selling a research to
an agency to promote a sociocultural research and to avoid relativism
paralysis.

What do you think?

Eugene

--------------------------
Alla Matusov
alla who-is-at ematusov.com
fax (415) 233-9263
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