I've just read your review Jacques, and in the mail today, I also
received this issue of Educational Researcher (ER), which is devoted to
Educational Reform... the issues of educational reform,
classroom practices, activity settings, activity systems, structural
changes, and changes in practices... become interrelated all of a sudden in
my mind...
In this issue of ER, there's an article by Richard F. Elmore: Structural
Reform in Educational Practice, which I find related to our discussions:
changes in macro structures, and changes in micro practices... how can
the 2 be related or unrelated...
Jacques you talked about Tharp's pessimism about American schools'
"arch-conservatism", and you mentioned the other side of the problem:
maybe it's the overload and incoherence resulting from fragmented adn
uncoordinated innovations, that lead to limited progress in school reform.
I agree with what you said about the fragmentedness of many innovations,
which tend to be dumped onto practitioners without considering the local
context of the practitioners... I'm not sure about the situation of
American schools, but I guess there would be differences between working
class and middle class schools? or schools in rich districts c.f.
schools in the inner city?
I feel that the activity setting/system perspective can give us a way
to link structure and practice. Lave once commented on the
limitations of focusing on one without the other: experience without
system, or system without experience. The tough part seems to be:
(1) how to understand micro-level classroom practices in light of
the constraints and resources imposed on or afforded by the macro-level
structural/institutional/societal organizations...
(2) how to work out a practical, feasible approach to educational reform:
that will take care of both structural and practice issues, and will help
dissolve the usual opposition between the "reformer" and the local
practitioners... how to build a collaborative relationship and
to have the kind of educational reforms that are not imposed on the
practitioners but initiated (at least partially) by the practitioners?
Just sharing some ideas off the head...
and hope to arouse some discussions on these issues...
Best wishes,
Angel