I thank Eugene very much for his comments. My thinking on the issue of
course has a personal relevancy for me in how the term is being used in
practice. My reference to COL was more to how community is being
appropriated into the educational discourse than the approach itself. This
semester I have been at odds with my son's teacher in regard to the "space"
he has been put in. She used the discourse of community, partners in
education, one big family etc. for the purpose of internalization or to
squash what I saw as "resistance". I guess I don't think of resistance as
totally is the negative or in response to an opressive system. In Child
Psychology, Vygotsky talks on similar lines in reference to ages of crisis
which he sees as having transitional (from one stage to another)
significance. While I have not read Holzman's most recent book, I find the
notion of revolutionary activity as described in Vygotsky: Revolutionary
Scientist very useful.
I see COL on the lines of Newman and Holzman in that there should be spaces
of "resistance" or revolutionary activity that question both what is inside
and outside the school. Maybe resistance is a bad choice of words, and it
was partly its negative connotation I was trying to see positively.
Because of my social history I may see resistance in a more positive light.
I also very much agree with what I believe Eugence was argueing in the
ideas of cozy, homey etc. being a middleclass interpreatation. Party that
was what I was trying to resist in the idea of COL.
I also agree that child/teacher discourses are intertwined which was part
of my concern with COL, in that, they become so intertwined that
"resistance" isn't possible. Maybe a better way to describe it is the
discourses are indistinquishable. In ED. Psych., Vygotsky referred to the
war or battle between teacher and student, and maybe this isn't a bad way
to look at it. A war in which there has to be negotiation between the child
and teacher discourses. My concern is negotiation that is not authentic
and which the child or family discouses are merely exploited for cultural
reproduction.
Nate
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