Re: [xmca] Bruner on Vygotsky

[Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:24 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Bill-- A shocker the Englemann is peddling DE. Just been reviewing its
> origins in Toronto, lo these 50 years. Chilling.
>

My impression of Engelmann, Mike, is that his practice is good or at least
worth a close look but theoretically he shoots from the hip without much
discernment. I know a few home schooling families who have used his
materials to good effect in teaching their kids to read and write. Also
have been on other lists and heard parents with disadvantaged kids say his
was the only approach that worked.

With disadvantaged students the teacher has to take much more control of
the programme than is possible with middle class students, provide
additional detailed scaffolding etc.  (The reason I found the AL course
great was that it outlined a pathway to do this for language
teaching) Engelmann has worked with disadvantaged students his whole career
and developed an approach that seems to work but at the same
time indiscriminately criticises good educators such as Dewey and
educational approaches such as constructivism, which have both good and bad
implementations. I half read his bio, "Teaching Needy Kids in Our Backward
System: 42 Years of Trying". He's a practitioner, not a theoretician. But
possible a very good practitioner.

At any rate I'm very interested in the fact that Noel Pearson, an
indigenous leader in Australia, is using Engelmann's approach here.
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