[Xmca-l] Re: A request for assistance

Tue Aug 19 14:34:59 PDT 2014

Someone was kind enough to point out that among the (doubless legion)
errors in my posts on this topic was a rather infelicitous phrase
which seemed to imply that only middle class parents were caring. The
point I was trying to make was that working class parents work--and
this eventually means less time for care-taking (not "caring"). This
is as much a fact of preschool life as the fact that larger classes
mean less individual time with the teacher during school life.

And--like most facts of working class life in the last few
decades--it's getting worse, thanks to software which allows employers
to treat their minimum wage staff the way that hospitals treat
doctors--without the benefits. Take a look at this:

 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/starbucks-workers-scheduling-hours.html?_r=0

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

On 19 August 2014 19:53, chronaki <chronaki@uth.gr> wrote:
> Dear Aggeliki
>
> I get into this line of discussion, hoping that I have something to offer,
> as it is very close to my heart, my experiences and my current work. I work
> in an early childhood department of education and I teach mathematics
> pedagogy and learning courses to our undergraduates -who mostly ome from a
> working class background. I try to organize my courses around
> interdisciplinary work using digital media and expressive arts so that to
> prepare them for becoming designers of playful and art-based activity for
> the young children -so that to experience mathematical learning not as
> direct teaching but as connected and related. I realize that very often my
> students have a very limited 'taste' of what might be aesthetically
> appropriate for the early ages, what is play, how play could be possibly
> linked to joy, how work can be joyful or even how play can require
> discipline, logic and intuition. Of course, this 'limited taste' reflects to
> some extent a matter of working/middle class diversity (although such
> distinctions are not exactly relevant today ). Some of my students haven't
> visited a museum in their life and know merely commercial play as it is
> advertised in shops and TV.
>
> The discussion over playful learning and how this relates to social class
> (especially in the early ages) is quite important and, perhaps, much more
> relevant today than it was a few decades ago. The topic is not new -but
> seems to come up again and again, although through different theorizing,
> empirical evidence and priorities in educational politics but also
> educational commerce  (e.g.- see what is being bought today at such an ease
> by anxious parents and educators?!!...).
>
> I can think over two publications in the field of mathematics education that
> may be of some use here.
> One is a  book by Cooper, Barry and Dunne, Mairead  [see exact reference
> ....(2000) /Assessing Children's Mathematical Knowledge: social class sex
> and problem solving./ <http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/27498/> Open University Press
> Buckingham, 215 pp. ISBN 0335-20316-7] that discusses a sociological
> analysis (based mainly on Bernstein) on how explicit/implicit ways of
> educating influence children's success and how this relates to social class
> and gender.
>
> Another one is Valerie Walkerdine's well known book entitled 'Counting
> Girls' Out: Girls and Mathematics' published in the 80s. Although the title
> does not disclose its relevance to social class, this book is also closely
> related to the discussion of playful or 'progressive' education and its
> appropriation by working and middle class families (note: perhaps one needs
> to attend to the 'new middle classes' phenomenon due to the upgrading or
> even downgrading in social classes. In the 80s, much more than it is  now,
> the family was for many households the 'mother' and the family was extended
> into the preschool years to the teacher -who was supposed to be the 'mother
> figure'. I have found very useful the discussion carried through the book
> over  how 'playful' activity  (and progressive pedagogy) influences
> differently social and working class 'mothers' and how related discourses
> tend to inscribe their interactions, behavior, pleasures, tacit assessments
> and evaluative comments. How, then, the child can resist or appropriate such
> discursive machinery?  Ηow much play requires the 'meeting' of diverse
> discourses that, mainly relate to social class, ethnic, gendered
> diversities. Walkerdine provides some explanations throughout the book based
> on Foucault and feminist theory. I have enjoyed this book and although the
> book is not new it deserves an extra reading. I was recently responsible for
> editing its translation into Greek. Perhaps you might want to have a look in
> a lecture videotaped by Bodosakis foundation as an introduction to these
> very complex issues [
> http://www.blod.gr/lectures/Pages/viewlecture.aspx?LectureID=786]. I guess
> you speak Greek. If not, ignore the video...
>
> with best wishes
> anna chronaki
>
>
>
> On 19-Aug-14 8:00 AM, Tonyan, Holli A wrote:
>>
>> Hi Ageliki,
>>
>> I can think of two resources for your topic.
>>
>> Lisa Delpit's book Other People's Children directly addresses this.  She
>> argues (I haven't read it in a while so forgive the fuzzy description) that
>> a "child centered" focus harms children who are from cultural backgrounds
>> outside of white, middle class backgrounds because they need more explicit
>> instruction in a cultural community that is not their own.
>>
>> Carollee Howes book Culture and Child Development in Early Childhood
>> Education is relevant, but less directly so.  Howes includes a number of
>> programs that she originally saw as "skill and drill" programs and she goes
>> to some length to articulate their beliefs and practices in the context of
>> their community.  She's not arguing for "skill and drill" per se, but she is
>> situating those approaches in local meaning through interviews with
>> directors and teachers in programs that were identified by community members
>> as excellent programs and which surprised her from her ECE background.
>>
>> Delpit's book, particularly the second edition, is the clearest
>> articulation of the argument you present in the third paragraph below:
>> However,
>> there are some people who might be willing to concede that more
>> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist might be OK for young
>> children from educated middle class families ... but that they won't work
>> for poor and otherwise disadvantaged children. THOSE kids need direct
>> instruction to transmit "basic skills", and giving them anything else is,
>> at best, a distraction from giving them what they need for school
>> readiness.
>>
>> The preface to the second edition includes Delpit's description of the
>> reactions that her colleagues have had to her arguments including those who
>> agree (often in private and not in public) as well as those who oppose her.
>>
>> Hope this helps!
>> Holli Tonyan
>>
>> On Aug 16, 2014, at 7:11 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>> <agn3@lehigh.edu<mailto:agn3@lehigh.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear XMCA community,
>>
>> I'm looking for a piece of information, and I wonder whether someone on
>> the
>> XMCA list has it at their fingertips.
>>
>> I'm writing something that deals with Vivian Paley's storytelling and
>> story-acting practice. Among other things, that activity is an example of
>> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist approaches to early child
>> education--the kinds of approaches that have been getting squeezed out by
>> preschool practices that exclusively emphasize teacher-centered, didactic
>> transmission of specific academic skills by direct instruction.
>>
>> A lot of people think that pushing down didacted/academic teaching
>> practices into preschool education is a good thing in general.  However,
>> there are some people who might be willing to concede that more
>> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist might be OK for young
>> children from educated middle class families ... but that they won't work
>> for poor and otherwise disadvantaged children. THOSE kids need direct
>> instruction to transmit "basic skills", and giving them anything else is,
>> at best, a distraction from giving them what they need for school
>> readiness.
>>
>> My problem is this.  As we all know, a lot of people think that, and they
>> say it in conversation, and they make written arguments that rest
>> implicitly on that premise. In fact, this outlook is very widespread and
>> influential. But I've found that very few of them seem to be willing to
>> actually SAY it explicitly in their published work. I'm talking about
>> academics and policymakers. There are pro-direct-instruction websites that
>> say it pretty straightforwardly. But journals want academic citations in
>> articles, so I'm trying to find one.
>>
>> *So does anyone out there know of any published work where someone
>> actually
>> SAYS that in writing?  That is, that more child-oriented, play-based, and
>> constructivist preschool practices (however they actually describe them)
>> might be OK for young children from educated middle-class homes, but are
>> useless or even harmful for poor and disadvantaged kids, who need more
>> teacher-centered, skill-based direct instruction?*
>>
>> I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>>
>> ________________
>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>> Professor of Psychology & Global Studies
>> Personal Webpage:
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://lehigh.academia.edu/AgelikiNicolopoulou/About&k=eRI2VDBB0Ws5kaCopmd0GA%3D%3D%0A&r=qf%2BkY0WzGaFiU9hp3%2Bd0t5Pou2Gry2wwk%2B1QGKOKBwI%3D%0A&m=nmQJWXRp5Mwrx2ct1gjgnwNUV1KUlNHqKFvn0P33J90%3D%0A&s=6a17755971ebaeca66e7a24d577fa559f5749d719fe3d9e43f0e55734c76a872
>> Departmental Webpage:
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://cas.lehigh.edu/CASWeb/default.aspx?id%3D1430&k=eRI2VDBB0Ws5kaCopmd0GA%3D%3D%0A&r=qf%2BkY0WzGaFiU9hp3%2Bd0t5Pou2Gry2wwk%2B1QGKOKBwI%3D%0A&m=nmQJWXRp5Mwrx2ct1gjgnwNUV1KUlNHqKFvn0P33J90%3D%0A&s=83b487928946eb760073a00968fd37eb3a53224b009ff50818ea4793fe26367c
>>
>> Holli A. Tonyan, Ph.D.
>> ------------
>> Associate Professor | Department of Psychology | California State
>> University, Northridge
>> Postal Address: 18111 Nordhoff Street | Northridge, CA 91330-8255
>>
>> Tel: (818) 677-4970 | Fax: (818) 677-2829
>> Office: ST322
>>
>> http://www.csun.edu/~htonyan
>> http://csun.academia.edu/HolliTonyan
>> http://www.csun.edu/~ata20315/GE/general_experimental_psychology2.html
>>
>> **check out**
>>
>> Tonyan, H. A. (in press).  Everyday routines: A window into the cultural
>> organization of family child care.  Journal of Early Childhood Research.
>> http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1476718X14523748
>>
>> Tonyan, H. A., Nuttall, J. (2014).  Connecting cultural models of
>> home-based care and childminders’ career paths: An Eco-cultural analysis.
>> International Journal of Early Years Education, 22, 117-138,
>> http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2013.809654
>>
>> Tonyan, H. A., Mamikonian, A., & Chien, D. (2013).  Do they practice what
>> they preach?  An Ecocultural, multidimensional, group-based examination of
>> the relationship between beliefs and behaviours among child care providers.
>> Early Child Development and Care, 183:12, 1853-1877.
>> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2012.759949
>>
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>> Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
>> change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret
>> Mead <http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Margaret_Mead/> US anthropologist
>> & popularizer of anthropology (1901 - 1978)
>>
>>
>>
>