[Xmca-l] Re: good article attached

[Robert Lake]

And as a historical piece it is excellent . Thank you for sharing it Peter.
Robert L
On Feb 10, 2015 6:55 AM, "Peter Smagorinsky" <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> And yet, that is the project of the historian, which the author appears to
> be.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Carol Macdonald
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 6:49 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: good article attached
>
> I am not sure in this case whether we should view the beginning/origin
> and/or the outcome.  Right now (or over the last three decades) progressive
> education-learner centredness has permeated vast areas of society. This is
> the case in South Africa, across all schools. Surely we should take that
> into account.
>
> Carol
>
>
>
> On 10 February 2015 at 13:40, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > I didn't read it as a matter of fault. As I read the article, in the
> > late 1800s, when colonialism was the rule of the day, its precepts
> > were evident even in movements that would later discard it. That
> > doesn't seem wrongheaded to me, although I would need to be about 130
> > years old to say for sure.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Rod Parker-Rees
> > Sent: Monday, February 09, 2015 1:12 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: good article attached
> >
> > I share your reservations, Michael.
> >
> > I'm sure it is possible to trace elements of racist recapitulationist
> > thinking in the work of nineteenth and early twentieth century
> > educationalists but I don't think it is accurate to suggest that
> > recapitulationism was in any way at the heart of the romantic view of
> > childhood which fuelled arguments for child-centred pedagogy. As the
> > article points out, Rousseau put the 'noble savage' above the
> > hyper-civilised white European male of the eighteenth century with his
> > powdered wig, elaborate finery and obsessive concern for social niceties.
> > The cultural shift from thinking of childhood as a 'savage' stage out
> > of which children should be educated as quickly as possible to an
> > exalted, prelapsarian state of innocence coincided with a growth of
> > political radicalism which challenged the right of those with power to
> > rule over the lives of others. The celebration of the 'inner child' by
> > romantic poets at the start of the nineteenth century specifically
> > challenged the idea that adulthood should supplant and displace
> > childhood (as recapitulationism would suggest).
> >
> > It may be true that 'progressive' education does not miraculously
> > repair the manifold injustice of social structures but to take this as
> > an indication that the fault lies with progressive education seems
> > wrongheaded to me.
> >
> > Rod
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael
> > Sent: 09 February 2015 17:19
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: good article attached
> >
> > I don't know Peter.  This article strikes me as being very political.
> > It fits very much into the narrative that more progressive education
> > initiatives work against the interests of (economically, politically,
> > and
> > educationally) marginalized groups.  That's why we need KIPP type
> schools.
> > I have just never brought into this.  I think the article is really
> > not that fair to Dewey.  Dewey had his warts, including when it came
> > to issues such as multiculturalism and he was called out on it.  But I
> > think it's pretty clear that he did not like Hall at all or his
> > recapitulationist ideas - this may be too simplistic but I sort of
> > remember Hall and Dewey struggling for the soul of Franz Boas in this
> > arena.  Dewey's desire to merge psychological factors - which were
> > more behavior related (see reflect arc article) and the social I think
> > was the opposite of embracing recapitualationism.  And the author
> > relies mostly on recollections from the school and the teachers and not
> Dewey.
> >
> > Just my take.
> >
> > Michael
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of Peter Smagorinsky
> > [smago@uga.edu]
> > Sent: Monday, February 09, 2015 11:54 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture,     Activity (xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu)
> > Cc: cori jakubiak
> > Subject: [Xmca-l]  good article attached
> >
> > The Savage Origins of Child-Centered Pedagogy, 1871-1913 Thomas
> > Fallace William Paterson University of New Jersey
> >
> > Abstract: Child-centered pedagogy is at the ideological core of
> > progressive education. The simple idea that the child rather than the
> > teacher or textbook should be the major focus of the classroom is,
> > perhaps, the single most enduring educational idea of the era. In this
> > historical study, the author argues that childcentered education
> > emerged directly from the theory of recapitulation, the idea that the
> > development of the White child retraced the history of the human race.
> > The theory of recapitulation was pervasive in the fields of
> > anthropology, sociology, and psychology at the turn of the 20th
> > century, and so early progressive educators uncritically adopted the
> > basic tenets of the theory, which served as a major rationale for
> > child-centered instruction. The theory was inherently ethnocentric and
> > racist because it pointed to the West as the developmental endpoint of
> > history, thereby depicting people of color as ontologically less
> developed than their White counterparts.
> >
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> --
> Carol A  Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
> Developmental psycholinguist
> Academic, Researcher,  and Editor
> Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa
>
>