I just want to add a little bit on the topic of parenting and schooling =
(beyond reading).
1. Barbara Rogoff and I studied a situation when parents' schooling =
background is different from the school they participate as parent =
volunteers. The project grew out of our personal experience (both =
Barbara's and mine) as parent volunteers in an innovative public =
elementary school in Salt Lake City emphasizing collaboration between =
kids and adults (and among kids). Both of us experienced some kind of a =
"culture shock" in the classroom where parents have to design and carry =
on activities for small groups of kids 3 hours per week per child =
(unlike me, Barbara did it more per week since she has more than one =
kid). I had 5 years experience of teaching in Junior High and High =
school back in Russia, Barbara had many years of experience of teaching =
at University. However, our multi-year teaching experience (and =
parenting) fell apart in this school, like for many other parents in the =
school (but not for all!) as we later found. The interactional, =
physical, and cultural environment of the innovative school did not =
support teaching skills we had (e.g., kids were not suppressed to listen =
but instead encouraged to talk in the classroom without the adult =
monopolizing the talk). Everything looked chaotic and disorganized =
however intuitively it was clear that kids enjoy in the school and learn =
a lot. Struggling first as newcomers and later as researchers with the =
phenomenon, we have came to the conclusion that the problem was not in =
newcomers' learning some new pedagogical skills but re-learning of =
educational philosophy -- what involves in teaching and learning. We =
decided that it is more meaningful to talk about philosophy of practice =
which involves believes, attitudes, perception, discourses, and skills =
than talk about pedagogical techniques to describe how people join a new =
institution with different practices that the people know how to =
participate.
Our ethnographic videotaped observations, interviews with adult and =
child members of the school allowed us to extract three abstract =
philosophy of teaching and learning in the school. We called these =
philosophies as "adult-run" (with adult full responsibility for =
guidance), "children-run" (with adult delegating responsibility for =
guidance to students), and "collaborative" (with adults assuming =
responsibility for children in learning how to learn and children =
assuming responsibility for their own learning). We developed a special =
coding system based on global judgment of how parent volunteers treat =
teaching in learning in their work with small group of children in the =
classroom (videotaped by us). The analysis of the coding shows that =
majority of new parent volunteers (but not all) demonstrated the two =
one-sided types of philosophy of teaching (i.e., "adult-run" or =
"children-run" or both). It seems that it takes about 2 years =
participation in the innovative school (which also includes parents' =
networking, committee work, reading literature, discussing the school =
practices in family and with friends, and so on) for many parents to =
notice and learn a new "collaborative" philosophy. These results are =
supported by parents self-reports produced in a survey. Many of the =
parents reported also that the school practices based on the =
collaborative educational philosophy "produced" changes in their =
parenting (I put the word "produce" in parentheses because I am not sure =
that two kinds of changing: in parenting and guidance are not two aspect =
of one process). Unfortunately, we have not done observational study on =
changes in parenting.=20
2. My friends Jackie Baker-Sennett and Pilar Lacasa (and her students =
and colleagues) did an interesting study in Spain focusing on how =
middle-class and working class parents help their kids with homework. =
One of the tentative findings is that middle-class parents focus mainly =
on helping to accomplish teacher's formal requirement while working =
class parents tried to make sense out of the assignment in a broader =
everyday context together with the child (which can be a trap since =
often in a traditional school home assignment does not have meaning =
outside its immediate classroom context of demonstrating a skill to the =
teacher).
Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz.