This year of the books nominated for the David Russell award from NCTE, more
than half were books by teachers and groups of teachers which provided
direct or indirect insight into the culture of the classroom.
Ralph Peterson and Maryanne Eades have written about the classroom as community,One reason for this explosion of writing about the culture of classrooms is the
major concern in the whole language movements
with the classroom as a learning
community. There is an exciting cycle here in which teachers and collaborative
researchers are taking the concepts of Vygotsky, and the etthnographic
literature such as your own Mike and built it into their own classroom practice.
This in turn begins itsown traditions in schools and classrooms. One year, my
daughter Debi Goodman's class decided to become a town. They called themselves
Utopia and all the centers became parts of the town- the store, the publishing
company etc. Their usual class meetings became town meetings. Every successive
year incoming students extended this tradition - the next year the town
was Terebithia (Kathryn Paterson fans will see why). We visited a school-
Richmond Road in Aukland New Zealand- where Courney Cazden has also worked-
with intricate family groupings in the school structure including a Maori
immersion program and a Samoan bilingual school within a school developed
over many years.
Sorry to go on so- but there is so much happening that relates to the culture
of classrooms- that 's why I reacted so strongly to notions grouping
classrooms around the SES of the pupils. Correction Lois Bird's book is
Becoming a WHole Language School.
Ken Goodman