You asked, in responding to Francoise, the following question:
"Does cultural transmission have to be a given?"
My question is this: How could cultural transmission _not_ be a
given in a classroom?
Isn't the whole point of education to transmit culture?
It seems to me that the problem is not that cultural transmission
is "a given" in schools, but that the usual means by which teachers
usually attempt to "give" it to others is flawed. And the problem
is that culture can't be given, rather it must be grabbed or
appropriated by the "recipient"--at least if one wants to pass on the skills,
attitudes, and dispositions necessary for active involvement in a
participatory democracy. I think of much of the work in Whole
Language as a successful example of how to arrange a classroom so
that cultural knowledge and skills can be grasped by
children.
I am afraid that direct instruction has, therefore, given a bad
name, if you will, to cultural transmission. Perhaps you meant
that you have a problem with a direct instruction approach to
cultural transmission?
I am also afraid that direct instruction has given a bad name to
discipline in the classroom. Not many of us want to say the D.
word, primarily because we are afraid that it means being
authoritarian and disrespectful to children, which in my mind, it
doesn't. Indeed, my greatest concern as a teacher of early
childhood educators is that my students either seem too directive
or too romantic in the classroom; but on the whole, they tend to be
too romantic. They're either afraid, or uncertain about how, to be
authoritative. The danger in this is that, unless they learn how
to use authority appropriately (and respectfully, of course), that
their classrooms will quickly fall into chaos. And then they will,
in turn, revert to what they know best from their own schooling: a
direct instruction approach to discipline and curriculum.
This is really a roundabout way of saying that I think that
coercion is too strong a term for some of the teacher behaviors you
referred to. I do see a role for (what I'll call) other-regulation
in assisting a child to achieve self-regulation.
Clarke Fowler
rfowler who-is-at mecn.mass.edu
school: home:
Salem State College 74 Saint Rose Street
Education Department Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
352 Lafayette St. (617) 524-4704
Salem, MA 01978
(508) 740-7041