>Which aspects of our educational system seem excessively
>coercive to you, Jay? Should schools strive NOT to impose
>"certain adult views and interests" on children? Which
>adult views and interests do you believe should not be
>imposed? I sense a tension here between the teacher's (or
>larger group's) need to "impose" certain socialization goals
>on children, and the child's perceived need to be "free" as
>an individual. I'm struck by this because it seems to place the
>needs of the individual in fundamental tension with the needs
>of the larger group; this conceptualization of the individual's
>relationship to the larger group strikes me as quite possibly
>culturally bound.
I don't know what sorts of practices Jay finds excessively coercive, but
preschool, kindergarten, and early primary classes are chock full of practices
I would deem excessively coercive. Just as one example, it is common for
teachers to insist that at grouptime children sit with their legs crossed and
their hands in their laps. WHY? What does it matter how children are sitting,
as long as they are able to listen and participate, and are not preventing
others from listening and participating? I know this may seem trivial to an
adult, but as Jay pointed out in an earlier posting, it may not seem trivial at
all to the child. It also often turns into power struggles between children
and the teacher, with the teacher nagging children to sit correctly, refusing
to continue reading the story "until all children show me that they can sit
properly and listen," etc. Wouldn't it make more sense for the teacher to
engage the class in a discussion about what sorts of rules they might need for
grouptime behavior, so that everyone can hear, participate, etc? Then children
can decide with the teacher what the guidelines will be for how to sit (or lie
down) during grouptime. Maybe they would decide that lying down is okay during
story time, but not during sharing time. In my experience, young children are
capable of engaging in this type of negotiation of classroom rules. And they
are much more inclined to abide by them when they participated in making them,
and understand why they need them.
What do you think?
Betty Zan
Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education
University of Northern Iowa