Re: oops . . . and a question
James Robert Martin (jmartin who-is-at extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU)
Mon, 22 Jul 1996 10:26:14 +1000 (EST)
My favorite resource for talking about these debates is Bernstein, Class
Codes and Control III and IV in particular, where he aligns traditional
and progressive pedagogy with factions of the middle class - agents of
production vs agents of symbolic control. Our focus in Australia around
this debate in the 80s was on literacy - what happened in a 50s classroom
as opposed to a whole language classroom - you can go into schools still I
think and find both types of classroom and look at the writing produced -
primary school is a good site since not to challenging as far as the
dicciulty and length of the texts is concerned. Then you can
begin to think about building a pedagogy which goes beyond this
opposition, and beyond the middle class factions driving it - getting
beyond visible vs invisible pedagogy to evolve curriculum genres that use
the appropriate interactions at the right times. Plenty
to talk about, lots of controversy - just watch the responses to this -
maybe.
Jim Martin