I am always impressed with how similar the classrooms of Ur looked
to the control system that is the recitation script in modern schools.
And while the nunbers of students per teacher has always been an
issue, there seems a pretty remarkable convergence around 30 in the
number of elementary school students deemed ok, with a preference that
ranges down to smaller numbers in elite schools.
The Ur case is interesting too, because "the literate" were so clearly
"middle class." Middle between king and producer/defenders, book keepers
first and foremost, but scribes too, and eventually journalists and
academics.
When American teachers and parents were interviewed in some recent
poll, a clear majority said that control/discipline was what they
sought first and foremost. Styles of control/discipline, may vary, but
older generation seeks to control/discipline the younger generation
it hardly seems surprising.
When has it every been otherwise, except in the halls
of privilege?
I want to key on only one of the many points you raise, because I believe
it is a place where we adopt similar methodological prescriptions:
>From xmca-request who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu Fri Dec 26 19:15:30 1997
But there is another problem that besets many of 'the new approaches',
however excellent the principles upon which they are based. And that is
that they are typically designed by educational researchers, tried out
with the cooperation of a small number of hand-picked teachers, and then
presented to the profession as 'approaches' or 'packages' to be
implemented or delivered according to the researchers' design. To my
mind, this is not very different from the 'transmission' approach which
is typically what the new approaches are reacting against. The mistake,
I think, is in the insufficiently questioned assumption that there are
ideal methods, which if they could only be identified, would be
universally effective. What is not sufficiently taken into account is:
a) the unique 'chemistry' of every class and the unpredictability of every
learning-and-teaching event; and b) the crucial contribution of the
teacher-as-an-individual to what happens in that event, and the extent to
which the quality of that contribution depends upon the teacher also
being an active learner in the process.
--------
On one level, I could not agree more. The entire strategy of research
on the sustainability of "successful" innovations has convinced me
of the incredible power of local factors in creating the medium
within which that "unique chemestry" occurs, whatever its content.
Every 5th Dimension is immediately recognized as such, despite
their incredible internal variation shaped by local factors.
I think this relates to the point made by Jim Gee that cooperative,
activity centered approaches merely set kids up to be good producers
in forms of economic activity that require initiative and teamwork.
That is taken as a criticism I think. But what would one have the
parents of the children do? Here the larger, driving, ideological
force of the economic role of education-as-social reproduction
seems continually to drive the system "back to the basic." But
if Jim is right, than what was a critical theory in the 1970's
might suddenly become the tool of the system people were unhappy
about a quarter of a century ago. I see this in the interest
of activity theorists to people in the business world
-----
Anyway, the situation needs a level of social intelligence that
seems unlikely to emerge.
There are some very long term similarities about schooling across
the centuries that ought not to be forgotten in trying to
fix up a system that sure seems to be worthy of concern. It helps to
understand why minority group US parents support voucher systems.
Thanks, I guess, to you and Jay for keeping me from more pressing
matters. :-)
mike