On Sun, 28 Dec 1997, you wrote:
>
> Gordon states that "But my belief is that they don't prejudge what topics
> should be focused on in particular sitations of learning and teaching nor
> how they should be approached, since these are properly the subject of
> inquiries in the relevant communities." I do not think that I could
> agree with you on this one. We can expand on the earlier example of a 2nd
> grade classroom. The type of behavior (active participation by the whole
> classroom community, dialogue, active inquiry of student determined and
> teacher guided problems) that is seen as "chaotic" and not educational in
> a second grade classroom is seen as par for the course for the elementary
> artroom. I believe that there is a prejudgement concerning the
> "educational worth" of topics and how they should be approached & taught
> is deeply entrenched in that ideal.
It's true that some (perhaps many) teachers and administrators think that
children sitting quietly and receptively in rows is a prerequisite for
learning to occur. But such an organization of the setting is not
conducive to dialogue and the exploration of students' ideas as well as
those in the authoritative utterances of the teacher and/or the
textbook. I am suggesting that classrooms should become settings where
open-ended dialogue is the norm. This does not preclude "direct
instruction" when it would be helpful in furthering the dialogue, but as
a means rather than as an end in itself. I am also assuming that the
form that dialogic inquiry takes will vary according to the topics being
addressed as well as to the characteristics of the community.
In the situation that you describe, it would be interesting to invite all
the grade two teachers to tape record children's "private speech" and to
use the data to explore the activities in which it occurs, the functions
it seems to perform, and what insights into the children's strategies for
performing tasks it provides. It might also be interesting if the
teachers were to ask the children about when and why they use private speech.
(Graham Nuttall on this list has done research on this topic.)
The point of my suggestion is that teacher inquiries of this sort usually
lead to new ways of thinking about learning-and-teaching. For example,
a grade 1 and 2 teacher colleague, Mary Ann Gianotti, conducted an
inquiry along those lines in the context of "writing workshop" and it led
her to make some significant changes in the ways in which she organized
that part of her program. The reference is chapter 2 in:
G. Wells et al. "Changing Schools from Within: Creating Communities of
Inquiry", Heinemann, 1994. You can read other papers by teachers who are
attempting to create communities of dialogic inquiry in their classrooms
at the DICEP address below.
As Mike pointed out, schools have tended to operate in rather similar
ways over the centuries, in part because they have typically been
conceived as transmissionary institutions and in part, as Jay suggests,
because young people's ideas and perspectives have not been considered
worthy of consideration. So there is certainly the precedent of tradition
to justify current hierarchical and authoritarian practices. But these
practices have never been particularly effective in serving ALL students,
nor are they in tune with changing expectations about the "outcomes" of
schooling. For both these reasons, there is ample justification for
encouraging teachers to become action researchers - improving their
practice and contributing to theory about learning-and teaching - in the
interests of their students and with a view to contributing to the wider
debate about the ends and means of education.
Gordon Wells, gwells who-is-at oise.utoronto.ca
OISE/University of Toronto
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~ctd/DICEP/
Visit NETWORKS, the new on-line journal for teacher research, at:
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~ctd/networks/