>King-- Your summary of the book poignantly highlights the fact that
>arithmetic is not something just out there in the world, but a humanly
>constructed cultural medium imbued with meanings into which power enters
>in often-disturbing ways.
Right, and these things are usually double-edged. Schools for
educating the citizenry is a laudable motive, but along with that
goes the legitimation of certain forms of knowledge and identity over
others. Question is, can we have education (or probably more
accurately, learning) as a system of activity without legitimation
and deligitimation. of some sort.. I have yet to see an existence
proof that we can.
>For odd reasons I have been reading about early American sail makers, doing
>what I would call Geometry. No schooling.
>mike
Yeah, and it is an interesting question as to what it means for us to
"see" math or science or learning to read and write for that matter
in practices and among participants who do not see themselves as
doing this things. I am unwilling to say that there is no relation
between subject matter, disciplinary knowledge, and "everyday"
practices. Obviously there are many historical and developmental
relations among them. At the same time, that fact that it is often
the researcher rather than the participants who are drawing out the
connections between these makes for challenges if we want to help
folks create connections between classroom-and say family-based
practices in math, science, or literacy, and without having the
"school come crashing into the home," to borrow a phrase from Ray
McDermott.
I'm off on holiday travel soon, so will be on email sporadically.
--King
-- ______________________________ King Beach Learning, Technology and Culture Michigan State University phone: 517-381-8884 fax: 517-381-8885 email: kdbeach@msu.edu
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