Re: math for reproduction and domination

["Peg Griffin" <Peg.Griffin@worldnet.att.net>]

Hi,
Thanks, Phillip.
In that short note about the class, I got a good sense of the event details
and the cooperative efforts involved.

Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (here about rational numbers) is
pushed to the limit when they have to struggle with getting the procedural
details in place -- figuring out what's crucial and what's good enough or
okay to handle later.  At the same time, if Lisa Delpit's right then it is
most crucial to do it well in classes like this with so many students who
are "not already a participant in the culture of power."

Since you are talking about 5th grade, I'm not sure if your talking about a
teacher candidate who deals with all the elementary subjects or one who is a
mathematics specialist.

What do you and your colleagues think of Ma Liping's work?

I'm not sure that this first then that later approach you mention at the end
of your note will work, though -- never getting to the later is a problem.

Peg

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "White, Phillip" <Phillip.White@cudenver.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 2:09 PM
Subject: RE: math for reproduction and domination


good afternoon  -  a clinical teacher and i earlier today observed a teacher
candidate teach a lesson of fraction equivalents with fifth graders, the
majority of whom were born in mexico  -  the teacher candidate immigrated to
the states a few years ago from korea.  watching how everyone struggled with
second language issues, the use of manipulatives, how to organize their
graphic organizers on a piece of paper, build mutual understanding, etc. was
to observe a highly complex social interaction.  at that point of time, for
thirty minutes, the focus was on highly discreet proceedural skills that
supported individual concept formation.  i have backgrounded in my head the
multiplicity of the cultural historical conditions that brought all of us
together in that room on that particular spot on the floor at that time.  to
move into a cultural historical analysis of this 30 minute event certainly
isn't feasible just now  -  people's attention is focused on a very narrow
kind of learning, which is needed to maintain everyday classroom practices
so that these larger questions can then be considered.

i'm still wondering where the classroom teacher that Bill is working with,
where her perspective is.

phillip

________________________________

From: Bill Barowy [mailto:xmcageek@comcast.net]
Sent: Thu 11/11/2004 11:39 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: math for reproduction and domination



What I meant was, I'm simply trying to cook some notes, and while that does
not preclude a cultural historical analysis at some  later time, the
analysis
at this moment centers on some kids learning some math.  The analysis will
surely and eventually broaden, as yrjo's expansive methodolgy demands.
Peg's
questions concerning NCTM content has already been moving things toward
cultural historical analysis.

And then, I have the impression of some history of xmca conversations going
down the dialectical philosophical path and then, paradoxically, failing to
rise back up again to the concrete.  I'd like to stay concrete as long as
possible.

bb