RE: [xmca] Fwd: Purposes and processes of education

["Deborah Rockstroh" <d_rockstroh@bigpond.com>]

Mike, 

 

As there were hundreds of different clans, each with their own language and
dialects traditionally spoken, unfortunately I'm only aware of the English
terms they use for 'initiation', 'secret women's business', 'secret men's
business' and more generally, 'cultural business'. 

 

By coincidence, in Australia we refer to schools beyond the metropolitan
areas as "bush schools", but this is a reference to government funded
schools in geographical locations of regional or remote, and student
populations are mixed. In very remote areas of the Northern Territory, the
population is predominantly indigenous Australians, and apart from a few
bush schools, there are 'community schools' for children up to about 12
years of age. After that, children are expected to move away to mainstream
boarding schools, as only 8% of adolescents in remote NT have access to
education (ie within a couple of hours driving distance each way). For most
as you can appreciate, this is not an option they follow and so they drop
out of education to stay with family 'on country'.

 

Deb

 

From: mike cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, 19 January 2010 12:23 PM
To: Deborah Rockstroh
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: Purposes and processes of education

 

Perfect for me, thanks so much, Deborah. A similar set of traditions
exist among the groups living in Liberia for the past several hundreds of
years. They refer to the gender-segregated "set aside"
forms of activity as "bush school" in Liberian English. I am not sure there
is any indigenous word for school in any Liberian language. Something I need
to check out. How about among the Aboriginal Australian groups you refer to?
mike
PS-- The ruling elite in Liberia when I worked there in the '60's and
'70's referred to the peoples of the interior as aboriginal, they,
themselves, having come from all over West Africa via the Western
hemisphere. I, on the other hand, was not distinguished from people with
dark skins in terms of the name of my social status, which was sort of the
inverse, "kwi." It taught me an important lesson about concepts of "race."



On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Deborah Rockstroh <d_rockstroh@bigpond.com>
wrote:

Hi Mike and all,


"For small hunter-gatherer societies, I am guessing that something like
apprenticeship is in a limited number of domains. Shamanism, midwifery come
to mind, but what else is plausible?"

>From anthropological literature, I interpret traditional Australian
Aboriginal societies as having a form of apprenticeship, or 'instruction
with intent' as mentioned in this thread. Before European settlement,
Aboriginal children grew up observing/imitating as they played/worked beside
their mothers/aunties/grandmothers, gathering and hunting small game. As
they approached adolescence, the boys went on hunting trips with their
fathers/uncles/grandfathers and the girls continued alongside the female
members of their clan, each gender assuming roles of increasing complexity
and responsibility. When they reached a certain stage of development, all
children went through intensive preparation for initiation over a period of
time, learning the gender specific "business" or secrets that they would be
responsible for "holding", "keeping" and then passing on to younger
initiates. This business was in the form of cultural activities, but
underpinned by knowledge passed down in the form of story, song, drawings
and dance. These drawings, that Western economies trade as art, are actually
symbolic, detailed descriptions to communicate often highly privileged
information.

For a practical example, the men who 'kept' the tradition of the stone axe,
knew how, when and where to source materials to make the axe, knew the
techniques for making it, were proficient in using it safely and
successfully, maintained the tool, and were responsible for the knowledge
(stories, songs etc) related to each of those activities, and for passing
all of this on to younger generations. Law and order was maintained by
everyone knowing, respecting and relying on each clan member for a cultural
tool or artefact and its associated activity and knowledge; and this
extended to social and ecological responsibilities. I see this as an example
of intentional instruction, with a form of literacy to maintain culturally
valued activities for survival, similar to Western concepts of master and
apprentice, and graduation for livelihood participation. I can only assume
other traditional societies most likely had/have similar ways of ensuring
their young inherited the accumulated knowledge and skills necessary for
survival.

It is not surprising from the case of the indigenous Australian people, that
the arrival of Europeans disrupted the socio-cultural balance that sustained
this way of life for, in some places, up to 60,000 years continuously. Both
by taking over the land for agricultural pursuits and forcing people to live
sedentarily, and by freely distributing superior steel axes, tins of jam,
white flour, tea and much later, welfare payments.

I hope I have explained it in such a way that is useful to this thread,
Deb


Deborah Rockstroh
PhD candidate, Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre
Southern Cross University, CHEC,
Hogbin Drive, Coffs Harbour, 2450
Email     deborah.rockstroh@scu.edu.au
Mobile    0408 647644




-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On

Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Tuesday, 19 January 2010 8:24 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: Purposes and processes of education

The comments on learning to be intent observer fit Rogoff data.
For small hunter-gatherer societies, I am guessing that something like
apprenticeship is in a limited number of domains. Shamanism, midwifery come
to mind, but what else is plausible?

Once we get to agriculture, the situation changes a lot, of course.
mike

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Worthen, Helena Harlow <
hworthen@illinois.edu> wrote:

> Hello --
>
> The majority of hours of teaching and learning in the construction trades
> apprenticeship programs take place in on the job training. A
> plumber/pipefitter may have 1,000 hours of classroom training over 5 years
> but may put in over 1,000 hours per year of OJT over that same 5 years.
The
> ratios of OJT to classroom are about the same for other trades.
>
> I would agree with what Vera says about underdevelopment of observational
> skills. It takes practice both to learn how to watch someone work and to
> learn how to work in a way that someone watching can learn from. This is a
> set of practices that some journeymen are conscious of and others are
> oblivious to.
>
> Helena
>
> Helena Worthen
> Clinical Associate Professor
> Labor Education Program University of Illinois
> 504 East Armory, Champaign, IL 61820
> 217-244-4095
> hworthen@illinois.edu
> communicate/coordinate/cooperate/collaborate
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Vera Steiner
> Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 12:59 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: Purposes and processes of education
>
> Hi,
> There is a lot of apprenticeship education going on in Southwestern Native
> communities, whether in farming,
> pottery or jewelry  There are still multigenerational families known for
> their excellence in some of these crafts. The transmission of skills in
> these domains requires observational as well as verbal teaching/learning.
> The underdevelopment of observational skills in most Westernized schools
by
> their  frequent exclusive focus on verbal teaching  is a questionable
> practice. It narrows the curriculum, the role of parents as contributors
to
> education and learners' preparation for laboratory sciences.Including
> observational learning in our theories and curriculum is hard to achieve
in
> these times of narrow, test-driven education, but these limitations are
> part
> of the challenges that fuel the energy of xmca participants.
> Vera
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Whitson" <twhitson@UDel.Edu>
> To: "mike cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>; "huyi"
> <huyi1910@hotmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 9:47 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: Purposes and processes of education
>
>
> >I should be going to bed now (NYC time zone), or else turning around work
> >from advisees that I'm behind on; but this topic has got me going.
> >
> > Now I'm remembering one of my favorite short stories by the great 20th
> > century writer Lu Xun. I'm not remembering the title, but it depicts an
> > evening dramatic performance in a Chinese village. I am sure that this
> > sort of event has been going on for centuries. It would be a mode of
> > instruction for the young people; but it would be an activity that was
> not
> > happening solely or primarily for that "instructional" purpose. It was
> for
> > antertainment and socialization for adults, but the "instructional"
> > function would have also been salient, if not necessarily "deliberate."
> >
> > It seems to me one question here has to do with the degree to which it
> > matters if the activity is conducted specifically for its "instructinal"
> > value.
> >
> > On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, mike cole wrote:
> >
> >> I think this speculation is correct, Tony and lets hope someone can
help
> >> us
> >> know:
> >>
> >> "I would bet that they have been used over the centuries as media for
> >> transmitting culture orally, through stories told by illiterate
> grown-ups
> >> to
> >> children who were not being schooled."
> >>
> >> Deliberate instruction is clearly not co-incident with literacy and
> >> schooling (30+ children to one adult, print mediated). Infants are
> >> deliberately (if not-so-effectively) instructed by parents.
> >>
> >> This is a great example of the belief that to study learning and
> >> development
> >> one has to study the history of these forms of change at several
> >> different
> >> scales of time and synchronic scale.
> >>
> >> Wow.
> >> mike
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
>
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