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

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Thanks again, deborah.
The whole business of treating OUR broad categories of historical "stages"
as if they were uniform is as problematic as our
practices of assigning stages ontogenetically. There is much more
heterogeneity than we can encompass, so we overgeneralize
and usually not in value neutral ways.

Documenting that variability, as well as the similarities, among tokens of
the types we imagine seems an urgent task for cultural-historical
approaches to development.
mike

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Deborah Rockstroh
<d_rockstroh@bigpond.com>wrote:

>  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
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
> >
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