A distinction that is helpful to me is that between prescription
and proscription that I first came across in the writings of
Francisco Varela (for example Varela, Thompson and Rosch, The
Embodied Mind, 1991). Organizing classrooms by prescription
means seeking the one or a few best ways. The prescription
determines what is allowed or not allowed in this management
process. These prescriptions are presumed to have generality
beyond the specific case.
With proscription, anything that is not forbidden is allowed. So
within the broad structure of possible classroom organizations
embodying chosen values and goals, a whole host of
"best" practices are possible. It is only mildly interesting
if one specific embodiment is more effective than another
in a particular situation. We expect (and even celebrate)
differences.
At first blush this seems wildly romantic, but it seems to me to
be the way evolution, for example, is best conceived. That which
is not compatible with survival and reproduction is discarded, but
that leaves an incredible variety of more or less successful forms.
I can't imagine a prescriptive logic to either evolution or classroom
organization.
Cheers......djc
On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> Hi All who responded to my query to the effect: If we know there are
> some effective ways of organizing classrooms (this shakey assumption
> being based on prior examples in the discussion preceding), why are
> they so rarely observed? I also focused on success among kids who
> usually arent successful.
>
> I kind of read the responses (with exception of Gordon's I think) as saying
> that the question makes no sense for differrent reasons: How do we know
> what a "best" is ( how do we know what a good is, how do we know what
> a bad is could also be asked). Doesnt what is good depend on what people
> are trying to do? Isnt it all, so to speak, context specific?
>
> It can be anticipated that I would have a lot of sympathy with these
> and other questions raised. But I had a paradoxical reaction. For a long
> time I have read of the efforts of people on this list to understand
> how to organize kids instruction so that, for example, they learn how
> to read, how to do arithmetic, how to think critically, etc. That is
> certainly what people argue they are trying to do when they get money
> for their research.
>
> What is the point of research on classrooms and schools and development
> and communities, etc. that we are doing if we have as an apriori
> conclusion that we cannot generalize from beyond individual cases?
>
> I think I know how to make the argument for restrictions on generalizibility
> and there is a fine tradition that claims there should be none expected.
>
> Is that what people think? Is it irrelevant to understanding educational
> processes that 90+ percent of classrooms use recitation scripts with
> known answer questions and activity-centered education with the properties
> that Gordon is valorizing exist only now and again? Does Ellice's
> work showing that kids thought to be able to engage only in Drill and Kill
> that is tracking them downward are capable of complex discursively
> mediated education amount to no more than a parlor trick, or the imposition
> of middle class standards on kids who are going to be tracked down
> no matter what?
>
> I do not mean to presuppose a correct answer to this question for myself
> or for the group. Its just that so much of the response so far says that
> we should not be taking responsibility for the study of the effects
> of our interventions or observations of others' interventions that it
> makes me wonder what we do take responsibility for.
>
> mike
>
>
Don Cunningham
School of Education
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
Phone: 812-856-8540
Email: cunningh who-is-at indiana.edu
Homepage: http://php.indiana.edu/~cunningh