hi, Mike - i've been reflecting on your question about why there's not
more multi-age classrooms and Anna Stetsenko's posting about 1987 helped
me with that.
Anna wrote:
>In 1987 I was working at Moscow State Lomonosov University. This was
>clearly
>a transitional time - from the years when Leotjev's activity theory was a
>dominant framework (at that particular institution) to the times of a
>theoretical diversity which actually often turned into a vacuum.
>
>This was an exciting time of perestrojka and glasnost (who now remebers
>these words?), the time when old ideological controls were almost gone but
>the new - monetary ones - were not yet there. (perhaps the only time of
>almost complete freedom I ever knew).
so it was in many way in education - yes, a Nation At risk had come out
some years earlier, but the really big state pressures centered around
single make it or break it tests had not arrived. There was still the
willingness to experiment in education which had begun in the late sixties
/ early seventies. but with greater emphasis on achieving state mandated
tests, so too came about the emphasis on the old ways of organizing
schools. after all, no one who had presented research on effective
schools, effective practices, best practices, best teaching methods - yes,
the list goes on - ever included multi-age classrooms. so, the new
"ideological controls" have preempted much risk-taking in american
education.
i would have responded much earlier, but the last two weeks have been
hectic with end of the year school work.
thanks,
phillip
>
>
* * * * * * * *
* *
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
third grade teacher
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.htm
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
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