>Gordon,
>
>I think what troubles me most is who or what is absent in order to
>have this inquiry or progressive "ideal". Too often, the school a
>researcher like yourself enters, is one that is middle-upperclass.
>These schools get fabulous awards, get video taped etc. In many of
>these schools we take all the special education students and put
>them in another room. So, Gordon, where were the special education
>students?
>
>I don't want this to sound confrontational, but so often
>"progressive" approaches like inquiry occurs in a context that is so
>foreign to the students I deal with daily. I guess for me it would
>be interesting to see how this plays out with different types of
>kids. What about those who are "weak" in expressive language? I
>have several kids like the two girls, and there very fun to
>challenge and engage, but I also have many other kinds of students
>that do not nicely fit the script of the video. I guess I'd be
>interested more in the cultural-economic context of the school, what
>student are or are not in the classroom (I only counted 5 - where
>are the other 20). It might help me make sense why they all engaged
>with inquiry in a similar manner.
>
>n
I think there is a danger of falling into stereotypes when children
are classified by "race", gender,disability, etc. Certainly, we need
to take account of the current characteristics and zpds of the
individual students we teach, but I'm not at all convinced that
categorizing them according to the current labels helps us - or them
- very much.
The class that you saw in the video was a typical school in Metro
Toronto and contained about 28 children. The school is indeed in a
middle-class area, but included children who are "diverse" in many
of the ways you are suggesting. However, you could see similar
practices in the classrooms of other DICEP teachers whose schools are
in inner city areas where there are probably a greater proportion of
"diverse" students than in almost any other city.
The great thing about an inquiry approach is that it brings all
students on board and enables them to contribute at the level of
which they are capable and, because collaborative group work is the
norm, students learn a great deal from each other; also, because
groups learn to work productively without constant supervision, the
teacher is able to spend time with individuals or groups that need
additional help.
Interestingly, the CREDE program at UCSC, led by Roland Tharp, that
has been investigating how best to teach students "at risk" because
of poverty, cultural difference, etc., reaches the same sort of
conclusion. (See Dalton and Tharp's chapter in "Learning for Life in
the C20th Century" Blackwell, 2002 for an account of their findings.)
If you would like to read more about the work of the teachers I have
been collaborating with you can find more examples in my book,
Dialogic Inquiry. In particular, Chapters 4 and 6 are based on my
participant observation in an inner city school on the edge of
Chinatown in Toronto.
As you may gather, my interest in classroom interaction is because I
think it is by including students in the kinds of activities and
dialogue that I presented in my paper that we stand the best chance
(barring some very unlikely changes at the federal and state
political levels) of improving their opportunities to transform both
themselves and the society in which they are growing up.
Gordon
-- Gordon Wells UC Santa Cruz. gwells@cats.ucsc.edu http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/
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