Re: math for reproduction and domination

["Peg Griffin" <Peg.Griffin@worldnet.att.net>]

Yes, Nancy!
And that sense of fairness and apprehension of equality and inequality of
materials gets preschoolers to model addition and subtraction long before
those operations become number-bound  -- that's Davydov, right?
Peg
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ares, Nancy" <nancy.ares@rochester.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 10:00 AM
Subject: RE: math for reproduction and domination


> Young children have often very well-developed senses of fairness (see
Vivian
> Paley's work), so I do think that the kind of thinking about privilege
that
> W-M Roth points to is not that far off for first graders. That it is
obvious
> that schooling in the US (and other places) is a very efficient sorting
> mechanism and is less efficient at fostering meaningful learning that can
be
> transformative doesn't relieve educators and researchers of a
responsibility
> to try to change schooling and learning. There are important efforts at
> addressing the kinds of issues Roth brings up in elementary grades by such
> groups as Rethinking Schools, where content learning (math, science,
> language arts, social studies) is grounded in problems facing marginalized
> groups and communities, as well as Moll and colleagues' work on funds of
> knowledge that recognize cultural practices of marginalized communities as
> important resources for learning.
>
> I'm not arguing that bb's analysis has to include the cultural historical
> analysis Roth wrote of, but I do appreciate the call to our discussion to
> consider it...
>
> Nancy Ares
> Assistant Professor
> Teaching & Curriculum
> The Warner Graduate School of Education
>     and Human Development
> University of Rochester
> P.O. Box 270425
> Rochester, NY 14627
> 585-273-5957
> fax 585-473-7598
>
> > ----------
> > From: Bill Barowy
> > Reply To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 10:43 AM
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: math for reproduction and domination
> >
> > On Thursday 11 November 2004 10:22 am, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> >
> > > I was struck that in the entire discussion, there was no cultural
> > > historical analysis of the situation in which children do these
> > > mathematical things not because they are (considered) useful and its
> > > outcomes have any relevance to anything but to the reproduction of a
> > > society, where, as in the US, 15 to 20 percent of the population live
> > > in poverty, and where education is used to systematically exclude
parts
> > > of the population to share in the wealth that is collectively
produced.
> >
> > I don't think such an analysis is necessay, Michael.  I think it's
obvious
> > and
> > publications from such people as Bowles and Gintis hammer that point
home.
> >
> > In first grade, this kind of thinking is a long ways off.  I'm not even
> > sure
> > it's something one could do consistently in high school.  But if a
student
> >
> > takes a course in marxist economics at Umass Amherst, or any other
> > univeristy
> > for that matter, that point will be well addressed.
> >
> >
> > -- 
> > --------
> > bb
> >
> >
>
>