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Buckle up, I went on a bit of a curriculum rant. Some of this may sound familiar, since I brought up some of my concerns when we critiqued the new curriculum in Paula’s class.
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This week’s article is a review of literature of sorts that analyzes the history of formal schooling in relation to its social and cultural circumstances and progresses. The article nears an end with a list of the negative consequences of formal schooling in the sociocultural context. Cole then stresses the tension between centralized standardization versus de-centralized adaptation, or the longstanding distinction between training and education. Next he leads into the rise of formal schooling and the separation of school from society, contrasted by inquiry-based curricula that seek to break down the boundaries between school and community. Cole concludes with a kind of future utopic image of education, as “a hybrid of new and old forms, of the standardized and the locally adapted. it will eschew the notion of human education as the preparation of children to triumph over nature and teach us how to live within, as a part of nature, including nature’s multicolored, multicultural, enormously heterogeneous forms of society”. This article is neat, and strategically placed at the end of our course, because it fits well into ALL of the previous theories. It nicely ties everything together, yet leaves us on a cliffhanger: What will the future of education look like?
In BC we are in a transition period, as we adopt the new curriculum. I would like to think that the new curriculum will contribute to a new, better future in education. There were certainly efforts made to include a broader cultural aspect in all courses, however, it still seems awfully artificial. The new curriculum is a sore spot for me, and I feel like it is being falsely-advertised as being designed by educators, for educators and students with a learner-centered approach. As a part of the curriculum writing team for Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies (ADST), I know that the curriculum writing team for most subject areas are comprised of very few teachers. The sign-up process to be a part of these writing teams was not well advertised, in fact, in some districts it was not advertised at all. In these small writing teams, the teachers are given a strict framework set by the ministry of education, they get limited time to write, and then whatever they do write gets unceremoniously slashed by the ministry of education editing team, then returned to them with little of the original content remaining. This process goes back and forth until the teacher writing team is marginally satisfied with their small victories and they submit the document to the ministry. The ministry then pass the document onto another branch of the government for final formatting and to be posted to the government website.
There is a non-disclosure agreement that must be signed before any participants are selected for the committee which states that all materials created in the planning sessions cannot be share before they are published and that whatever is published is the property of the ministry of education. The false image that is being portrayed is that the curriculum is being written for teachers and students by teachers, however the reality is that very little of what the teachers write gets put into the government owned-documents, effectively removing teachers from the situation entirely. Further, while the curriculum team is being paid by taxpayer dollars, the tax-paying parents and their children are not being consulted in the creation of the new curriculum. However, if they were to be included, I’m sure whatever they suggested would be heavily edited much like the teachers’ contributions. I question how the government can label the new curriculum as learner-centered if the learners were not consulted in any way in the creation of the document? Although the curriculum was in dire need of a facelift, and the students will greatly benefit from more current curriculum, I still feel that the new curriculum has a ways to go, especially when considering it needs to educate “nature’s multicolored, multicultural enormously heterogeneous forms of society”.
Finally, the assessment portion of the new curriculum is also masked as learner-centered, when really it is vague, undeveloped, and still requires standardized tests. The secondary assessment framework lists that the new assessment must be ongoing, flexible, natural, and personalized with more student involvement, but makes no suggestion as to how teachers should execute those wishes. The framework starts off as sounding like assessment should be more learner-centered, but upon further reading it states that we must still maintain formal, written, summative reports where we describe how a student has demonstrated their learning. Also that provincial and international standardized assessment will continue to be mandatory, but they haven’t figured out what that might look like as of yet. Ultimately, the new curriculum and assessment continue to be a closed system with the feeble attempt at appearing to be open. I feel, as pointed out in the article, that tension between “centralized standardization versus de-centralized adaptation” exists still in the new curriculum. Do I think that our new curriculum can lead to Cole’s utopic idea of Education? No, there is still a lot of work to be done, and I feel like any cultural progress made in Education will soon be negatively affected by the racist bigot who is now the president-elect of the United States of America.
Cole (2005) examines the history of formalized schooling and how its impact on a child’s cognitive development also affects sociocultural structures and practices. He makes a distinction between enculturation (induction into the cultural order of the society), schooling (deliberate instruction for specific skills) and education (an organized effort to draw out an individual’s full potential). Formalized schooling in the West equated culture with social evolution and “progress”. This is the idea that cultures are on a path of intellectual and economic development and some cultures are further behind on the path to civilization. We have seen the devastating consequences that governmental and societal implementation of this philosophy has had on indigenous communities in Canada. While Cole says this mode of thinking has abated, I would argue that it is still prevalent as evidenced by the rise of far-right political parties in many countries.
“…Sumer was the most totalitarian society of all time. If the model of education to which it gave rise continues to dominate the world, it bodes ill for us all because that form of education has brought us to the brink of self-extermination. But whether, and how, a more horizontally organized, distributed, democratic and locally controlled form of societal interaction and enabling forms of education can compete with the Leviathan of history is highly uncertain. The alternative will be, if and when it comes into being, a hybrid of new and old forms, of the standardized and the locally adapted. It will eschew the notion of human education as the preparation of children to triumph over nature and teach us how to live within, as a part of nature, including nature’s multicolored, multicultural, enormously heterogeneous forms of society.” (p. 215)
This concluding comment reminds me of the book I read for EDCP 562 called Everywhere All the Time: A New Deschooling Reader (Hern, 2008) which is about deschooling, free schools and homeschooling as a reaction to the tyranny of centralized state-directed schooling. The contributors express dismay at the separation of school from society, the devaluing of less formal forms of education, as well as the lack of freedom learners have in the formal schooling system to choose what, when, and how they learn.
In the conclusion of the article Cole refers to how efforts have been made to counter the negative consequences (such as high drop-out rates, social alienation and inability to deal with diversity of learners) of institutionalized schooling by adopting inquiry-based curricula and using cultural models for education. This has taken place in the revised BC curriculum which references First Nations Ways of Learning along with a shift to inquiry-based, comptency-driven education in context. It remains to be seen whether the ossified school, sociocultural and political structures currently in place can be made pliable enough so that teachers and learners are supported while they fully implement the curriculum.
Cole (2005) examines the impact, specifically the cognitive consequences, of formal schooling on children. This article examines the history of formal schooling within a sociocultural context. Cole (2005) conducts a cross-cultural and cross-historical analysis of schooling in order to understand its consequences on development. Both culture and education are defined as a process and a product; they both focus on training children in order to sustain communities. The process of education, as understood across different societies, involves: enculturation (induction into society’s cultural order), schooling (deliberate instruction for a specific set of skills), and education (organized effort to “bring out” the best in a person).
The “Western-style” of education symbolizes progression, and it has become dominant worldwide. The dominant form of schooling found in today’s societies is: sequentially organized, an instrument to prepare for economic activity, and inclusive of traditionally excluded groups, such as women and the poor. Although this “Western-style” is the dominant form of schooling, it is important to also examine the cultural variations (within-classroom cultures and role of the society) as having significant effects on schooling. Moreover, as we have discussed earlier in this class, schooling is only one of the many systems that students operate in. Cole (2005) argues for the adoption of a “polycontextual” point of view to understand the consequences of schooling on development. The values of the society in which schooling takes place in must also be considered because schooling is never socially neutral. For example, the content of the curriculum reflects the political-economic and ideological views of the society and culture in which it operates in. Cole (2005) argues cognitive changes associated with formal schooling are content and context specific.
In this article, the future trends in schooling consist of centralized standardization versus de-centralized adaptation (movement to a community of learners), and separation versus embeddedness (inquiry-based curricula). The future trends in formal schooling are a movement towards providing an alternative to the centralized and standardized models of education. The revised BC curriculum is a step towards this decentralized and embedded trend in formal schooling. For example, the role of the teacher is moving from being the “sage on the stage” to becoming a “guide on the side.” Teachers are meant to facilitate an inquiry-based personalized plan of action for each student. However, there have been little resources provided to educators on how to implement this strategy. Also, although the philosophy of the revised curriculum represents the decentralized and embedded trend that Cole was describing, it is important to keep in mind that this curriculum is still socially biased as well. It primarily reflects the demands of the province’s economic sector. Moreover, the inclusion of Aboriginal perspectives and understandings in this revised curriculum represents a movement towards embeddedness. In theory, it is a step away from the superficial inclusion of the Aboriginal voice in the curriculum. It is now included in all parts of the curriculum in a “meaningful and authentic manner.” However, there are little resources and no training provided to educators to implement this embeddeness in a meaningful way to avoid tokenism.
The Cole article brings up a number of issues that teachers have to deal with on a daily basis. In a multicultural society, children arrive at school with a number of tools and expectations that are culturally and socioeconomically influenced. We have a goal to “educate” these children based on a curriculum, which thankfully, is somewhat forward thinking from a Western standpoint, but which does not really consider the child’s cultural influences. We spoke in class the other day of trying to motivate children who have different types of motivational influences at home than at school. Sometimes the children can adapt to multiple input sources, but other times the contest to influence the child creates tension, confusion and contempt.
As Cole mentioned, we don’t really know what type of education will most benefit children to function in the society of the future. Many things that we teach in school are only useful in a very limited context of society. Hence the diversification of the new curriculum to try to prepare students for an unknown future by providing them with skills and strategies rather than just trying to fill them with book knowledge. Many cultures are seeing the importance of shifting their education to a similar model, but nobody truly has the key to the preparation of our children. I think as teachers, we need to be open to teachable moments within each and every interaction in the day and use those moments to have our students take away some experiential knowledge.
First I found this article quite difficult to read and contradictory, I also struggle with finding the connection to the topic – learning environments. Cole’s article Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives on the Developmental Consequences of Education is introduced by “seeking to specify the impact of schooling on development” but concludes with offering “some indications about the future of education.” He links ‘culture’ and ‘cultivate’ to ‘being cultured/civilized’ and describes the history, advent of schooling and consequences of schooling on post-colonial societies.
I connected with a few of the examples given in the consequences of schooling on post-colonial societies. Cole mentioned Daniel Wagner who suggests children who attend school gain memory-enhancing skills. “These findings make it appear that schooling helps children to develop a new more sophisticated, repertoire of cognitive abilities” (p.204). I think this applies to any learner in school regardless of age. Being back at school in this Masters program, I feel I’m using many specialized strategies and developing numerous cognitive connections.
An interesting point made by Cole was “we noted that virtually all of our experimental tasks… bear a strong resemblance to the tasks children encounter in school but little or no relation to the structure of the intellectual demands they face outside of school” (p.206). This reminded me of the new BC curriculum and the effects it has had on some courses. Sciences Humaines 11 no longer has a provincial exam attached to it, therefore no rush to teach all the elements I have in the past. So why do we test the students when you never will be in ‘real-life’? Why do students need to be tested on dates and specifics when the concepts are what matter? I find the results of WW1 and WW2 more relevant to today than the date of a specific battle. A test does not illustrate this understanding, whereas a discussion or a debate referring to it’s consequences will illustrate understanding and application. As a result, this year I will be focusing more on assessment that asks for application of the concepts than giving a multiple choice test. Cole concludes with presenting choices/alternatives to the centralized, standardized models of education, in which BC appears to be following that path.
In his article, Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives on the Developmental Consequences of Education, Michael Cole discusses the effects and consequences of formal schooling on children. The article examines the history of formal schooling and the author conducts a cross-cultural and cross-historical analysis of schooling. The article defines culture as “the entire body of socially inherited past human accomplishments that serve as the resources for the current life of a social group ordinarily thought of as the inhabitants of a country or region” and education as “the process of nourishing or rearing a child, young person, animal”. I found it interesting to think about these two definitions, especially education. I had never thought of what education should be defined as and I certainly never thought of myself as someone who ‘rears’ children.
Cole concludes his essay by stating that it is “unlikely that we can use the cultural history of schooling to predict the future of schooling with any certainty”. This automatically made me think of the revised curriculum we’ve begun using in BC. One of the major focuses of the revised curriculum is preparing students for a constantly changing world. I am hoping that the new, more flexible curriculum will help my students build a foundation of skills necessary to succeed in this technology-driven world of constant change. I think some parents who come from different cultures may have a difficult time adjusting to the new curriculum and the way it wants the classrooms to run. Many cultures are used to more of a rote learning style rather than a learner-centered style. Hopefully parents will be able to see the benefits of the curriculum and will adjust accordingly.
Cole (2005) examines, in his article, the developmental and cognitive consequences of children who spend vast amounts of time in formal schooling, which can often be segregated from their daily life and community. The article identifies and exposes the history of education and formal schooling in conjunction with social and cultural circumstances. Cole (2005) refers to a variety of cultural and historical settings of schooling and accumulates findings and research which identifies different learning environments and the impact of schooling on development.
Cole (2005) discusses the adoption of schooling from other cultures and how it is not always successful when placed in a new schooling system of another culture. “It is not difficult to see the perplexity in the children and the difficulties teachers encounter when they seek change at the classroom level in the absence of changes in the broad socio-cultural formation of which they are a part” (p. 211). What I interpret from this is that it is not possible to adopt a method and insert it into a new system without making changes to the larger and complex culture inhibited in the system. Cole (2005) further states that we need to “understand the consequences of schooling in its national socio-cultural context” (p. 211). Students who receive education in another country for many years, arrive in Canada, and are expected to “fit” into the school and socio-culture. They are expected to sit in the classroom with the other students and “be normal”, “act normal”, and understand what is happening. They grew up in a learning environment that was different from the western schools with many of their school’s rules and routines reflecting on their culture. These were and still are important to them. If we cannot adopt a teaching style from another culture and practice it in our schools, then what difference does that make to having the child move to a whole new schooling system in a new unknown culture with the expectation for them to adopt it?
My father was born and brought up in India and when he was supposed to be at school he would hide in the village because he did not like school. When he hid in the village, he helped other villagers with chores, cooking, mechanical issues, farming, and serving at the temple. He moved to England at the age of 18 with little education but he began labour work and made a living. Even with little education, over time, he managed to read, write, and speak fluently in both Punjabi and English, had the timetables memorized, was excellent at math, knew how to fix vehicle engines, renovate the house from top to bottom, cook for any occasion, and much more. My parents educated all three children and although we went through formal schooling and completed our university education, none of us can do many of the hands-on projects and chores that our father can do. Our father had to work hard when working at the factory, whereas, we had the qualification to apply for professional employment. My father was successful in life and took early retirement when his factory was closed due to limited work. He was financially stable and never worked again after retiring at the age of 54. I feel he was also successful, even though he did not receive formal schooling. I may have to continue working until I am 65 and I received formal schooling.
“If the social sphere is to become reintegrated, it will not be by returning to the past but by creating a new kind of future in which central values of the past combine with the amazing accomplishments of the present to enable us to live in a sustainable garden, for and with our children” (p.215). I agree that values from the past need to be brought into planning and creating a new future. So my father was able to acquire many skills without schooling, and so now the ADST curriculum is introduced. Hands-on learning and learning the skills and processes to creating amazing things in our new generation’s future. However, it is not that easy and although my father was able to practice many of his skills in a village with the resources available, we are lacking resources in our schools, which may limit students’ success in achieving the skills we are hoping for.
In the article Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives on the Developmental Consequences of Education by Michael Cole we learn about how and why “schooling” evolved over time with a comparison being made between education and enculturation. One aspect that struck me right away when reading this article was how little has changed. The following description of learning during early Sumerian society could be used in some classrooms today! “The classroom consisted of rows of desks, facing forward to a single location where a teacher stood, guiding them in organized rows where students practiced writing lists, repetitive practice of the means of writing and the operations that accompanied it” (p.200/201). In addition, the majority or education systems follow a Western ‘style’ system of organization including “age grading, sequentially organized curricula based on level of difficulty and permanent buildings designed for the purpose of teaching” (p.202). However, as we have learned in our previous courses, there are systems of schooling that do not follow the traditional model. In New Westminster, we have the Home Learner’s Program which follows a very different model and allows for a non-traditional form of education (http://www.humepark.ca/).
Cole continues to explain how researchers have tried to assess the potential impact of school on children but the testing methods may be flawed. The structure of the standardized testing may be predisposed to the children who had received more formal schooling. This idea of flawed standardized testing is similar to the arguments used in the United States with the standardized testing used there. It has been argued that the testing is inherently flawed due to cultural differences between African-American, Latino and ‘white’ students. Nonetheless, Cole did find the research of Robert LeVine and his colleagues compelling. The research showed how schooling can have a consequence on changing the behavior of mothers and which then affects the next generation of learners. “I believe (the research) to be the most convincing evidence of the cognitive and social consequences of schooling, and one that has extremely important policy implications as well” (p. 207). What is implied here is that if a mother receives formal schooling there are positive effects on their children. A lot more research needs to be done in terms of levels of education and the exact effects on children.
Cole concludes his article by saying “At present it is too early to tell whether any of the alternatives to centralized, standardized models of education will gain ascendancy and if so, where the leading edge of such changes will be: in the most highly advanced, technologically oriented parts of society as means of dealing with cultural diversity and decentralization of knowledge and industrial production, or on the technological periphery, as a mode of resistance and survival in the face of centralized globalizing forces?” (p.214). Our education system is changing and I predict that education in twenty years will look different. My hope is that we will have a more blended system of learning which allows for multi-grades, online learning, face to face learning, outdoor learning, and other non-traditional forms of learning. Whether or not a new form of learning will be as a mode of resistance or as a way of dealing with cultural diversity, change is coming and our revised curriculum is only a tiny step towards that change. We need to embrace further change such as what Finland is proposing with the idea of “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”.
A final thought I want to add that was not directly addressed in this article is the idea of schooling starting when students “go to school”. We need to look at education as a continuum which starts as soon as a child is born and does not end until we take our last breath. School does not start in Kindergarten and as educators we need to value the learning that can take place before a child starts school.
Belinda,
I couldn’t agree more about your final thought. Education is something that as Cole mentions, needs to be in context. The context of learning is certainly not limited to the classroom or school setting, and it certainly doesn’t only occur from age 5-17. Love this point. Well articulated.
Robyn
This week’s reading was by Cole titled, Cross-cultural and Historical Perspectives. While reading the following section (paraphrased) of the article on culture and education I was reminded of a presentation given by Shelley Moore on Friday for our curriculum implementation day.
Culture is the process of helping things to grow, the tending of something, basically crops or animals (Williams, 1973). Education is the process of nourishing or rearing a child, a young person, an animal (Oxford Dictionary, 1971). The similarity between education and culture is obvious. Both culture and education refer to process and product.
Shelley was presenting on inclusive assessment and the revised curriculum. Shelley did a comparison between the old curriculum and the revised curriculum and highlighted perhaps the most significant difference between the two. The old curriculum was 75% content and 25% process. The revised curriculum is 75% process and 25% content. I would argue and support Shelley by saying that process is far more important than product or content. The journey is more important than the destination.
Cole mentioned the Kpelle and Vai peoples of Liberia. Children were separated from their communities for four or five years in an institution referred to in Liberian pidgin as ‘bush school’. Elders taught the children the essential skills of making a living as well as the foundation ideologies of the society. I am wondering if when Cole says separated from their communities he also means family. This reminded me of the Indian Residential Schools and the young children that were torn away from their families and beliefs and culture. While the reasons for separation are different it seems to me that separation is separation. The family and community are an integral part of a child’s development. I just couldn’t imagine having my boys taken from me for the purpose of education. The school is only one place where education takes place.
There is a description in Cole’s article that says “the classroom consisted of rows of desks, facing forward to a single location where a teacher stood, guiding them in repetitive practice of the means of writing and the operations that accompanied it.” It is amazing to me that we have been doing the same things in our classrooms for so many years, including sitting in rows. I am excited to see the changes taking place in the classroom environments in our district to encourage flexible learning. Teachers are using varied heights for their tables or desks for students to stand, kneel or sit at. They are using stationary bikes, exercise/physio balls for increased stimulation to improve focus and concentration. Students are given a choice as to where they will sit in their classrooms. The image of the child and image of the teacher have been influencing the changes taking place.
A study by Daniel Wagner suggested that children who attend school gain memory-enhancing skills (Wagner, 1974). This has most certainly been the case for many years in classrooms. Students memorized spelling test words, were quizzed on Friday, and forgot the words the next week. Not very often did we see the transfer of the correct spellings of words to the students writing. Students also memorized their basic facts in math, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division but never really understood the concept or why it was important or meaningful.
In conclusion, it is quite evident that the revised BC Curriculum follows previous curriculum in preparing our children and responding to the needs of society. We no longer need to be memorizing facts or information because we have the information at our fingertips. Instead we need to develop thinkers and problem solvers, and innovators. The concept-based, competency-driven revised BC Curriculum is preparing our children for society and the future.
This week, Cole discussed in his article about what “education” means to various cultures. In some cultures and societies, context-specific knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. In other culture and societies, this means “schooling” – where a standardized set of context-free facts are passed on from teachers to their students. Cole’s study is to look at the consequences of schooling and to see whether there are significant cognitive differences between children who received formal schooling and those who are enculturated in different ways. It was very interesting to see that although children who received formal schooling appear to be more cognitively advanced, Cole critically questioned the evidence and argues that essentially schooling is not necessarily superior to other methods of enculturation.
Cole also pointed out the differences in children who receive schooling in different cultures, and suggested that compared to German and Japanese education, US (or western) teachers focus on learning terms and practicing procedures that encourages students to follow sets of prescribed steps rather than think outside the box and demonstrate more sophisticated cognitive skills. I am happy to see that our new curriculum is moving away from that with the introduction of the Big Ideas and a focus on Core/Curricular Competencies over the content that encourages the “structured problem solving” and “developing advanced procedures” that are prevalent in other systems around the world. In my own practice, I like to find ways to ask my students to relate Math concepts learned to real-life problem. For instance, when learning about calculating percentages, I would ask my students to come up with problems that deal with buying and selling while taking sales tax and discounts into account. The use of problem-based learning can also allow students to discover context-specific knowledge that could be applied back to situations outside of the classroom. In Science, I have asked my students to come up with an earthquake preparedness plan as part of my Earth Science unit on plate tectonics. They would also come up with plans where their communities (school, city) that they live in could better prepare for earthquakes. Lastly, Cole said that efforts have been made to break down the separation of school and community by incorporating experts from local communities into the school. As a Montessori teacher, this is something that I have done in the past where I encourage students to seek out experts when completing research, or ask local experts to come in to talk to the class. In a recent Creative Writing unit on newspaper writing, I have invited an editor from the Vancouver Sun to present to my students the process of producing the daily paper that their families read each day.
All in all, while it is evident that schooling help children develop sophisticated cognitive skills, it is important that these children are able to apply what they’ve learned in situations that they will encounter later in life. After all, isn’t the goal of teaching students is to prepare them to be successful individuals in society where they can make independent decisions? As educators, we strive to move away from rote learning that have traditionally been the standard in schools to where students acquire context-specific knowledge within Big Ideas. However, as Cole says, changing just one part of the system is not enough. There will need to be a cultural reconditioning where all the stakeholders (students, parents, communities, etc.) have to have complete buy-in in order to change education.
“The systematic instruction, schooling, or training given to the young in preparation for the work of life” is a definition of education that stood out for me at the beginning of this article. This week’s article explores many facets of education and its history. This article automatically made me remember of various conversations I had or heard about people who believed in post-secondary education and those who didn’t think it was necessary. The article says that “modern thinking is the ability to take another person’s perspective and to empathize with their point of view” The article also says that “the inability to adopt another’s point of view is, of course, the central characteristic attributed to the thinking of 3- to 6-year-old children by Jean Piaget.” and that schooling helps children to develop a new, more sophisticated, repertoire of cognitive abilities. Coming back to what I first wrote about the debate between those who believe in the school system and those who don’t as post-secondary education. I feel the later quote makes me think we need to try to understand the point of view of both parties, but not just stating the facts, but to go back to the foundations of their arguments. I feel this article has made me reflect on this and how both perspectives can work hand in hand together, by revisiting the first writing system in Sumer as a way to see how writing helps organize a society and that it’s comprehension is a necessary tool of communication but also to see how school and community have become separate entities over time. Maybe did we forget the importance of the connection between both. “At a minimum, it seems certain that practice in representing language using writing symbols improves children’s and adults’ ability to analyze the sound structure and grammar of their language”
As the world is changing, students are evolving and adapting to their environment. Going back to last week’s topic on motivation, I see a lot of kids not interested in school nowadays, wanting to be on their phones and social media instead of focusing on Math or Grammar class. But who blames them? If I had the option, I would pick my phone too. The thing is, despite all criticisms associated to the use of phones and technology, there is this social aspect to technology that is prominent and I can see a link between how students behave with technology and the interest in school: they get to stay close to their community. Kids nowadays have an online community that they can bring to school. I feel we have reached a time where this initial perhaps, unintended disconnect , (Yes I can be a euphoric…I don’t mean to have any disrespect here to anyone who were forced out of their homes to be put in a school despite their will due to any reason) has caught up to us as a society with the greatest access to the community that is outside of the school building.
I can see connections with the article with the new BC Curriculum when recommendations are made to use activities based on literacy and mathematical foundations but with different collaborative approaches to foster the sense of community within the school walls and outside of the school walls. The WE Day website offers fantastic lesson plans to foster these connections to the community. But of course, this project-based approach could potentially lead to the decentralization of education, which can be worrisome to parents and others educators as it will be hard to make sure students leave the school system with a good enough baggage. But yet, what is a good teacher? What is good teaching? We learned in this class that everyone comes in with their personal baggage and with different values. Standardization avoids these situations and allow the government to assure stability among the education everyone in the province receives (no point of view see – just stating a fact.) but yet how do we marry both philosophies? “Overstandardization” (Yes I invented a word!) lead to a full on disconnect from our youth but reassurance to many different cultures or point of views. I sincerely don’t know how to finish this entry. I feel that sort of representative to our current situation in BC, where the change was necessary, but the way to evaluate it remains a huge debate and an unknown question.
Cole (2005) examines the process of schooling and the cognitive impact on children. Cole begins by establishing common language and understanding around his key terms of culture, education, and the historical context, as well as identifying overlap in these terms. Essentially culture includes promoting growth, an artificial environment to achieve best results, and the notion of being “cultured”. His definition of education includes the nourishment or rearing of children, as well as a more formal OED definition: “systematic instruction, schooling, or training given to the young in preparation for the work of life” (p. 196). Cole discusses education as both a process and a product, and acknowledges that the “process of ‘preparing the next generation’ has indeed varied over time and societies” (p. 198). Furthermore, Cole goes on to acknowledge that education must be contextual.
Part of what we do in education is to prepare students for their futures. However, with rapid advancements in technology, the future is constantly changing. We need to think about the skills and processes students need so that they can carry these forward into whatever jobs they might be faced with. (I realize this is a very social efficiency perspective of the goals of education.) In my opinion, the core competencies and curricular competencies do a good job addressing these skills. They build in process more than content and product, and are skills that students work towards developing all through their education from Kindergarten through Grade 12 and beyond. As well, BCs revised curriculum encourages students to take a more active role in their learning through self-assessment and becoming aware of not only what their role is as learners, but also how they learn, what they are able to do, to identify areas of further growth and development, and finally to identify ways teachers, parents, and students themselves can support their learning and development.
From there, Cole goes on to discuss the formal school setting, as well as the history of how it came about and it’s (limited) evolution since then. He describes the earliest classrooms as we still see classrooms today – rows of desks, facing forward to the teacher.
While I think there have been many progressive things our curriculum and system of education have done over the past century, the learning is one area that has yet to be addressed. Students are still expected to attend school during set hours, and in elementary school, they primarily attend class in one room. There has been significant research conducted about the role of the “third teacher” (specifically in early learning and in Reggio Emilia) and the positive impact the learning environment has on student success. I know there are many schools (like Norma Rose Point in Vancouver) that are embracing the learning environment and rethinking what education looks like given the spaces they are utilizing. At my school, we have done a lot of work around modernizing our learning spaces. Over the past few years we have created a “rethinking learning spaces committee” which has created a document to help teachers think through making changes to their learning space. There are significant funds available for classrooms interested in trying out a different model. As well, we have “open houses” in which we invite staff to come into some of the modernized spaces and essentially give them a tour and walk them through how the learning space has been changed, the thought process behind it, as well as the impact on students. Overall these changes have been significant and extremely beneficial to student learning. One example is a grade 2 classroom that has moved away from student desks, to shared table spaces. There are a number of different sized tables, at varying heights. Students have the ability to not only choose their working space, but they can choose whether they sit or stand to work. As well, there are benches rather than individual chairs, and some wooden blocks that students can sit on, or use as tables (when they choose to sit on the floor). Of course there is some teaching that must go into what this looks like on a day to day basis, but students are thriving with the flexibility of their classroom learning space.
The way students learn has changed, and our learning spaces must reflect these changes as well. It would be an interesting experiment to ask teachers to design their ideal teaching space, and see how many chose a traditional model of desks in rows, vs. something more modern.
In this weeks article, Cole addresses the challenges that children go through when they spend a large majority of their time in a formal school setting removed from authentic cultural and daily life experiences. He states that, “schools are institutionalized cultures for growing next generations”. Instead of children learning through daily life experiences they must go to “western” schools and learn skills regardless of their cultural values and beliefs. The interesting point that Cole raises is that not much has changed in the formal school model since the time of Sumerian schools, “the classroom consists of rows of desks, facing forward to a single location where a teacher stood, guiding them in the repetitive practice of the means of writing and the operations that accompanied it.”
In many ways I agree with Cole that even in the 21st century schools still operate in a similar manner. The redesigned curriculum aims to change this traditional formal way of schooling children and there is more emphasis on the process of learning as opposed to skill development and the end product. However, similar to what I learned about in EDCP 562 our curriculum is still based on social efficiency and preparing students to become productive members of society based on what the “western” culture values are. The challenge I find is that working in Richmond many of my students are from different cultural backgrounds where their cultural beliefs and thoughts around education and schooling differ from the model that currently exists. Schools and education still have many features of contemporary industrialized society and as a result students are exposed to the western style of learning.
I am hopeful that schools and education will adapt and change to fit the learning environments that children need to develop and learn in the 21st century in order to make schools meaningful and reflect the cultural values and beliefs. The redesigned curriculum is a step in the right direction in moving away from the centralized, standardized models of education that currently exist.
Cole’s article on the developmental consequences of education is very interesting. Upon reading it, one can’t help but wonder if formal education as it is currently organized is actually a beneficial cultural institution. However, as Cole indicates, schooling is a reality, and therefore exploring and understanding its consequences is an important endeavor.
One of the points Cole makes that stood out for me was that inquiry into the effects of schooling has often focused on assessing children’s skills on a variety of tasks that resemble intellectual challenges students face in school, but not intellectual challenges faced outside of school. Valuing such tests as a way to determine whether or not school has positive developmental impacts on children seems closely linked to the ideologies that promote standardized testing as a way to ensure students are progressing. Standardized tests often do not assess intellectual demands or practical applications that are authentically useful outside of the classroom. This situation worsens when standardized tests are made into high-stakes endeavors, where student performance affects school funding or university acceptance. This leads to ‘teaching to the test’ – an even greater focus on skills and practices that might not in fact be useful or beneficial to students.
The easy conclusion from this is that both classroom teaching practices and researcher’s inquiry methods should shift to addressing and assessing more authentic learning situations and needs. However, Cole makes another important point that “classroom interactions are embedded in, and rest upon, an enormous amount of cultural conditioning” (211). Effective changes in schooling would/will require changes in other parts of society, perhaps including media representation of schooling and values, testing and post-secondary education admission procedures, a shift in cultural values, and other changes.
Cole concludes by addressing two major questions: where should we ideally be on a spectrum between centralized standardization and decentralized adaptation? And, where should we ideally be on a spectrum between separation and embeddedness? I find the second question particularly interesting, and related to BCs new curriculum. Cole identifies inquiry based curricula and a revaluing of local traditions and knowledge as ways of embedding relevant and culturally aware content into a formalized school system. It is clear that our new curriculum puts a high value onto both of these approaches, which I find encouraging as an educator who wants my students to develop meaningful and culturally relevant intellectual skills and abilities.
This Friday we had our curriculum implementation professional development day. At the keynote session, the speaker spoke about how teachers had indicated in their feedback into curriculum changes that these changes could only be effective if assessment and reporting also changed. This reflects back to Cole’s point about the classroom context being affected by outside cultural contexts and conditioning. It is encouraging to me that in the implementation of our new curriculum, teachers (or at least elementary school teachers) seem to have the opportunity to apply new methods of assessment and reporting, which will more closely support new classroom practices. While new assessment and reporting will likely not be immediately embraced by many teachers, parents, and other members of society (i.e. university admissions departments), it seems to me to be an important piece of the broader cultural picture that supports a particular approach to formal education. I look forward to exploring how this will impact my classroom.
I found Michael Coles’s article about the impact of schooling on development challenging to read, but filled with many ideas that provoked thinking and further questions.
He begins by defining culture as referring to “the entire body of socially inherited past human accomplishments that serve as current resources for the current life of a social group…” and as a “noun of process” which was “concerned with how to promote growth”. He defined the main meaning of education as “the process of nourishing or rearing a child” as well as “the systematic instruction, schooling, or training given to the young in preparation for the work of life”. Cole goes on to say that culture and education refer to process and product and they sustain a community by bringing about change in children. In order to explore this change Cole looks at the consequences of schooling.
While he is sympathetic to many commentators who think “societies lacking formal schooling are bastions of ignorance”. He sees schooling as institutionalized enculturation where there can be instruction of specific skills and induction into the cultural order of society. In small face to face (agrarian) societies education and schooling is fused where there is deliberate teaching and children are instructed by elders in the rites of passage. According to Cole as population increases, technology advances and material goods increase then the term schooling emerges and its value in society. Contemporary industrialized societies have shaped schools into the dominant format which is based on the 19th century European model. These contemporary schools share 4 common features. They are internally organized, are incorporated into larger bureaucratic institutions, see schooling as an instrument of public policy and preparation for specific economic activity, and extend schooling to previously excluded populations like the women and poor. This Western style approach to education is now found in most of the world.
I was interested in the section on consequences of schooling in post colonial societies because I am the daughter of two parents who were raised in 2 British Colonies and while their education started in small face to face schools in their own languages they were both went to english medium schools where their education was according to the British system and eventually they both emigrated to Britain to complete their education because this could lead to more opportunities and better employment. I have always wondered about what language and culture skills they missed by changing the educational environment and then the country where they chose to live. People assume when they see me that I must know certain language, beliefs and practices of my broad cultural group, but may of these lessons were not passed on to me. My grandparents in Kenya and Sri Lanka were seen as modern for sending their children for a western education. While this was seen as the right choice earlier in the 20th century, people have questioned this thinking when looking at their experience with today’s lens of experience. This value for education was passed on to me and my cousins in the next generation because we were aware of the knowledge and skills our parents and grand parents had and we also were taught the value of formal education.
When Cole discusses testing and comparing intellectual performance I wondered what knowledge was being compared. I agree that what is tested should be of value to both groups. While rehearsing and practicing specific information improves knowledge, is that all the knowledge that has value?
There is a global movement toward the model of 21st century learning. Countries regularly observe other countries for clues on how to improve cognitive skills. We are moving away from a one size fits all method of delivery of education as we become aware that different groups attend to different learning tasks in different learning tasks in different ways like the example of learning math in school or performing math skills in a real world on the job way. A combination of in school instruction with application of the math skills is recommended. There has been a recognition of the role of school within culture and society and that there are differences in schools in different area due to socio political and cultural difference. The new BC curriculum represents a philosophical move away from traditional education to a model that reflects many of the ideas raised by could. This new model encourages mixed educational environments, awareness of cultural diversity and cultural variations, inclusive practices rather than separate but not equal and inquiry learning that values a wider definition of knowledge. It remains to be seen how successful this new way of thinking will be and if school moves beyond being an instrument of public policy and preparation for specific economic activity or a means for the enculturation of children.
Cole’s article provides context to the history and factors contributing to formalized learning environments. This article is a tour de force that details: the historical development of education, the purposes of education in different societies at different times in human history; comparisons between different cultures (and inter-cultural) and approaches towards education; and the future of education. I found it a fascinating read that raises many interesting and relevant points to the changes we are implementing through the 2015 refreshed curriculum. He does provide distinction between enculturation, schooling and education as differing but interrelated factors effecting developmental progression.
In Cole’s later discussion of eastern and western approaches to education, it reminds me of international students entering BC’s school system at a secondary level. We have many students at my school from China, Korea, and Japan. In fact, international education is huge business for our school district. I wonder if the leaders considered the roles of the originating society on a student’s education before he/she arrives in BC to live with a homestay parent; socio-cultural aspects that effect within-classroom cultures; and “national style” of thinking of students within these cultural groups. The enculturation of students from other countries may not agree with North American or Western European practices in education. The enculturating institutions such as schools, churches, and family structures may value other aspects of learning and development higher than North American enculturating institutions. As Cole states, Japanese educational systems emphasize interdependence which is at direct odds with the notion of individuality in education in North America.
“Japan presupposes a notion of personhood which emphasizes interdependence, mutuality of trust, and the high value accorded to self-discipline and perfectionism in fulfilling one’s role (p. 211; Befu, 1986).
Cole goes on to state that schools are just one of the many enculturating institutions that children encounter throughout their lives (p. 211). It makes me think of how hard it must be for international students to participate in BC’s school culture. We in Canada pride ourselves in being accepting of all races and religions and celebrating our differences. I have found, however that in my school, welcoming international students is a bit of an interesting dance. While I’m not suggesting that international students are unwelcome in our school, I suppose that due to a variety of factors from all sides, student, parent and teacher/administration, their transition into the schooling system is quite rough and the support they receive may not be enough to help them be successful through their high school years.
Cole ends with a bit of unknown as to the future of educational systems. I read an article recently on the effect that the Trump administration may have on the US public education system from the Washington Post. Will privatization and a voucher system become incentive for parents to enroll students in charter and magnet schools, and will the public education system in the US be decimated in the process? It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/11/14/will-donald-trump-destroy-u-s-public-education/)