Learning in Interaction

Social Relations as Contexts for Learnin by Learning in Interaction on NotaSocial Relations as Contexts for LearningAmish schoolSocial Relations as Contexts for Learning in School (Ray McDermott)Relations between children and teachers underlie the organizational work necessary for learning tasks to be present and worked on by children. Examines successful and unsuccessful classrooms in different cultures for example Amish and inner-city AmericanSocial Relations as Contexts for Learning: 1) There is an order or logic in the way people communicate with each otherEthnography defined as any rigorous attempt to account for people’s behavior in terms of their relations with those about them in different situations2) Two ways of gaining a child’s attention in the classroom- coercive – child’s every moment controlled by teacher’s directive and guidance-based- child is encouraged to explore the environment for what is most interesting to the group3) Analysis of how children learn to read in schoolsSuccessful social relations depend on knowing “where a person is coming from” or “where a person’s head is at”Professional ethnographers describe the processes of an interaction – for example explains steps of how we greet a person walking down a street. They establish a methodology for describing the elements of an interaction. Ethnographic study of classrooms will allow us to look carefully at how teachers make sense and hold students accountable to our way of making sense. Teaching is invariably a form of coercion. While some teachers handle coercion directly, others are less direct and more guidance-oriented. (Closed & open classrooms)Teachers use speech to guide children’s learning. The speech is not as important as whether the strategies make good sense to children.Examples of social relations and learningAmish classroom: Amish teachers dominate classrooms, heave use of commands and high degree of direction instruction. But the class rooms are much more successful than Amish children in public schools. This is because Amish identity in America is marked by a merging of individual identities into a group life that is organized around unifying symbols transmitted by a small number of authoritarian leaders. Successful acquisition of literacy depend on achievement of trusting relationsHanunoo learn to read: Hanunoo receive no formal training in reading and writingLiteracy is used exclusively in courtship and at the time of puberty the children work diligently at learning the script until they can carve songs onto bamboo cylinders in order to support an active love life. Dialect interference improves readingFirst-grade classrooms – spoke Black English vernacular. IV: Correcting dialect/Not correcting dialectDV: Reading ScoresResult: For classrooms where children allowed to talk and read in dialect, reading scores were higherWhen the dialect was not treated as a barrier to communication, the children and the teacher were able to spend time on reading tasks. When it was treated as a problem in the relation it interfered with their formulating trusting agreements about what they were trying to do with each other(Enable JavaScript in your browser, please.)