One advantage I find in undertaking this crazy whirlwind of work we call Summer doctoral studies is the immediacy of information, which makes it possible to recognize connections between and across courses so easily and readily. A couple so far:
• Erickson’s statement that “everybody is multicultural” (p. 33) certainly ties closely into identity research in second language studies, which we are addressing in 823 next week. This also ties into work from last summer in 825, when I first encountered reference to Firth & Wagner (1997) and the deluge of studies that have followed related to the multiple identities of language learners - especially going beyond the identity of individual as language learner/”nonnative” speaker.
• Perhaps my favorite connection so far (or for today at least) is that between Kumaradivelu’s postmethod ideas and the ethnographic approach to research. Kumaradivelu’s postmethod underscores the importance of particularity, practicality, and possibility in teaching approaches, and the “particularity” element (in particular, excuse me) is especially appropriate for attempting ethnographic work. The anthropological tenets of making the familiar strange and the familiar strange seem indeed impossible without consideration of the particularities of the individual setting against the backdrop of all of the other particular settings that surround it. There is one sentence especially that illustrates this connection: “By making particular student culture and family history a deliberate object of study by all the students in the classroom, the teacher can learn much about what he or she needs to know in order to teach the particular students in ways that are sensitive and powerfully engaging, intellectually and emotionally” (emphasis added) (Erickson, p. 45).
• Another connection to issues from 825 last summer has to do with Bourdieu’s ideas of cultural capital and symbolic violence. Although Bourdieu is not specifically cited in this paragraph, we surely see the following as an example of “symbolic violence”: “When such issues as racism, class privilege, and sexism are left silent in the classroom, the implicit message for students of color appears to be that the teacher and the school do not acknowledge that experiences of oppression exist. If only the standrard language, the standard American history, and the voices and lives of White men appear in the curriculum, then the further implicit message (by what is left in and what is left out of the knowledge presented as legitimate by the school) seems to be that the real United states and real school are only about the cultureal mainstream and its establishment ideology” (Erickson, p. 47).
I look forward to using this blog as a way of discovering connections among all of the materials/authors I encounter during these 5 weeks!
Writing Fieldnotes
14 years ago
I'm glad to read about the connections you are establishing between various theories, K. There is especially a strong connection between Kumaravidelu and Erickson about how we, as educators, should start from where the students are (particularity and contextuality) instead of imposing them our own (i.e mostly the mainstrem) literacies. It's a tricky thing to do. The post-colonial understanding of various concepts such as "methodology" and "literacy" in language teaching is detrimental to progressive and liberal education. Yet, thanks to "critical" approaches to understand world around us, there will always be resistence to such hegemonic practices and willingness to understand, incorporate local meanings and eventually(I hope!) transform the opressive practices that are so implicitly prevelent in the school system today.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments so far!