Children And Their Curriculum: The Perspectives Of Primary And Elementary School Children

Children and Their Curriculum

Children and Their Curriculum: The Perspectives of Primary and Elementary School Children

Edited by

Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

The Falmer Press (A member of the Taylor & Francis Group) London • Washington, D.C.

UK USA

The Falmer Press, 1 Gunpowder Square, London, EC4A 3DE The Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

A.Pollard, D.Thiessen and A.Filer, 1997 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

First published in 1997 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available on request ISBN 0-203-45432-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-76256-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 7507 0594 9 paper

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction: New Challenges in Taking Children’s Curricular Perspectives Seriously Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

1

Pupils, Teachers and the Ownership of Curriculum Knowledge: Editors’ Introduction

13

1

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods

15

2

The Tale of a Task: Learning Beyond the Map Rod Parker-Rees

34

Pupils’ Lives and the Curriculum as Lived Experience: Editors’ Introduction 3

4

Shared and Negotiated Territories: The Socio-cultural Embeddedness of Children’s Acts of Meaning Mary Maguire

51

‘At Least They Were Laughing’: Assessment and the Functions of Children’s Language in Their ‘News’ Session Ann Filer

81

Withdrawal, Resistance and Adaptation in Shaping the Experienced Curriculum: Editors’ Introduction 5

6

99

The Politics of Primaries: The Micropolitical Perspectives of 7-Year-Olds Angela Spaulding

101

Experience through the Eyes of Quiet Bird: Reconnecting Personal Life and School Life John G.Nicholls and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates

122

Methodological Challenges: Editors’ Introduction 7

49

Observing Children on a School Playground: The Pedagogics of Child-watching v

141 143

Contents

8

9

Stephen J.Smith In Search of Authenticity: Researching Young Children’s Perspectives Paul Connolly Knowing about, Acting on Behalf of, and Working with Primary Pupils’ Perspectives: Three Levels of Engagement with Research Dennis Thiessen

162

184

Notes on Contributors

197

Index

199

vi

Acknowledgments The Editors would like to thank the participants and delegates at the Pupil Perspectives and the Curriculum symposium at the European Conference on Educational Research held at the University of Bath, UK in September 1995. One of the aims of the symposium, organized by Andrew Pollard and Ann Filer, was to raise the profile of this under-researched area and for dissemination and exchange at an international level. Many contributors, some of whom are represented in chapters in this book, presented their research in a variety of ways, helping to make this occasion such a success. The three editors, who also gave papers, would therefore like to express their thanks to co-contributors; Angela Auset, David Hendley, Don Kimber, Alison Kington, Mary Maguire, Yolande Muschamp, Oz Osborn, Rod Parker-Rees, Claire Planel, Andrew Stables, and Pat Triggs. In our trans-Atlantic liaison and the production of this book we have been much helped by our secretarial colleagues, Sarah Butler (at Bristol) and Sonia Hop wood (at Toronto). Our sincere thanks to them. We would finally like to express our gratitude to Anna Clarkson and Malcolm Clarkson for recognizing the importance of and growing interest in this area of educational research and for their assistance in bringing this collection to fruition within the now extensive Falmer list of books on children and childhood. Andrew Pollard Dennis Thiessen Ann Filer Bristol and Toronto, July 1996.

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Introduction: new Challenges in Taking Children’s Curricular Perspectives Seriously Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

Introduction Student experience, and its diversity, do not appear as a phenomenon of interest in current debates on educational policy and research. It is a nuisance, a distraction, to think that different students, together with their teachers and fellow students, might be inhabiting and constructing profoundly differing subjective worlds as they encounter what the school presents as a standardised curriculum, with intendedly standardised methods of instruction and assessment. (Erickson and Shultz, 1992, p. 467) Erickson and Shultz neatly encapsulate the central rationale for this collection. We aim to support and encourage educators in recognizing and ‘hearing’ pupil perspectives, and in taking them seriously as an influence on policy and practice at all levels. One major challenge of the book is thus to those who hear pupils’ voices in a spirit of interest, sympathy or amusement, but make no commitment to analysis and follow-up action. We wish to move beyond such forms of sentiment and indulgence. A second major challenge is to those who interpret childhood in purely developmental terms, for we fear that such perceptions ultimately limit our approaches to understanding what is important to pupils in relation to their experience. However, the most important challenge is to those who ignore pupil perspectives altogether. This might be said of many adults, but it is particularly important in the case of those policy-makers and politicians who strive to introduce systemic educational ‘reforms’ and extensive, centralized curricula. Our overall argument is that taking pupil perspectives seriously can contribute to the quality of school life, the raising of standards of educational achievement and understanding of many important educational issues. We would also argue the converse, that to ignore or underplay the significance of pupil perspectives can undermine the quality of school life, learning achievements and the development of understanding. As we explored these concerns together, we began to think in terms of four key questions. This Introduction has been based around them: 1

Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

• • • •

Why do we want to understand pupil perspectives on their curriculum? What does each chapter teach us about pupil perspectives? How do we come to know how pupils interpret their curriculum experiences? What challenges do we face in making sense, and making use, of pupil perspectives?

Why Do We Want to Understand Pupil Perspectives on Their Curriculum? What is the value of listening, understanding, interpreting and taking pupil perspectives on the curriculum seriously? Why, for instance, should we be concerned about a 6-year-old’s understanding of why her teacher should want her to make a model swing? (See Parker-Rees, Chapter 2.) There are many different sorts of answers but we will focus on four, which we have called the romantic, the moral, the pragmatic and the critical. Romantic views of children and childhood are particularly embedded within the cultures of developed, western societies. They are founded on the assumption that young children are fundamentally ‘good’ and ‘innocent’. Children must thus be protected from the harsh realities of the world as ‘natural’ development takes place. Meanwhile, children carry the hopes and aspirations for the future which adults ascribe to them. This perspective yields sentimentalized views of children and might be viewed as being harmless. However, it is not. In fact, because of the way in which such indulgence presents and positions children, it undermines their status as people whose views should be taken seriously. Pupil views on curriculum may thus be collected for their naivety—‘aren’t they sweet!’. Such treatment of child perspective reflects the patronage of adults, but it does not contribute to understanding or analysis of the issues and concerns which are of importance to pupils. A moral answer to the question, ‘Why do we want to understand pupil perspectives?’, might be framed in terms of pupil ‘rights’. For instance, should children have rights to be individually heard, to have their voices respected, their critiques engaged with and their choices given credence? (Wringe, 1981; Franklin, 1986). Of course, all sorts of objections could be raised: children are too immature; they lack experience; their views are idiosyncratic, etc. However, children are citizens who arguably have as much right to consideration as any other individual. Should they not be able to express a view on their own quality of life and expect to have it taken seriously? Indeed, the historical record (Aries, 1962) shows just how variable has been the age at which children have been treated as independent, and there is very considerable cross-cultural variation across the world (Whiting and Edwards, 1988). In relation tolearning, acceptance of such rights would offer pupils an element of participation in the construction and enactment of their curriculum experience. Of course, such participation does happen to a degree in some 2

Introduction: new Challenges

schools, either on an ad hoc basis or through such formally recognized programmes as that of the High/Scope compensatory pre-school programme or the use of a ‘school council’. Overall, however, the moral answer is not often articulated, and increasingly it is deemed that ‘the state knows best’ as centralized curricula are introduced. Pragmatic answers to our question may be particularly important in the context of the national priorities of modern nation states. Vinovskis (1996) characterizes systemic reform as ‘an attempt to create a more coherent, curriculumdriven reform effort’. In the case of the United States, the process was given impetus by the 1983 report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk, which followed concern over international comparisons of standards. These concerns are now expressed through eight National Education Goals which are targeted for attainment by the year 2000. In the United Kingdom, media panics about educational standards have also been regularly deployed by the political parties to bolster their claims to provide the most effective educational change. The first English pupils to experience the entire curriculum introduced following the 1988 Education Reform Act completed their primary schooling in 1996. Annual interviews revealed clear signs of children’s increasing levels of disengagement from the curriculum as they grew older (Pollard, 1996) and their teachers were explicit about the continuing ‘overload’ of the prescribed curriculum which prevented them from responding as flexibly to pupil interests as they would have wished. And yet, it is probably true to say that, on the narrow curricular base on which measurement takes place, ‘standards’ may well have risen. However, it is arguable that there may be limits to the progress that is obtainable from systematic curriculum specification, delivery and measurement, but there may be further benefits to be fostered from tapping pupil perspectives and a renewed engagement with pupil motivation. Sadly, however, the pattern of national systemic reforms seems to produce systems that are primarily concerned with curriculum delivery and their responsive capability is generally weak. Ironically also, even when such systems are presented in terms of the creation of an educational ‘market’, with standards being raised through a process of competition between schools, pupils are not treated as even second class ‘consumers’. Our argument, then, is that not only should pupil views on curriculum be taken seriously for moral reasons, but also for the pragmatic reason that educational standards will rise further and faster if teachers are able to work with the grain of pupil motivation. The inclusion of pupil perspectives in the planning and implementation of the curriculum may thus be variously framed and we have highlighted romantic, moral and pragmatic imperatives. In a review of the literature on the subject of students’ curricular experiences by Schubert and Lopez (1994), we can find evidence of all three perspectives. The authors outline a range of historical and biographical, factual and fictional accounts of pupils’ curriculum experience.For instance, some contemporary examples 3

Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

include Holt’s (1982, 1983) autobiographical observations of the damaging effects in the ways we often present school subject knowledge to young children. Less factual representations include that of Granger and Granger (1986), a story-based-on-life rendering of their own child’s encounters with special education, and the anecdote of ‘teacher lore’ (Schubert and Eyres, 1992). Like the biography and autobiography with which it overlaps, the authors suggest that story does not have to be generalizable or verifiable to provide inspiration and offer new perspectives on one’s own situation. Schubert and Lopez (1994) review a wide range of qualitative research on pupils’ curricular experiences and on attempts to portray holistic understandings. Such work starts to suggest a more socially aware and critical answer to our core question, ‘Why do we want to understand pupil perspectives?’ For instance, researchers have studied the non-school curricular learning of family, peers, the media and formal and informal organizations, such as gangs (Schubert, 1986; Peshkin, 1978, 1991; Sedlak, Wheeler, Pullin and Cusick, 1986). Such studies often enhance our understanding of pupils who do not fit the mould of schooling, for instance, the drop-out (Weis, Farrar and Petrie, 1989) and the school failure (Page, 1991) and point to the need to contextualize school problems within the larger fabric of society. Extending their initial typology, the authors point to critical studies which raise questions of, ‘Who’s knowledge?’ and, ‘Who benefits?’, and emphasize the ways in which issues of, for example, race (Fine, 1991; Troyna and Hatcher, 1992), class (Willis, 1977), disability (Roaf and Bines, 1989), gender (Thorne, 1993; Davies, 1993) have a direct bearing on the accessibility of the intended curriculum and on the curriculum-as-experienced. Such studies also reveal the powerful messages of the hidden, or implicit, curriculum which reflects the values and structures of the larger society beyond the school. On the other hand, writers taking a phenomenological approach to the study of learning are primarily concerned that the direct experience, taken at face value, of the student’s own life are brought to their learning processes. A classic example of this perspective can be found in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) in which Friere, through his work with Brazilian peasants, emphasized the potential of people to learn through meanings in their own lives, as an alternative to those of oppressive elites. In the light of such work, we are able to provide a further answer to our initial question. We would suggest that greater understanding of pupil perspectives would provide an important and potentially critical contribution to the ebb and flow of current educational debates. For instance, among the issues about which pupils routinely express opinions are: the relevance of the curriculum to their lives and cultures; social justice and the use of power in schools and elsewhere; and issues associated with educational opportunity. Such pupil perspectives often highlight the differences between the intended curriculum and the experienced curriculum; between what policy-makers and teachers focus on when considering the planning and delivery of curriculum 4

Introduction: new Challenges

tasks, and what pupils experience when engaged in such tasks. It is thus right that pupil views should be heard; it might help in the campaign to raise standards of learning attainment and we might get some critical insights into important issues of current debate. Listening to pupil voices should not be seen as a sentimental or romantic option, but as a serious contribution to educational thinking and development.

What Does Each Chapter Teach Us about Pupil Perspectives? Unfortunately, research studies that are concerned to engage directly with pupils’ learning experiences have been relatively few. Erickson and Shultz (1992) differentiate between those relating to the ‘manifest’, taught curriculum and those relating to the ‘hidden’ curriculum, and they suggest that issues concerned with the hidden curriculum have dominated qualitative research in schools. This reflects the predominant focus within the sociology of education on social processes and issues of social differentiation. Thus, although engagement with curriculum content and learning outcomes have featured in studies of, for instance, teachers’ and pupils’ coping strategies, socialization and peer culture, social resistance and alienation, they have generally been relatively peripheral issues. Further, even when research has been carried out, the experiences of secondary school pupils have tended to predominate. Primary and elementary school pupils experience the manifest, taught curriculum in distinctive ways, for both psychological and sociological reasons. For instance, there is a broad psychological consensus that younger pupils find it easier to engage with the curriculum when it is related to meaningful experiences, rather than being presented in disembedded and abstracted forms. From the sociological point of view, the structural conditions that affect the experiences of primary and elementary school pupils are also very particular. Thus the typical primary school arrangement of having one teacher taking a class for a year creates a particular type of social relationship between pupils and teachers which is different from those that pupils develop with secondary school specialist teachers. This arrangement also means that subject knowledge may also be integrated more easily, for instance, through ‘topics’. Primary schools also usually serve a relatively small community-base and home-school liaison is often close. The overall result is the promotion of school cultures in which teachers are expected to know and be responsible for the development of ‘the whole child’ and in which pupils experience a gradual transition from infancy and towards adolescence which is carefully mediated by parents and teachers. These psychological and sociological factors are reflected in the papers within this book. However, more important than the specific primary focus, is our overarching claim that serious consideration of pupil perspectives will offer new insights into the teaching-learning process. In particular, we believe that the papers highlight the weaknesses of oversimplified conceptions of 5

Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

curriculum ‘delivery’. What is taught is not necessarily what is learned. We begin our collection with ‘The Relevance of Creative Teaching’, which gives us a broad view of some positive pupil experiences of curriculum. Jeffrey and Woods are concerned with pupil views on the ways in which some teachers make the primary curriculum relevant to their pupils. In this chapter, pupils who experienced ‘creative teaching’ talk enthusiastically about their learning across a range of classroom activities. They describe the ways in which their teachers make emotional connections with them, engage their interest, maintain their identity and individuality and encourage their critical faculties. ‘Tale of a Task’ is concerned with a breakdown of communication between teacher and taught in the learning process. The task studied is the making of a model, from a science curriculum requirement, through teacher planning and one pupil’s experience of the task, to the teacher evaluation that followed. Unfortunately, a lack of match between intentions for learning, the task set and pupils’ experience and perception, permeated the task from conception to completion. Parker-Rees shows how meanings became distorted so that neither curriculum nor teacher intentions were realized. In ‘Shared and Negotiated Territories’, Maguire examines the perceptions and experiences of three minority language Muslim girls in a Montreal primary school. Maguire presents these children’s written texts as representations of their lived experiences and cultural stance. Their texts, she concludes, should not be understood as ‘experiential, add-on components’ in a school curriculum, but as purposeful acts of meaning with more than one evaluative context. In ‘At Least They were Laughing’, Filer, like Maguire, shows pupils working within an evaluative context that goes beyond the immediacy of the requirements of a task. The study is of the classroom talk in ‘news’ sessions in an English primary school and Filer argues that assessment procedures for such classroom talk are based on an inappropriate model of language which fails to take into account the wider context of pupil utterances and their purposes vis-à-vis an audience of peers. In ‘The Politics of Primaries’, Spaulding examines aspects of social behaviour in a class of 7-year-old elementary school pupils. She reconceptualizes behaviours frequently experienced as antagonistic by their teacher, in terms of a micropolitical understanding of their actions. Pupil explanations were sought for behaviours such as creating distractions, protesting, interrupting teachers, and showing them affection. Behaviours, which are likely to be labelled immature or egotistical, are recast as expressions of pupils’ power to influence their teacher’s intentions for their curriculum experience. Nicholls and Thorkildsen’s ‘Experience Through the Eyes of Quiet Bird’ is the story of a child with learning difficulties, who was disengaged from school tasks and relationships. At home he displayed artistic and imaginative tendencies and a critical social conscience; dimensions of his identity that he hid from those at school. Led by their tentative understandings, teacher and researcher experimented with the presentation and social organization of tasks for David. The aim was to bring David’s personal identity and academic experience into 6

Introduction: new Challenges

closer relationship to enhance his enthusiasm and motivation for learning. These chapters illustrate some of the insights into teaching, curriculumpresentation and learning that flow from attempts to document the direct experiences of primary school children and to take their perspectives seriously. However, the papers also engage with more methodological and philosophical questions. Thus we move from the question of ‘What can we learn?’ to consider ‘How do we come to know?’.

How Do We Come to Know How Children Interpret Their Curricular Experiences? One of the reasons why young pupils’ voices do not feature in any great quantity in research into their curricular experience is because we question their conceptual and linguistic competence in addressing our research concerns. As James, Jencks and Prout (1997) point out, this questioning of pupils’ competence is embedded, usually unconsciously, in the very methodologies and techniques used to study children and childhood. Particular methodologies and techniques reflect particular assumptions and understandings of ‘the child’. For instance, she suggests that if working from an understanding of ‘the developing child’ we may assume that young children lack competencies needed to engage in the research process. Similarly, there may be problems in recognizing the breadth of relevant contexts that inform pupils’ curricular experiences. It is necessary to move beyond the formality of the classroom to consider the influence of other important social settings: the playground and school, the family and community, the media and the world beyond pupils’ immediate environment. In an attempt to address such issues, James, Jencks and Prout posit a model of ‘the social child’ and suggest that we need to use multiple methods to reflect the diverse aspects of children’s self expression. This is an issue of the form of research enquiry. For instance, the body represents one means of expression, and this has been recognized and explored in social studies of children’s games and use of space. James, Jencks and Prout suggests we might similarly explore children’s perspectives through other areas of communication that have been less well documented, for instance their art and writing, drawing, play and story. Our question, ‘How we come to know how children interpret their curricular experiences?’, thus raises key methodological issues of assumptions, contexts and form. The suggestion is that we may need to question our assumptions and broaden our conceptions of relevant research settings and methods to encompass the multiple dimensions of childhood and ‘being a pupil’ which would make a valid understanding possible. Reflexivity will thus involve asking such questions as: • •

What models of childhood are we using, consciously or unconsciously? How do our assumptions translate into particular research foci and 7

Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer

•

methodologies? How valid are our research designs and methodologies in understanding pupils’ experience of curriculum?

The importance of such methodological reflexivity is reflected in the inclusion in the book of several chapters which can broadly be described as methodological. In ‘Observing Children on a School Playground’, Smith gives an account of his work with student teachers. He is concerned to help his students develop an appreciation of what is important to young children, physically, socially and emotionally, in their learning. As an early induction into their school experience, Smith’s students observed children at play in the playground. The point being, to learn to hold back superficial judgments, but also to avoid the assumption that they could themselves adopt children’s perspectives. The attempt was to develop ‘a watchful way of being with children’ that encourages an appreciation of ‘the uniqueness of each child at the heart of personal engagement’. Connolly in the second of our methodological chapters, ‘In Search of Authenticity’ argues that there is no one ‘true’ and definitive voice of a child. He suggests that, if we assume that young children have certain social competencies, then we must recognize that they will adapt and alter their behaviour from one social context to the next, including that of the research process. Further, in the ways we have already discussed, the voices offered through research will reflect the researchers’ own concerns and assumptions about childhood. However, Connolly is not arguing for a relativistic approach to understanding young children. Rather he is calling for a critical reflexivity in our attempts to understand their perspectives. In relation to some of his own work on racism and young children, he shows what such a reflexivity can additionally tell us about the social competencies of young pupils. Of course, all of the authors have faced these key methodological issues of assumption, context and form and their chapters illustrate attempts to access and interpret the Voices’ of pupils in a variety of ways. Jeffrey and Woods, in investigating pupils’ views of their teachers for ‘The Relevance of Creative Teaching’, found that critical evaluation of curriculum and pedagogy were an accepted part of classroom life for the pupils they studied. It came, they concluded from their teachers’ concerns to develop such faculties, to create authentic activities and to put children in ‘the engine room of knowledge creation’. Spaulding, in her study of The Politics of Primaries’, was able to draw on the experience of a group of pupils who, like those in Jeffrey and Woods’ account, were generally experienced in articulating a critique of their school experience. In Spaulding’s study, however, such experience had its origins in the socio-economic context of the pupils’ families whereby professional parents, who ‘pay for excellence and expect nothing less’, maintained a keen awareness of the school’s classroom activities. ParkerRees’s attempts to access understandings of 6-year-olds through verbal means presented him with greater difficulties. His young interviewees lacked experience of reflecting on the learning purposes behind school tasks. ‘The 8

Introduction: new Challenges

Tale of a Task’ offers instead a closely observed account of a task’s progress, allowing an intriguing insight into the process of one child’s attempts to complete a task to his teacher satisfaction. Both Filer and Maguire were able to draw upon an extended personal relationship between the researcher and the researched. At the point of Filer’s interviews for ‘At Least They were Laughing’, she had known the children on a weekly basis for three years. They knew, as one child put it, that ‘she won’t tell’ and discussions about the research process were a familiar backdrop to interviews and observations. Similarly, in Maguire’s three-year study of ‘Shared and Negotiated Territories’, the biliteracy development of minority language children was founded on long-term relationships with a limited number of children. The notion that pupil experience can be understood in ways other than through talk is in evidence in Maguire’s use of children’s letters, stories, and journal entries. Of all the researchers, perhaps Nicholls experienced the greatest difficulty in getting close to understanding the perspectives of a child through verbal communication. Nicholls and Thorkildsen’s account of ‘Experience Through the Eyes of Quiet Bird’ is an exploration of a child’s perspective through his responses in, among other things, artwork, writing, play, and through his acts of resistance in classroom tasks and relationships. The commitment of each author to understanding the perspectives of the young pupils they were studying permitted an openness to tapping important meanings, however they might have been expressed. Perhaps such commitment is the key factor in challenging assumptions about the nature of children and in facing the demands of research involving multiple contexts and forms of enquiry. We now have reached a point where we are ready to address some of the implications arising from the issues that we have problematized.

What Challenges Do We Face in Making Sense and Making Use of Pupil Perspectives? In the final chapter, Thiessen addresses the problem of how we can make sense of, and make use of, the voices in this book and elsewhere. He urges a ‘creative application’ of research and challenges those involved in curriculum policy, design and implementation to make sense and make use of research. Thiessen suggests three levels of engagement with pupil perspectives. The process might begin with policy-makers and teachers learning about pupil perspectives from research. The idea is not that the conclusions of researchers should simply be adopted, rather that such reading may produce a reorientation of perspective on ‘what matters’ in relation to pupils’ curriculum experience. The next level of engagement would involve acting on behalf of primary pupils, taking their perspectives into full account. The real challenge here though is the problem of interpreting what is in their best interests. Engagement at the third level would involve working with primary pupils’ perspectives. An individual 9

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teacher may begin in a small way, for example in adapting the approach of Quiet Bird’s teacher towards resolving some of his difficulties. Thiessen suggests that, if present disparities between curriculum intentions and experience are to be effectively addressed, the need is for policy-makers at all levels to begin to engage with the perspectives of pupils.

Conclusion The collection illustrates how, when a curriculum task is presented to a class of pupils, multiplicities of experiences, intentions and contradictions will be created. The chapters address this complexity of experience and raise awareness of it for consideration in planning and implementing the curriculum. When listening to pupils, when asking them to write, when confronted by their learning difficulties, or by their seemingly immature and antagonistic responses, we need to hold that awareness and consider the underlying issues. Ultimately of course, the decision whether to listen to, reflect and act upon the perspectives of pupils lies in the hands of their teachers. In the paper ‘In search of student voices’, Lincoln (1995) suggests some solutions to teachers’ frequently asked question of what skills they need to become researchers of classroom life. She suggests: The answer, from a qualitative point of view, is the skills that have always made strong teachers: observation, the ability to ‘hear’ well and deeply, or simply to listen, the ability to ask good questions and the ability to ‘deconstruct’ the texts of students’ lives. At the risk of oversimplifying, it is probably the case that truly good teachers have always concerned themselves with student meaning…(Lincoln, 1995, p. 95) For ourselves, we offer our own distillation of the core issues contained within these papers. The things that really matter to young pupils seem to be: • •

• •

affirmation of personal identities during teaching-learning processes and through classroom relationships; recognition that home, communities and friends are ever-present contexts within which primary pupils’ classroom meanings and responses are located; awareness that engagement with classroom tasks and learning processes are emotional and social acts, as well as cognitive challenges; acceptance that curriculum ownership, relevance, power and personal identification are legitimate topics for questioning and concern.

These, then, are some of the themes that can be distilled from the papers. They represent signposts, pointing to key issues in understanding the subjective learning experiences of young children in school and generating questions that innovative 10

Introduction: new Challenges

forms of curriculum might attempt to answer. We acknowledge that there are difficulties in accessing pupils’ voices—their subjectivities are complex and diverse; their conceptual and linguistic skills may be limited; and, when pupil perspectives are researched using qualitative methods, there may be problems of representation. Could it be the case, though, that these are not the biggest hurdles to listening to primary school pupils? As the papers in this volume record, children’s voices do not necessarily reflect the view of the adults who have power over them. Given a voice, they may well criticize the dominant power structures. They may question ‘how things are’ in their worlds and provide alternative interpretations and prescriptions. Are we prepared to listen, and take these thoughts seriously? Perhaps the biggest challenge of all, then, is to question our readiness to hear pupil perspectives and to allow children a share of the sort of power we, as adults, have in their classrooms and lives. Once again though, we assert that ours is not a romantic argument, and nor do we choose to press the moral case which could be put. The grounded, pragmatic reality is that pupils’ educational attainments are likely to rise most effectively if teachers are able to leaven any necessary, systemic curricular requirements with adequate recognition of pupil experience. Effective teaching must recognize the concerns, interests and motivations of learners. It is not a delivery system.

References ARIES, P. (1962) Centuries of Childhood, New York, Random House, Vintage Books. CROLL, P. (ed.) (1996) Teachers, Pupils and Primary Schooling: Continuity and Change, London, Cassell. DAVIES, B. (1993) Shards of Glass: Children Reading and Writing Beyond Gendered Identities, Sydney , Allen and Unwin. ENTWISTLE, H. (1970) Child Centred Education, London, Methuen & Co. ERICKSON, F. and SHULTZ, J. (1992) ‘Students’ experience of the curriculum’, Handbook of Research on Curriculum, New York, Macmillan. FINE, G. and SANDSTROM, K. (1988) Knowing Children: Participant Observation with Minors, Quality Research Methods, Volume 15, Newbury Park, Sage. FINE, M. (1991) Framing Dropouts, New York, State University of New York Press. FRANKLIN, B. (ed.) (1986) The Rights of Children, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. FRIERE, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York, Continuum. GRANGER, L. and GRANGER, B. (1986) The Magic Feather, New York, Dutton. HOLT, J. (1982) How Children Fail, USA, Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, and in 1984, New York, Pelican Books. HOLT, J. (1983) How Children Learn, USA, Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, and in 1984, New York, Pelican Books. JAMES, A., JENCKS, C. and PROUT, A. (1997) Theorising Childhood, Cambridge Polity Press. LINCOLN, Y. (1995) ‘In search of student voices’, Theory into Practice, 34, 2, Spring, pp. 88–93. PAGE, R. (1991) Lower Track Classrooms, New York, Teachers’ College Press. PESHKIN, A. (1978) Growing Up American, Illinois, University of Chicago Press. PESHKIN, A. (1991) The Color of Strangers, The Color of Friends, Illinois, University

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Andrew Pollard, Dennis Thiessen and Ann Filer of Chicago Press. POLLARD, A., BROADFOOT, P., CROLL, P., OSBORN, M. and ABBOTT, D. (1994) Changing English Primary Schools? London, Cassell. POLLARD, A. (1996) ‘Playing the system: Pupil perspectives of curriculum, assessment and pedagogy’, in CROLL, P. (ed.) Teachers, Pupils and Primary Schooling: Continuity and Change, London, Cassell. ROAF, C. and BINES, H. (eds) (1989) Needs, Rights and Opportunities, London, Falmer Press. SCHUBERT, W. (1986) Curriculum: Perspective, Paradigm and Possibility, New York, Macmillan. SCHUBERT, W. and EYRES, W. (eds) (1992) Teacher Lore: Learning from Our Own Experience, New York, Longman. SCHUBERT, W. and LOPEZ, A. (1994) ‘Students’ curriculum experiences’, in HUSEN, T. and POSTLEWAITE, T. (eds) The International Encyclopaedia of Education, New York, Pergamon. SEDLAK, M., WHEELER, C., PULLIN, D. and CUSICK, C. (1986) Selling Students Short, New York, Teachers’ College Press. THORNE, B. (1993) Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School, Buckingham, Open University Press. TROYNA, B. and HATCHER, R. (1992) Racism in Children’s Lives: A Study of Mainlywhite Primary Schools, London, Routledge. VINOVSKIS, M.A. (1996) ‘An analysis of the concept and uses of systemic educational reform’, American Educational Research Journal, 33, 1, Spring, pp. 53–85. WEIS, L., FARRAR, E. and PETRIE, H. (1989) Dropoutsfrom Schools: Issues, Dilemmas and Solutions, New York, State University of New York Press. WHITING, B. and EDWARDS, C. (1988) Children of Different Worlds: The Formation of Social Behavior, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. WILLIS, P. (1977) Learning to Labour, London, Saxon House. WRINGE, C.A. (1981) Children’s Rights, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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Pupils, Teachers and the Ownership of Curriculum Knowledge: Editors’ Introduction

The principle theme that links the first pair of chapters in the collection relates to issues of personal ownership of curriculum knowledge. In ‘The Relevance of Creative Teaching’, the teachers studied by Jeffrey and Woods worked to interpret and present the curriculum in ways that were meaningful within their pupils’ frames of reference. They were in control of the pedagogic process and the adaptations they perceived necessary. From the point of view of their pupils, classroom tasks, thus mediated, became activities that engaged their emotions, interests and critical faculties. However, as Parker-Rees explains, the demands of a busy classroom life may sometimes trap teachers in a ‘curriculum delivery’ style of teaching. In ‘The Tale of a Task’, a teacher’s attempts to maintain the purity of curricular intentions conflicted with the intricacies of a real situation and a child’s understanding of the task. Loss of control of the pedagogic process and pupil evasion of the task followed. Subsequent pupil engagement and learning was inspired by the pupil’s play, rather than by the teacher’s conception of the task. Comparisons of pupils’ curriculum experience in these two chapters throw further light on an observation made by Jeffrey and Woods about the successful teachers they studied. Those teachers first made curriculum knowledge their own, so that pupils, in their turn, could make it their own.

1

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods

We have for some years been researching into what we describe as ‘creative teaching’. Woods (1990a) was impressed by his observations in a number of English primary schools in the 1980s by teachers’ powers of invention, which seemed applied to every aspect of their interaction with their pupils; by the way in which they ‘owned’ the knowledge they were conveying, in the sense that they were not simply fulfilling the requirements of others who had specified what should be taught; by the way in which they controlled their own pedagogical processes, varying them according to their own perception of need; and by being highly relevant, that is, operating within a broad range of accepted social values while being attuned to pupil identities and cultures. We have elaborated upon and illustrated the first three of these criteria in Woods (1993, 1995a) and Woods and Jeffrey (1996). In the latter, we discussed the fourth, relevance, from the point of view of the teachers, showing how they worked to construct ‘relevant knowledge’, defined as knowledge that is meaningful within the child’s frame of reference. We described teachers’ strategies in sharing and creating knowledge, stimulating ‘possibility knowledge’ through imagination, utilizing children’s ‘prior knowledge’, and developing ‘common knowledge’ (Edwards and Mercer, 1987). In this article, we consider the pupils’ views on ‘relevance’. The questions we are concerned with are: What effect does creative teaching have on pupils? How does it affect their feelings, motivation to learn, behaviour, learning, relationships? How do pupils perceive such teachers, or such teaching? This, therefore, is a test of the efficacy of such teaching, besides offering to tell us something of general importance about pupils. Relevance is also an issue of some political concern. Who decides what is, and what should be relevant, and to what? Chris Woodhead (1995), HM Chief Inspector of Schools in England, has criticized the belief that ‘education must be relevant to the immediate needs and interests of pupils’, and argues that ‘Our school curriculum must provide young people with the knowledge and skills they need to function effectively in adult working life’—a kind of relevance to society and to their own later life-chances. Some, however, see the first as a means to the second. Without it, Morrison (1989, p. 6), for example, feels that the ‘art of teaching is lost to a series of narrow skills’, becoming ‘the casualty in a bureaucratized view of education in which education is called into the service 15

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods of wider political ends and ideologies’. Wragg (1995), for another, has urged the continuation of topic work and local projects, and space and time for teacher and pupil choice (see also Armstrong, 1992; Webb, 1993; Dadds, 1994). Pupils themselves have a great deal to contribute to this debate. Pupil perspectives are important because pupils are not just receivers or consumers of knowledge, but constructors of shared meanings in a combined exercise with teachers. Quicke (1992) has pointed out that these meanings are an aspect of ‘metacognition’—knowledge about learning processes, about strategies of learning, and about people who are involved with them, like teachers. We might include in this a host of factors, notably the emotional, which affect the whole character of the learning enterprise and pupils’ disposition towards it (Elbaz, 1992). If we are concerned to produce autonomous, critical and reflective learners, and to improve learning, we need to know what sense pupils are making of what is offered to them, and how they view and feel about the circumstances in which it is being offered. It might then be possible to improve the pupil’s metacognitive knowledge, and the context in which it is constructed. Without doubt, the teacher is one of the key, if not the key, elements in the development of metacognition. Consequently, there has been a certain amount of research on pupils’ perceptions of teachers and teaching. For pupils in general, in other countries as well as the UK, the most important attributes of ‘good’ teachers appear to be that they should be ‘human’, should be able to ‘teach’ and make you ‘work’, keep control and be ‘fair’ (see Woods, 1990b, for a summary of this work). However, even if a teacher successfully establishes all these conditions to the approval of pupils, it cannot be assumed that they make the same sort of sense of lessons as the teachers. It is not always realized how recondite the teacher’s lessons sometimes are, or what pupils understand by ‘work’ and learning’. Also, while pupil responses have been organized into categories, as above, there are issues to do with all of the categories, such as sensitivity, feelings and trust, which may be more important since they are generic. These issues may be related to creative teaching. Our central concern, therefore, is to expand on the notion of ‘relevance’ as it applies to creative teaching. But the analysis also bears on two related issues: (1) the nature of pupils’ metacognitive knowledge; and (2) pupil perspectives on ‘good’ teachers as they see them. Our sample is drawn from the five main schools of the creative teaching research. All five schools were state-maintained non-denominational schools, in mainly working-class areas of a large inner-city in the south of England. One of the schools has about 20–30 per cent of its intake from more professional white collar backgrounds. Most of our enquiry came to focus on seven main ‘key informant’ teachers (Woods and Jeffrey, 1996). The excerpts in this chapter come from five classes covering Years 2, 3, 5 and 6 (containing pupils aged seven, eight, ten and eleven respectively), representing 140 children and five teachers, and is selected from material collected over a period of two years. The method for this part of the research involved observation of teacher-pupil 16

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

interaction, followed by discussion with pupils about the interaction observed. The pupils were from across the ability range. A number of ethnic groups were represented among them, the main ones being white English, Afro-Caribbean, Nigerian and Turkish. We considered the teachers a key group—in mid-career, experienced, well respected, generally regarded by their peers, pupils, parents and inspectors as successful, with management as well as teaching responsibilities, meeting our criteria of creative teachers as defined above, and very willing to collaborate in the research. All teachers are creative to some degree or other, certainly, but we would claim that these teachers have that quality in abundance.

Pupil Perspectives on Creative Teaching We have identified four areas of classroom life that seemed relevant to pupils, namely, responding to pupils’ emotions, engaging interest, maintaining individuality and developing educational evaluations. We shall consider each of the four areas in turn.

Responding to Pupils’ Emotions In responding to, and handling, pupils’ emotions, these teachers covered a wide range of emotional situations.

Range of emotions Many of these teachers are excellent performers and they create a variety of atmospheres that are related to the emotions (Woods and Jeffrey, 1996). Humorous personal stories are much appreciated, as Hannah (Year 2) notes, I liked it when she told us stories about when she was young. Like once, when she went into her sister’s bedroom and put her sister’s make-up on. She blamed it on her baby brother, pretending it was him. It wasn’t until her brother was 10 or 11 that she owned up and told her sister it was her. and as Carla (Year 6) observes, Humour brings more atmosphere to the class because if it was really strict it’d be a totally different atmosphere. Carla also observed and appreciated her teacher’s interest in pupils who act very emotionally, 17

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods She gets excited when someone with a bad attitude problem comes on very well. When he’s on report or something she comes along and supports him. She listens to people and their problems…She’s good at dealing with depressed people. She’ll say, ‘Excuse me, are you depressed about something?’, then she’d relax you and talk to you personally. She’d just comfort you really…She enjoys people sitting down in circles and people talking about this and that and the other, about different feelings they have. Ishea (Year 3) is aware of how her teacher empathizes with children, When we’re angry, she knows how it feels and she makes us feel better and solves the problem, helps us. She takes it easy on us. She has told us stories of her being angry when she was young. Nicola (Year 6) has noted how singing was strongly connected to her emotions whilst doing a musical about Henry VIII, Yes, it’s good, you can let everything out, ‘cos say you was angry, you just let out. Pupils are conscious that they have emotional connections to their teachers: ‘We want to make Grace [their teacher] happy’, and they appreciate the physical warmth, as Toxs (Year 3) notes, ‘She hugs us and she’s happy when we do good things’.

Maintaining feelings of confidence Primary pupils are concerned about how to create and maintain feelings of confidence and they recognize many ways in which these teachers managed to do this. Tosin (Year 3) was asked, if she were a teacher, how she would help a new child to settle into the class: I would not shout at them for that would make them angry and would make it worse. I would help them with spellings for when I have to correct my work I feel scared that I’ll get it wrong. I would whisper answers like Grace does…She compliments us. Getting things wrong is a worry for pupils, but Tom (Year 5) is grateful when his teacher uses some humour to dispel the anxiety: When you get a piece of work wrong she doesn’t say, ‘No, that’s horrible, go and do it again’. She kind of explains it in a silly way that will make you go and do it again. She’s quite funny when she speaks in a silly way. 18

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

She puts her hands on her hips and kind of pretends to be angry but she really is joking. She does make us do it again, but she is not furious. Madeline (Year 5) is also aware of how her teacher is concerned to ensure a feeling of confidence: I think she’s good at maths because when most teachers tell us to do maths they don’t really explain it very well, but when Theresa [their teacher] asks us to do maths she really explains it well. She makes sure that we know what we’re doing before we do it. After exploring how to make a new child happy, Toxs (Year 3) was asked what connections there were between happiness and work: Happiness comes from your work. You see all your writing neatly set out, and when you show it to Grace she says ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’ An atmosphere of confidence generated by teachers is self-perpetuating, as Louise (Year 3) observes, I like to write because at the end I know I have done something good. We race and wait for our friends [in the writing lessons]. The end products are their own reward, as Madeline (Year 5) notes, When I finish a piece of work, I feel I’ve achieved something. Like, when I’d finished my map, I felt, like, it’s a whole block of work. I just thought, ‘Wow! That’s really good!’ If you look at it up on the wall you sort of say ‘That’s mine’. If you did it quite a long time ago, you can, if there’s something on your table that you’re just finishing and it’s something slightly like that on the wall, you can look at it and you can compare them to see if you’ve progressed.

Engaging Interest Just as pupils are aware of the emotional content of a classroom and its relation to their progress and achievement, so they are also aware of what engages their interest, and, more so, how their teachers work to engage that interest. Three methods of engaging interest are identified here by pupils: making things fun, providing curriculum support and being resourceful.

Fun Fun is a ‘catch-all’ phrase used by pupils and teachers alike (Jeffrey and Woods, 1995) to 19

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods indicate depth of involvement, as, for example, does Hera (Year 5): We made these treasure maps. Theresa [their teacher] didn’t really tell us what to do. She just told us to make a grid and then make a treasure map, and we had to have instructions to find the treasure. They had to be really hard. We had to do the instructions on our own but we told each other things like, ‘Hey! look at that! That’s great!’. And sometimes we took ideas from other people if we couldn’t decide what to do. I thought it was fun. We did homework on it as well, so we worked on it quite a lot. It wasn’t like something which I’d look at and think, ‘Oh no! We’ve gotta do the treasure map! I wish I wasn’t in school today’. It was really exciting. Active involvement was recognized as important by the Year 3 pupil who said that if she were a teacher she would give the new child ‘models to make’. The use of role playing for pupils is also recognized as important and valuable by pupils, supporting Paley’s (1986, p. 128) observation that ‘School begins to make sense to the children when they pretend it is something else’. Nicola (Year 6) reveals one aspect of this when she evaluates her part in a musical: You get to be different people and you can act out the events. It’s enjoyable because you can just go along with it, and it’s the way you do it that makes you enjoy it…I like being other people. There’s all the parents and everybody else and me being all these characters. I like having loads of parts. Nicola went on later to expand on the relationship between herself and the role she played: As we were coming down to the hall, all dressed up, I felt like I was a Tudor person. The way we had to walk made me feel like I was a Tudor person. When we were coming out of the hall, having done it, I still felt like a Tudor person. Everyone was looking at me as a Tudor person. When we got back into the classroom, I took all my clothes off and left on the ones I had underneath, and it felt like I wasn’t a Tudor no more. It just felt like I was me. I liked playing both parts, but when I was a Tudor person I missed being me, and when I’m me, I miss being a Tudor person. These reflective and seemingly existential observations are only a small part of the depths of understanding that pupils do achieve but often have little opportunity to explore in classrooms where these dialogues are not valued. Andrew (Year 6) loved his role playing, but he expressed it in a more detached way. What was I enjoying about being there? Oh, that’s a tricky one. Well I think it was making the audience laugh. I was being tortured, but when I 20

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

stretched my legs out and everyone started laughing I thought, ‘Please don’t make myself laugh, please, please!’ I made it even funnier, but I was saying to myself, ‘I mustn’t laugh’, and I just kept my laugh in. This was an emotionally charged production. One confident singer was ‘overcome by the sadness of his song’ and during his solo, tears began to roll down his face. His role partner, Nicola, described her feelings as he kept the song going, willed on by a mesmerized audience: I was tense. I was watching him and thinking, ‘Come on Wayne, come on Wayne!’ I thought he was going to run out of the hall. I felt really sorry for him. I felt like I was going to cry, too, for him. I was just saying, ‘Come on Wayne, you can do it!’ I felt like saying that, but I kept quiet and just kept thinking, ‘Come on Wayne!’ As I walked him back [after his song], I said, ‘Are you all right?’ and he said ‘Yes’. I said, ‘You was really good’, and he went, ‘Thanks’. The involvement of these particular pupils in this drama is probably a recognizable feature of many school drama productions resulting in the mutual support and togetherness feeling of ‘communitas’ (Woods, 1993). The opportunity to discuss the events with pupils later showed just how involved some of them had become and what it meant to them. This involvement is not only connected to physical activities and dramatic performances, however. One of the surprising findings in this research was that reading, writing and maths were also popular subjects with many of the pupils. The reasons have much to do with the emotional connections the pupils have made with the teacher, but there are also some connected with the subjects themselves, as Michael (Year 6) says about maths: You just get into it. I like finishing it. I like getting more done. I’m relieved to get it done and upset that I can’t do anymore. When asked how they would help other pupils with maths, Andrew (Year 6) reflected his teacher’s methods in terms of supportive assistance: I’d get a scrap of paper and write it down and point out the child’s mistakes and show them the way. And make them change it…I wouldn’t give them the answer [laughingly]. I wouldn’t have a go at them if they got it wrong. Because they’re trying to learn. It’s not their fault if they try, and they put their mind to it and they couldn’t get the answer. He goes on to show how, through collaborative methods advocated by his teacher, he and a friend work together and get satisfaction from the experience: 21

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods I was with Simon. We were like a team, weren’t we Simon? We were writing and helping each other out by giving each other the answer, by saying, ‘No, that one is two twos equals four, add on one is five’. Like that, like a team.

Curriculum support Maths is the one specific subject where some pupils feel they need teachers to be supportive, as Angela (Year 5) explains, She’s [the teacher] good at maths because she doesn’t make it too hard for us. She does it the long way, and if you’re not sure, if you don’t know, then she gets you to sit on the mat and she’ll help you. It keeps on going like that and we get the answers right. It is significant that a number of children describe teachers as good at particular subjects when the teachers actively help them succeed at a task, rather than assessing teachers in terms of their depth of knowledge of the particular subject. They clearly value teachers’ pedagogic skills over subject knowledge. Debbie (Year 6) explains how her teacher gives her ideas as well as technical assistance: Instead of just saying ‘you work it out’, she gives me ideas. Like I can’t really end my stories. Most of them just go on and on, and I can’t normally find an ending and she helps me with that. For example, she suggested I write, ‘I had that spinning feeling again and I came out of my dream’. So that was one way to end my story. Some pupils also value the time they have to engage with their activities in depth. Lee (Year 6) had been working on one drawing on and off for a couple of weeks: We need the time to do it in greater detail instead of in a rush. You can tell if something’s been rushed or done slowly. Lee also observes and appreciates that everything is not done for him: If we don’t know something, she explains it, and if we still don’t get it properly she tells us to go away and think about it. Tom (Year 5) is typical of other children’s comments from his class when he asserts that his teacher is no easy touch: 22

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

She doesn’t let you off doing it, because Richard had to write the invitation to the governors out eleven times until he got it right. Nevertheless, Madeline (Year 5) observes that this same teacher has a great deal of time for them, When she’s talking to you she sort of understands you, and if you don’t understand it, she doesn’t give up like sometimes your mum and dad do. If you do work for them, they go, ‘Oh! I give up!’ But with Theresa, she carries on listening to you and carries on, even if it takes all day. Hera (Year 5), in analysing the same teacher’s role on the treasure island task, explains that ‘she expects us to use our brains’.

Resourceful and imaginative qualities Some pupils are particularly perceptive about the work of their teachers and admire their resourcefulness and imagination. Edda (Year 5) enjoys her maths Matrix provided by her teacher, Wendy. This is a collection of different maths activities that the children work through in turn. Wendy organizes it herself. Sometimes she puts computer games in it as well as maths games. It’s fun. I like to choose the easier ones first and leave the hard ones to the end. Hera (Year 5) notes that Theresa, …likes doing time machines, maps and Tudor gardens. She does a lot of imaginative work like the Tudor gardens, a lot of finding out about different times, science and experimenting. She also tries out new things from books. Sam also observes that Wendy is ‘good at organizing school trips and involving people from outside the school, like puppeteers and sculptors’, and Carla in the same class astutely observes that Wendy is not a slave to the National Curriculum: She can do serious projects which are part of the National Curriculum, but she also likes to set up her things which she’d do at the weekend which we were grateful for and you have a laugh with—like doing little paintings or little origami lessons or something like that which is really good, which she’s not really supposed to do…But she’s got her own side. She doesn’t follow like a dog on a lead. She’s not forced to do anything. She’s not forced to get special lessons from outside the school. She puts herself out for us. 23

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods Maintaining Pupil Identity Pupils seem to value some experiences of autonomy to maintain identity. Thus, Tom (Year 2) describes the space machine he had to design and the process of making it, and indicates his perception of his teacher’s role: I had mini ships, rocket boosters, beds in it and capsules with engines. We just came back to it each day, in all it took about seven days. All Theresa [their teacher] did was tell us what to do and just to go out there and do it. Sean’s (Year 5) description of some sculptures his class were asked to construct for their playground is typical of the individual reasons that led each child to the gestation of their own design: In the playground I was looking for sculptures and I found a bow that someone had made, so I decided to make a Red Indian. I used to go to a centre where they made puppets and I get a lot of ideas from them. I’ve made a lot of puppets. It’s going to have a band and feathers on it. I make a lot of toys at home. Any toys that are broken I take apart and build different parts together. The source of the other children’s ideas for the playground sculptures ranged from being stimulated by the materials to holiday experiences: I’m making a magic wand so I can produce lots of rabbits. The idea came from putting the sellotape on the Plasticine. It’s a theme on Australia: ‘A World, a boomerang and some corks on a hat’. Pupils also have perspectives on their preferred ways of working. When eight Year 5 pupils were asked about this, three categories were suggested: (1) independently ‘so no-one can disturb me’; (2) dependently, ‘chance to talk and share ideas’, and (3) interdependently, ‘working as a group I can talk to others and get ideas but nobody else can spoil my work’. This sophisticated analysis is based on their own experiences, and at the same time indicates the place of individuality in their classroom work. Carla (Year 5) attests to there being ‘a lot of freedom around’ in the classroom, providing room for individuality. Georgina (Year 6) explains the atmosphere in her classroom in terms of space: She [the teacher] talks to the whole group together and then we just tell her our ideas, and other people comment on them and suggest this and that and then we put it all together. She lets us talk about it more than 24

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

other teachers. She lets us have our own conversations and arguments and then gets us back to the point. She lets us speak, she lets us vote although we’re not eighteen…She lets us breathe more. Most of all she listens, unlike other teachers who jump to conclusions. There is also the possibility of acceptable disagreements between teacher and children over direction and presentation of work, as Lee (Year 6) shows in a dispute over his graph: She [the teacher] goes, ‘It doesn’t matter about putting the lines in’ and I said, ‘It has to be perfect’. There are also some disputes within a group of Year 6 girls who are choreographing some dances and music for their Henry VIII musical. However, when asked how they resolve these difficulties, they describe how they have observed their teacher’s treatment of them, and they use the same methods as Katy and Kim observe together: When we argue, people join in and everyone puts in an idea. Other people have ideas and different cultures. We learnt this from Marilyn [their teacher] because she made us sit with different people and we had to get on with them. It wasn’t that we didn’t like them it was because we didn’t know them. When we had arguments she talked to us and showed us we aren’t the only ones in the class. She taught us how to do what she was doing, like talk to us and sort out our problems. Now when we break up, we sit down and talk to each other. She also talks to the whole group together. We tell her our ideas and other people comment upon them. We discuss things. She gets her board out and says, ‘Let’s sort this out’. This response shows how conscious they are of their teachers’ methods and approaches and that they learn and evaluate these experiences. This particular group were also pleased to be in a situation where they could feel free to make critical observations. A long and deep discussion about racism lasting nearly an hour was introduced by looking at some poems written by a wellknown Jamaican writer. One of the white boys, attempting to be helpful, caused an immediate reaction from Georgina (Year 6), who goes on to describe how Marilyn (their teacher) handled it: Lee said, ‘Why don’t we let Georgina or Milton read the poem because they know Jamaica and they’re Black’. I said, ‘Why? Because white people can read black poems too, just as I can read white poems.’ Marilyn said, ‘All right let’s discuss it,’ and I read it and Lee read it. We all had a go. Some teachers might have said to me, ‘Don’t be rude’. She tells us calmly, she’s always calm in our discussions. 25

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods The interest pupils have in not being typecast or stereotyped is exemplified by this example.

Developing Critical Evaluations Pupil’s critical evaluations of curriculum and pedagogy were part of the life of many of these classrooms as these Year 6 pupils indicate in their reactions to an OFSTED inspection: I was worried that they might watch us undress because I would shrivel up with embarrassment. It was like people spying on you. I wouldn’t like an inspection every week because we could hardly breathe. I was nervous that they would look at my work and worried that they would think it was rubbish. We worked hard because we didn’t want to let the school down. These pupil perspectives give an indication of their use of rationality and show their ability to detach themselves from their involvement in order to appraise.

Rational analysis Rational analysis often comes out through argument and discussion. Kayleigh and Rosa (Year 2) were talking about what helps them think when the former suggested that her teacher, Laura, prevented her from thinking. Rosa disagreed. Kayleigh:

Rosa: Kayleigh:

26

You don’t have a chance to think when Laura’s talking and that’s the time when you can’t talk, and it’s not fair. ’Cos you want to think about something, but Laura says ‘Stop’. But I think, when Laura’s talking, about what Laura’s saying. Yes, but that’s important when she answers the question, Rosa, but not when she asks the question, that’s what I mean. ’Cos I can’t carry on thinking because it disturbs me when I’m thinking, and when Laura’s talking to the whole class and you try to speak to her she says, ‘No, no, no’.

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

Children from the same class also discussed a problem-solving lesson about graphs that had gone badly in that they could not understand the teacher’s instructions. Laura, the teacher, also thought she had not been very clear and eventually she told them how to do it. The debate that goes on between Leila and Rosa (Year 2) indicates that not only are opinions present, but are also evidence of an interest in pedagogic approaches. Leila: Rosa:

Child:

She should have told us what to do in the first place. I think she should have just sat and watched to see if we could do it properly, because some people might have known how to do it, they might have done it. You have to try, because you try first and see if you get it right. I still think that she should have told us how to do it correctly so that we wouldn’t have used so much paper.

Older pupils involved in the Tudor musical made a number of curriculum and pedagogic evaluations in their postmortem on the whole topic which their teacher had said she would consider in any future planning. First, Michael (Year 6) noticed the difference between the film stereotypes they were given and the more realistic picture provided by Hampton Court: When we went to Hampton Court we found the other side of the story really. We believed in one thing and it was not totally true. We thought that he [Henry VIII] just picked up his food, but he has to use these two fingers, and we thought that he picked up chicken legs and chucked it behind him. All the things that you’ve been told or you believe is rubbish. You have to wipe that out and listen to what they’ve got to say. Secondly, Jamie (Year 6) confirmed these stereotypes with details of his visit to the London Dungeon and then they entered into a discussion about what was known and the use of evidence: At the London Dungeons there’s this bit of Henry VIII as a ghost. He’s eating the chicken and going ‘Burp!’, and just throwing the chicken, but nobody does know the real story of it. They could find out by looking at the human bones, but they don’t know actually what they did. It ain’t real proof though is it? I’d prefer not to know a load of lies like different stories. I’d like to know the real thing that happened. These perceptions show that the pupils have understood many of the intentions of their teacher concerning the importance of evidence, but also they show that they have taken up an interest in history. Thirdly, Nicola (Year 6) evaluated the pedagogic approach and thought the drama was, 27

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods …a good way how to learn history. You can’t actually remember all the dates but if they make it like fun, like this, it’s easier. Fourthly, the project and the drama had stimulated John’s interest in history He felt the music strongly’, and began to explore the possibility of focusing on other historical periods using the same approach of questioning stereotypical stories: I would like to learn about the cavemen times. I’d like to learn how they got their food, how they made their weapons, how they got there, how did the world begin and how did people form, ‘cos no-one would really know the truth about how people formed, no-one knows. The thing about Adam and Eve could just be a big fairytale. Critique of both curriculum and pedagogy is not difficult for pupils for they live the experience, as Carla (Year 5) shows when evaluating her Rainforest project: Wendy [the teacher] could have set up more things for us to do, like going out, going to see more people, getting more ideas off people who had actually been there. She is clear that her preferred method of investigation is through talking to people, which could raise the question of valid accounts. Angela, in the same class, is capable of evaluating Wendy’s strong points when it comes to classroom order: Well, when she’s not here, we miss her, because then we have to get all different teachers, we have to go to other classes and things get mucked up in the class and the day seems a bit longer when she’s away. People don’t behave properly when she’s away. We enjoy ourselves when she’s here because she makes things easier for us. Angela enjoys herself when there is order, appreciates that her teacher emphasizes learning—‘what we learn, that is what’s important to her’—and is perceptive enough to make the connection between the two. Madeline (Year 5) has also spotted something educationally significant about her teacher: I think that if you do something wrong she never really lies. Some teachers lie. If they don’t think its very nice they say, ‘Oh! That’s brilliant!’ And they just say that will have to do. But Theresa [their teacher], if you do something wrong, just says, ‘OK, that’s not very good, go and do it again’. She doesn’t say it horribly, ‘Oh, that’s really stupid, go and do it again!’ Madeline has also identified a connection between the desire for quality in Theresa’s class and accuracy: 28

The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views

She says it always should be quality. I think she expects us to be accurate because she says, ‘Now this might be a little bit easy but it has to be accurate, right’. Sophisticated observations permeate much of their life as the Year 6 pupils undergoing an OFSTED inspection show: They were like ice people. Though sometimes they smiled, they didn’t sound humorous, and they slid in and out like ghosts. Our teacher was different. She tried her best. She glared at us a lot rather than tell us off. She came round a lot and gave us clues, patted our heads and marked our work a lot. Annoyance came through her eyes and her smile. Some of the teachers got angry with us because they were tired with too much work to do. I saw her with her head in her hands, and when I asked what the matter was, she said she was so tired. Our headteacher apologized to us later for shouting. He thought we were going to mess up the inspectors’ room. They also were asked about changes in classroom atmosphere, and whilst some teachers denied any changes, the pupils spotted them: There’s normally lots of humour and she got angry about a broken thermometer, when she wouldn’t have done normally. They were asked if they had seen any signs of power in the classroom, and Rachael (Year 5) answered eloquently, She had power, but when the inspector came in they asked her questions, and when they left the power faded, and when they returned so did the power. These rational observations and perceptions are complemented by highlighting one of the sophisticated ways in which pupils are able to carry out these evaluations; by role detachment.

Role detachment Pupils, although emotionally and materially connected to their classroom experiences, are also abe to detach themselves in order to make some of the rational observations exemplified above. They are able to juxtapose themselves as social beings in the world to being recipients of a curriculum and classroom 29

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods pedagogy. Michael (Year 6) was asked whether he would have preferred to live in Tudor times or in his present environment: Here, today, for there was too much politeness in the Tudor court, too many manners you had to obey, and more chance of being beheaded if you did things wrong. There’s more technology today and it’s more realistic. Madeline (Year 5) enjoyed the Tudor dancing, I thought it was fun. It was good because it teaches you how to dance and takes you back to Tudor times and shows you how to dance… and to compare how we dance now and how they danced a long time ago. However, when asked to choose between Tudor dancing and modern disco dancing she hesitated at first and then opted for today’s reality. These juxtapositions enable them to distance themselves from their involvement not only in terms of the social world but in terms of their own work. Debbie (Year 6) described how she knew that she herself and her friends were good at the musical they were about to perform in two hours time: Other people tell us, children have heard about it, we’ve rehearsed it, we know it well and we have seen other plays in the past to compare it with. In spite of some nerves about confronting the audience, they talked very confidently about the quality of their work. Some younger children were asked to describe how they knew they had worked hard, and Emma (Year 2) observed that, You try really hard and sometimes you get out of breath. You’d know that we were concentrating by the way we’ve done the costumes. If we hadn’t worked hard bits would be falling off. She would know if we were rushing it. Laura [their teacher] would know ’cos we usually do it neatly. When we talk too much she thinks that we haven’t worked hard enough. Even at the age of 7, Emma, in discussion with her friends, was able to detach herself from her work and evaluate how it is possible to show how someone has worked hard. They decided that concentration and quality of outcome were particular indicators. Not only is this perceptive about their work and about classroom quality indicators but it might also be an indicator of how quality of outcome needs a considerable allowance of time, as Lee (Year 6) suggested earlier. Detachment was shown by the Year 6 pupils in the school being inspected when they were asked about whether they wanted to be an inspector. I wouldn’t want to be an inspector and shut down schools because the pupils need them. 30

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I wouldn’t want children to think that I was horrible and writing down negative things. Andrew (Year 6), towards the end of a conversation about the value of the Tudor musical, suddenly made this detached observation concerning the researcher: You know you got me talking with that tape. I feel like I want to talk more and more often. I’ve enjoyed talking about all the subjects. It feels like I’m a hero now, ‘cos you talked to me. It feels like I’m a really popular person, it feels like I’m writing them down in a book, a book called ‘Andrew and Mr Jeffrey’, a book of art. The detachment, we suggest, is not necessarily that between the classroom experience and themselves, but between their total involvement and the ability to reflect and comment upon their involvement.

Conclusion Much that is here echoes some of the existing literature on pupil perspectives on ‘good’ teachers. It is perhaps unsurprising that pupils like teachers who are human, understanding, humorous, can explain, and make you work. But these pupils add a further gloss to this. We have summarized this under four main categories: firstly, making emotional connections through constructing a range of emotional situations conducive to learning, creating enthusiasm and excitement, dealing with anger and upsets, cultivating a close relationship and boosting confidence; secondly, through engaging interest by having ‘fun’, encouraging role-play, being resourceful and imaginative, giving pupils ideas, but all the while maintaining standards; thirdly, by maintaining pupils’ individuality through allowing them their preferred ways of working and to stamp their identity on their work, giving them ‘breathing space’, granting them status in discussions, respecting their views; fourthly, by encouraging pupils’ critical faculties through rational analysis and role detachment. By reflecting on their own reactions to these qualities, the pupils tell us something about their own metacognitive knowledge—about their knowledge of how they learn, and of shared understandings with teachers. But they also strongly suggest that creative teachers encourage creative learners. The same indicators of creativity are in evidence here with the pupils as were specified for the ‘creative’ teachers. Pupils are encouraged to be innovative, to have some control over their learning processes, and to make knowledge their own. It is interesting to see this applied to primary teachers and pupils working in the National Curriculum. Primary pedagogy has been a matter of great debate in the United Kingdom, especially since the publication of the Alexander, Rose and Woodhead discussion paper of 1992, and the accompanying media campaign, which seemed to some to presage a return to traditional teaching methods in 31

Bob Jeffrey and Peter Woods primary classrooms (see Woods and Wenham, 1995). It would seem, however, that creative teaching and learning, at least amongst this group of teachers and pupils, is alive and well. Further, the manner of pupils’ reactions to their teachers is testimony to the relevance of their efforts. Looking at the pupils’ comments from this point of view, we can see that these teachers’ pedagogy is seen by pupils as having a direct bearing on their lives. Knowledge is integrated and privatized, as opposed to the public, commodity, alienated knowledge so often associated with institutionalized learning. So much of the National Curriculum, despite some benefits, seems to be of the latter kind, with its problems of overload, restriction of local adaptations, and formal, instrumental assessment (Campbell, 1993a, 1993b, Pollard, Broadfoot, Croll, Osborn and Abbott, 1994). These teachers, at least, are proving adaptable; not ‘becoming slaves to the National Curriculum’, but rather ‘appropriating’ it for the agendas they judge most pertinent for their students’ concerns (Woods, 1995a). It is not enough, however, simply to be relevant. Relevance has to be demonstrated and achieved. Students have to know and feel the relevance themselves. Their comments here tell us how their teachers achieve this through emotional connections, engaging interest, encouraging individuality, and developing critical faculties. In this, we might see some of the properties of what Clayden, Desforges, Mills and Rawson (1994, p. 172) describe as ‘authentic activity’, involving ‘putting the pupil into the engine room, as it were, of knowledge creation’ (see also Bridges, 1991). There are, further, elements of the ‘socially critical primary school’ as argued for by Morrison (1989), sustained by a form of progressivism based on ‘creative thinking, self-awareness, and inner strength’ (Zimiles, 1987, p. 204). This involves a holistic view of pupils, viewing them as rational agents, but taking into account ‘all their capacities—“emotion” and “will” as well as intellect’ (Quicke and Winter, 1993, p. 2). Beyond this, what enables these teachers to continue being creative while so many of their colleagues elsewhere feel under pressure simply to survive (Woods, 1995b)? Personal factors clearly play a large part, such as commitment, values and beliefs, experience, life history, personal qualities (for example, skill, knowledge, degrees of care); but there are strong support factors also, in the form of headteacher, colleagues, school culture and history generally, governors, parents—and also pupils. These are difficult times for teachers but, throughout, the responses and support of their pupils, as illustrated in this article, are their main reward and inspiration.

References ARMSTRONG, M. (1992) ‘Rendering an account’, in BURGESS, T. (ed.) Accountability in Schools, London, Longman. BRIDGES, D. (1991) ‘From teaching to learning’, The Curriculum Journal, 2, 2 , pp. 137–51.

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The Relevance of Creative Teaching: Pupils’ Views CAMPBELL, R.J. (1993a) ‘The National Curriculum in primary schools: A dream at conception, a nightmare at delivery’, in CHITTY, C. and SIMON, B. Education Answers Back: Critical Responses to Government Policy, London, Lawrence and Wishart. CAMPBELL, R.J. (1993b) ‘The broad and balanced curriculum in primary schools: Some limitations on reform’, The Curriculum Journal, 4, 2, pp. 215–29. CLAYDEN, E., DESFORGES, C., MILLS, C. and RAWSON, W. (1994) ‘Authentic activity and learning’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 42, 2, pp. 163–72. DADDS, M. (1994) ‘The changing face of topic work in the primary curriculum’, The Curriculum Journal, 4, 2, pp. 253–66. EDWARDS, D. and MERCER, N. (1987) Common Knowledge: The Development of Understanding in the Classroom, London, Methuen. ELBAZ, F. (1992) ‘Hope, attentiveness, and caring for difference: The moral voice in teaching’, Teaching and Teacher Education, 8, 5/6, pp. 411–32. JEFFREY, R. and WOODS, P. (1995) ‘Where have all the good times gone?’ Times Educational Supplement, 9 June, 1995, p. 6. MORRISON, K. (1989) ‘Bringing progressivism into a critical theory of education’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 10, 1, pp. 3–18. PALEY, V.G. (1986) ‘On listening to what the children say’, Harvard Educational Review, 26, 2, pp. 122–31. POLLARD, A., BROADFOOT, P., CROLL, P., OSBORN, M. and ABBOTT, D. (1994) Changing English Primary Schools? The Impact of the Education Reform Act at Key Stage One, London, Cassell. QUICKE, J. (1992) ‘Pupil culture and the curriculum’, Westminster Studies in Education, 17, pp. 5–18. QUICKE, J. and WINTER, C. (1993) ‘Teaching the language of learning: Towards a metacognitive approach to pupil empowerment’, paper presented at the BERA Annual Conference, Liverpool. WEBB, R. (1993) ‘The National Curriculum and the changing nature of topic work’, The Curriculum Journal, 4, 2, pp. 239–52. WOODHEAD, C. (1995) Annual Lecture of HM Chief Inspector of Schools, London. WOODS, P. (1990a) Teacher Skills and Strategies, London, Falmer Press. WOODS, P. (1990b) The Happiest Days? How Pupils Cope with School, London, Falmer Press. WOODS, P. (1993) Critical Events in Teaching and Learning, London, Falmer Press. WOODS, P. (1995a) Creative Teachers in Primary Schools, Buckingham, Open University Press. WOODS, P. (1995b) ‘Intensification and stress in teaching’, paper presented at Conference on Teacher Burnout, Marbach, Germany, November. WOODS, P. and JEFFREY, R. (1996) Teachable Moments: The Art of Teaching in Primary School, Buckingham, Open University Press. WOODS, P. and WENHAM, P. (1995) ‘Politics and pedagogy: A case study in appropriation’, Journal of Education Policy, 10, 2, pp. 119–43 WRAGG, T. (1995) ‘First fruits of emancipation’, The Times Educational Supplement, February 10, p. 20. ZIMILES, H. (1987) ‘Progressive education: On the limits of evaluation and the development of empowerment’, Teachers College Record, 89, pp. 201–17.

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2

The Tale of a Task: Learning Beyond the Map Rod Parker-Rees

Most of institutionalised learning…is based on the assumption that the learner’s view and the teacher’s view of what has been learned are identical. This is the implicit and therefore hidden teaching/learning contract which predominates in education. (Harri-Augstein and Thomas, 1991, p. 25) After years of debate, argument and revision, England and Wales now have a National Curriculum which establishes ‘what pupils should be taught’ (DFE, 1995) but translating this prescribed curriculum into what certain children will actually learn is still far from straightforward. As ideas are developed from curriculum documents to teachers’ plans to children’s understanding they pass from higher to lower levels of generalization, changing at each stage as they are fleshed out with the increasingly particular details of specific local contexts. This progressive complication of meanings is neither a descent from order into chaos nor a corruption of the ideal form of the prescribed curriculum, it represents, rather, an increasing recognition of the importance of details which, at higher levels of generalization, would have to be dismissed as irrelevant. Just as maps at different scales are useful for different purposes, so different degrees of detail are appropriate for different stages of the mapping of school tasks: it would be unreasonable to look for the route-planner clarity of a national curriculum in the street plan intricacy of each conversation between a teacher and a child. At times, however, the call of the organized may be strong enough to distract teachers from the complexity of their interactions with particular children in a particular classroom because what should be taught is more tidy, more clearly structured and more obviously worthwhile than the comparative jumble of half-formed ideas and remembered experiences from which the children construct their understanding of what they are asked to do. My interest in how teachers talk to children about schoolwork developed while I was on secondment to the National Primary Centre (South-West) studying children’s understanding of school activities and trialling strategies for developing self-assessment skills (Muschamp, 1991). My own research (Parker-Rees, 1993) focused on the means by which children came to make sense of tasks which they were expected to tackle on their own with little support from the teacher beyond an initial introduction. Like teachers in other studies (Galton, 1989, p. 137; 34

The Tale of a Task: Learning Beyond the Map

Edwards, 1990, p. 66; Bennett and Dunne, 1992, p. 8 and Mercer, 1995, p. 114), the seven teachers with whom I worked all presented these tasks to the children exclusively in terms of what they wanted them to do. They did not discuss why activities had been chosen and, often because they were trying to focus their attention on another group, they had very little time to explore the children’s personal understanding of the tasks. Given the many and increasing demands on teachers’ time it is not surprising that they should feel they have to keep to the main roads, seldom allowing themselves to wander among the byways of children’s idiosyncratic understandings. Even the researcher with relatively plentiful time to observe and talk with individual children can still only begin to rough out what sense they may have made of an activity, but the following case study represents an attempt to chart the shifts in the meaning of a task as it developed from a teacher’s planning to a child’s learning. I am particularly concerned to show how, for various reasons, the teacher maintained the high ground of her original learning intentions, avoiding engagement with the unpredictable complexity of the children’s understanding. The activity took place on an afternoon in the Summer of 1991, when teachers in England and Wales were adjusting to the new demands of a National Curriculum which was not yet in force across all subjects. The setting was a school surrounded by the heavy traffic of a light industrial area within a large city in the South-West of England. The Victorian core of the school had been extended with several new classrooms and it was in one of these that I was observing; a bright airy room, well equipped with mobile storage units and divided into areas for writing, making, pretend play, mathematical activities etc. The Year 1 class consisted of twenty-four 6-year-olds, divided into four mixed ability groups and the children were encouraged to work as independently as possible within a clearly defined framework of acceptable behaviour. The atmosphere in the classroom was cheerful and busy and the classteacher, Mrs Dillon, was young, energetic, extremely organized and very well thought of within the school. I was observing Robert and Sarah; children identified by their teacher as having had some difficulty in adjusting to the routines and expectations of school life.

From Curriculum to Context Mrs Dillon had taken her class to a local park to study the play equipment as part of their work on ‘Moving Around’ and she now wanted the children to make and test a model of something they had played on, focusing on strength, safety and ‘whether it moves or whether you move on it’. The new National Curriculum Orders for Science (Department of Education and Science and Welsh Office (DES/WO), 1989) had been introduced in the previous school year and Mrs Dillon’s plans referred to two of the fourteen attainment targets into which science had been subdivided for assessment purposes—AT1: Exploration of Science and AT10: Forces. Like most teachers at the time she 35

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referred to the assessment criteria, which specified what children should know, rather than the programmes of study, which set out what children should do. She quoted directly (italicized below) from criteria that were intended to measure children’s performance in tests taken at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16 (level 2 represented the performance expected of most 7-year-olds) although she preferred to personalize her interpretation of the more process-focused AT1 (Exploration of Science), devising her own way of relating the curriculum to her chosen focus on playground equipment: AT1 + AT10, levels 1+2. 1. Know that things can be moved by pushing them. 2. Pushes and pulls can make things start moving, speed up, swerve, stop. AT1, exploring, classifying playground equipment. Equipment that moves + that doesn’t move. (DES/WO, 1989) The translation of the generalized requirements of the National Curriculum into specific activities depends on local details such as the availability of resources (including time and people), the teacher’s perceptions of what her class is likely to respond to and her own knowledge of the concepts to be taught. Mrs Dillon’s decision to ask Robert and Sarah to use construction kits to make their models, for example, rather than junk or reclaimed materials, was influenced by the fact that the ‘making table’ was being used by other children and by the difficulty of arranging supervision for any additional ‘messy’ activity. Although Mrs Dillon repeatedly emphasized that she wanted the children to think as well as make—‘I don’t want them just to put it there and say it’s a nice model. They’ve got to have a reason for doing it’—she did not specify the kind of thinking which might extend the children’s understanding of forces. She chose to emphasize the generic scientific process of testing (‘They’re just getting to the age when they’re beginning to test’) but when she explained why she wanted the children to test what they made, her reference frequently slipped between the children’s models and the real equipment in the playground, suggesting some uncertainty in her own grasp of the concepts involved: I want them to look at the play equipment for safety, how safe it is, whether it [the model] moves in the same way as the equipment that they played on that they’ve chosen to make, um, or does it [the real thing] stay still and they move on it, so that they’re looking at how it was constructed. As soon as any teacher begins to interpret part of a prescribed curriculum, adapting it to the needs of her children and to the constraints within which she must work, the purity of the ideas in the document will always be compromised, to some extent, by the intricacies of the real situation. 36

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From Teacher to Children Mrs Dillon spent some five minutes with Robert and Sarah, explaining what she wanted them to do. The fact that the children got up to go several times suggests that they were not used to this level of briefing. Mrs Dillon’s presentation of the task focused on two frequently repeated exhortations: ‘think very carefully’ and ‘make something’. She emphasized the very careful thinking that was to surround the making and provide the ‘reason for doing it’: I’d like you to think very carefully about making one of those kind of climbing or sliding or different kinds of equipment that you went on at the playground. So go and think very carefully on a piece of paper. Robert had already got up, offering to go and get the paper before Mrs Dillon had begun to explain the careful thinking. She went on to tell the children which materials she wanted them to use, again focusing their attention on making, but she then had to call them back again: …when you’ve drawn your plan, you’re not going to the sticking table today, you’re using the construction on the carpet today. We’ll have a look at the sticking table tomorrow, alright? But first of all, look at the construction equipment on the carpet. Have a look at the equipment and be thinking—Ah ah, I haven’t finished yet, come here. Ooh you’re so keen to go! Robert and Sarah didn’t seem to expect detailed advice on how they were to think carefully. They had seen other children’s models, they knew that they were going to make something they had played on at the park and they seemed to want to get on with it, but Mrs Dillon wanted to remind them of her principles: We’re going to think about how safe it is, whether it’s safe for you to use, if you were a little tiny, tiny person using it. So you can use the lego people to test it with. This fleeting reference was her only mention of testing, suggesting, perhaps, that she had already adjusted her expectations of what might realistically be asked of these children. Still holding out against the children’s will to be doing, Mrs Dillon tried to remind them of the distinction she had devised for classifying the play equipment but her own uncertainty tripped her up and she reverted to the general exhortation with which she had begun: …going to think about whether you can move, on it, like a swing or— you’re listening to me, aren’t you? Whether it moves, like a swing. Sorry, 37

Rod Parker-Rees

I said that you can move on a swing. I didn’t mean that. I mean whether it moves, like a swing, or whether you move on it, like a slide. So think about it. Think about what you can make. It must be like something you played on in the park and I want you to think very carefully because I know you can do it really very well. With a last attempt to salvage the purposes she had identified in her plans, ‘Be thinking how safe it is all the time, alright?’, Mrs Dillon finally reduced the task to a list of things to do, focusing on the business of getting a model made: ‘So, have a look and then take a big piece of paper from here and plan it before you make it, right?’ These rhetorical ‘alrights’ signal Mrs Dillon’s recognition that she was engaged in negotiation with the children. Even though they had barely spoken a word throughout this introduction she had been alert to their body language, recognizing when they were attending to what she was saying and when they had switched off. She almost certainly felt some obligation to persevere further than usual because she had discussed her plans for the activity with me beforehand but still the children succeeded in bargaining her down to a more practical task which was, arguably, more appropriate to their own interests and abilities.

From Listening to Doing Once the children were left to get on with the task they had only their own interpretation of Mrs Dillon’s directions to work from. They exchanged a couple of comments but for the most part they got on with their work independently and, as space does not allow me to chart the progress of both Robert and Sarah, I have chosen to focus only on Robert. At first Robert seemed to want to do as little as he could get away with. When he went to see what construction materials were available he immediately leant a long, flat, wooden block against the side of a plastic storage crate and said, ‘Where’s the lego men?’, as if he felt this would do as a model of a slide. He didn’t look at any other materials and he made no effort to make his model anything like the slide he had played on at the playground. He had made his model and now he wanted to play with it. He did not seem to be preparing to test it for strength and safety. Mrs Dillon reminded Robert that he was expected to draw a plan of his model, bringing him back to the conscious process of designing. His first plan was a rudimentary representation of a wooden cube with the long flat block propped against it but, spurred on by Sarah’s criticism, ‘You does it too fast!’, he decided to add ‘steps to go up’ on the opposite side (see figure 2.1). Almost immediately he was complaining: 38

The Tale of a Task: Learning Beyond the Map

Robert: I wish I never done steps now. Researcher: Why? Robert: Cause it’s hard. I don’t know what to make them from. Fortunately a passing child suggested using folded paper to make steps and Robert gave it a try, carefully folding a strip of paper into a concertina shape (see figure 2.2). I suspect that Robert himself was not content with his slide at

Figure 2.1: Robert added steps to his design of a slide

Figure 2.2: Robert folded a strip of paper into a concertina shape for steps

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this point but Mrs Dillon’s comments when she came over to see how he was getting on left him in no doubt that paper steps were not a good idea: I think you need to think very carefully about how strong they are and what sort of weight they’re going to support. If you were in the playground and you had paper steps and all the other children who were playing had paper steps, would they hold? This rather underhand argument was clearly too much for Robert who replied, ‘It wouldn’t be very nice’. Mrs Dillon then proceeded with a series of prompts to lead Robert, rather unwillingly, back to her principles of strength and safety: Mrs Dillon: Robert: Mrs Dillon: Robert: Mrs Dillon: Robert: Mrs Dillon:

It wouldn’t be. Why wouldn’t it be very nice? You wouldn’t be able to climb up ’em. And what might happen if you did climb up them? They’d fall down. Hm. And then what might happen to you? ’Urt. You’d get hurt. So, you think about that and I’ll come back in a minute and see if you’ve thought of any other way of making your steps, or make, keeping your paper steps but making them s-s-safe [drawn out to give Robert a chance to say it himself].

Mrs Dillon said of this exchange later, ‘I wondered if I was actually getting anywhere’. Having led Robert to her principles, she seemed to recognize the difficulty of persuading him to think. She was clearly reluctant to leave him struggling as she moved on to Sarah and her parting comment, ‘Think about it, have a little think about it’, seemed almost apologetic. Robert began to experiment rather halfheartedly with a second flat block the same as his slide and another child suggested: ‘Why don’t you put the paper steps on there [the second block], that’ll be strong.’ But Robert decided to take a break from his slide and began to play with his pile of blocks, making them his own again by pretending they were a mountain. He went off to get a piece of string to develop his rock-climbing play, dangling it down his mountain slope for imaginary climbers. After a while I reminded him that he had to find a way to sort out his steps and make them strong. What happened next was something of a transformation as Robert’s play suddenly seemed to provide him with inspiration for his work. Apparently excited by a sense of the possibility of success, he suddenly became enthusiastic: Strong rock-climbing [laying the string across one of the sloping blocks]. I know, I could put string across, make steps! I know, I could use Plasticine! 40

The Tale of a Task: Learning Beyond the Map

Figure 2.3: Robert rolled out thin cylinders of Plasticine for steps

He got Plasticine, rolled out thin cylinders and cut these to fit across one of the sloping blocks, representing log steps (see figure 2.3). He was now absorbed in his work, adding Plasticine to hold his three blocks together and to prevent them from sliding on the table top. Robert’s personal involvement in the task had been fairly minimal up to the point at which his play generated an idea that enabled him to solve his steps problem. When he was able to imagine that he might succeed his engagement with the task, and his commitment to it, seemed to achieve a sort of critical mass, providing enough motivation to keep him working. When he talked to me later about his work he was particularly conscious of the value of persevering with an initially difficult task and he may well have been right to identify this as the most significant learning to have come out of his afternoon’s work.

‘Well, that’s alright then because that’s what you were supposed to be doing, wasn’t it?’—Review At the end of the session, just before the class cleared up for afternoon playtime, Mrs Dillon was able to talk with Robert and Sarah about their models although she also had to monitor what was going on in the rest of the room at the same time. Both the amount of time and the level of attention she was able to give to the review of Robert and Sarah’s work were tightly circumscribed but these were not the only factors limiting communication between teacher and children. Mrs Dillon exercised tight control over her interactions with children. Like most teachers (Pollard et al., 1994, p. 166) she specified topics, chose which responses to acknowledge and reinterpreted children’s comments to move discussion in the direction she intended. Even in the more intimate context of discussing an individual child’s work she retained this control, encouraging the children to see their work from her perspective. 41

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Most of Mrs Dillon’s questions were answered with one word or a nod and when the children did offer more expansive responses these were often passed over as she reminded them of what they should have done. The constraints of the context and Mrs Dillon’s concern to keep to her planned agenda seemed to combine to make it almost impossible for Robert or Sarah to talk about what had been important to them about their work. Here, for example, Robert’s very deictic, embedded description of his model contrasts with Mrs Dillon’s emphasis on process: Robert:

Mrs Dillon:

…goes up, that up, steps there and you go on there and there and there and there and there and you walks across there and you slides down. I like it, you’ve worked on this for a very long time. Do you think it’s safe? I think you’ve thought very carefully about it. Have you done what I asked you to do? What did I ask you to do in the beginning?

Robert and Sarah weren’t sure what was meant by ‘in the beginning’. Sarah suggested ‘Draw?’ but when Mrs Dillon added, ‘When we went to the park,’ Robert worked out what she wanted and began to explain why his model wasn’t quite like the slide he had seen: Steps, the steps going up and you slide down. One of they big poles [Robert is trying to describe the metal cylinder of a tube-slide] big pole, but I can’t do the big pole. I can’t do the round hole so I done that. Mrs Dillon took this as if it was the answer she had been working towards: Right, so you’re making something that you played on in the park and what have you thought about while you were making it? Robert’s first response to this was ‘I thought about the Plasticine steps and thought about doing the brick and that in the middle’, both of which were highly significant in the story of his conversion to the task but he went on to identify five further ‘thats’ and Mrs Dillon had no way of knowing which were particularly important. After dealing briefly with another child Mrs Dillon returned to Robert with a ‘Sorry’ and he began again, this time emphasizing his planning: Robert:

Mrs Dillon:

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I planned it doing that, steps, with a flap on the brick and then I planned doing one across there and planned having a slide. Have you made something that’s like…Listen, look at me. Have you made something that’s like the play equipment you played on at the park?

The Tale of a Task: Learning Beyond the Map

Having already explained how his model wasn’t like the slide in the park, Robert tried to guess what else Mrs Dillon might mean, apparently assuming that she thought he had made another model earlier on: ‘I ain’t made nothing on the gluing table.’ Mrs Dillon noted Robert’s confusion and changed tack, ‘No, but with these bricks, does it work in the same way?’ She was clearly relieved when Robert said ‘Yes’: Well that’s alright then because that’s what you were supposed to be doing, wasn’t it, to make something that works in the same way, something that you move down but you’re using a little man and he moves down. Mrs Dillon had still not abandoned her intention to focus on the safety of the models as ‘one of the main aspects’ of the task but she had had to compromise on her initial objective that the children should:‘…test to see if it does live up to these principles so that it has to be safe…and strong enough for the job, for the purpose’. Now, reviewing Robert’s work, a one word response to a closed question was sufficient evidence that safety had been considered: Mrs Dillon: Robert: Mrs Dillon:

And is it going to be safe? Yeah. Good. You’ve thought very carefully about that, I’m very pleased with that, Robert.

These exchanges illustrate the peculiarity of this sort of negotiation, where the teacher seeks to recast the child’s idiosyncratic response to the task in terms of her own generalized meanings (Edwards and Mercer, 1987). It seems to be more important, both to Mrs Dillon and to Robert, that she should be able to represent what he did in terms that match her intentions (‘you’ve thought very carefully’) than that she should find out what he learned from the activity. This process of recasting, redefining what children have done ‘as altogether neater, nicer and closer to the intended lesson plan’ (Edwards and Mercer, 1987, p. 146), might be seen as a form of ‘guided reinvention’, helping children to construct their own understanding of the ‘higher mental functions that are part of [their] social and cultural heritage’ (Tharp and Gallimore, 1988, pp. 29–30). But the effectiveness of this sort of support depends on the degree to which it is informed by sensitivity to the interests and intentions of the child (Bruner, 1986; Wells, 1987) and that this contingent responsiveness is not easily achieved in the classroom (Thomas, 1994). When the teacher is unable to explore, in detail, what children have made of an activity she may be forced, against her will, into a ‘curriculum delivery’ style of teaching, a risk identified later by Mrs Dillon herself: …a lot of the development actually goes on in the doing. If you’re not sitting with them when they’re doing it then that can make a lot of 43

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difference to how you review it afterwards, so it’s the doing as well that’s just as important but managing the class in such a way that you’re able to do that in specific ways. I sometimes think that maybe we try to do too much at once, but then we have such a huge curriculum to cover, it’s very difficult to pinpoint.

Looking Back When I talked to Mrs Dillon at the end of the day she seemed to adopt a rather different perspective from her earlier tight focus on the purposes of the activity. Without the children present, she seemed more ready to talk about what they had actually done. For the first time she revealed knowledge of personal characteristics that might have influenced the way Robert and Sarah responded to the task, relating both Robert’s difficulties with sustaining concentration and his highly developed spatial awareness to the fact that he spent a lot of time outside playing with his older brothers: I mean, Robert has older brothers and they’re on their own a lot of the time. They spend a lot of the time, um, around the [local park/playground] and around, and he goes with them now which is part of the reason why he finds it hard to concentrate for any length of time. But as far as awareness of things and how things work and how to explain it, he actually is quite articulate and understands a lot, a lot of things. He just finds it hard to put it on paper and concentrate on his writing. When she evaluated what Robert and Sarah had done, Mrs Dillon was willing to look beyond her checklist of success criteria and to acknowledge more general behaviours such as exploring possibilities, being interested, observing and persevering ‘extremely well’. She had praised Robert, saying ‘You’ve worked on this for a very long time,’ but she was prevented from drawing him into conversation about what had helped him to persevere by her insistence on seeing the task in terms of what she had planned.

‘What’s hard you gotta still do it’—The Children’s View When I spoke to Robert and Sarah together after playtime, both said the activity had been ‘brilliant’ and both continued to play with their models as we talked. (Robert found out that he could dismantle and reassemble his slide, ‘look, take it on, take it off an’ all’.) The children did not know me and they were clearly not used to talking about activities in terms of what might be learned from them. They both adopted cautious, playful, semi-detached attitudes and Robert chose to keep to the periphery of the conversation, picking up and playing with interesting objects, but still listening. I was impressed by the way in which the 44

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two children often shared their contributions to our discussion, finishing each other’s sentences and developing each other’s meanings: Sarah: Researcher: Sarah:’ Robert: Researcher: Robert: Sarah:

I liked the red bit. Hmm? Cos I keeps on doing it wrong and that bit’s ‘posed to stick up. Keeps on doing it wrong and then it gets… Oh, right! Then you do it properly. I stick it up there. This ’n up there…

I asked the children why they thought Mrs Dillon had asked them to make models. Sarah said at first that she didn’t know, but when Robert suggested it was ‘For making a little playground probably’ an idea occurred to her, ‘No, ’cos we might have our ’semberly again!’, referring to school assemblies at which children would show the rest of the school what they had been doing. Although she first offered this in opposition to Robert’s idea, the two of them soon absorbed each other’s suggestions into their own, Sarah saying it was ‘to make a little park’ and Robert saying, ‘You can make it out of assembly or you maked it into a little play’. Neither could think why Mrs Dillon might want them to show their models in the hall but Robert was keen to develop his idea of doing ‘a little show of it’ with the Lego man announcing, ‘I’m a little man and I’m going on a swing’. I asked Robert and Sarah whether they thought Mrs Dillon wanted them to learn anything from making their models. Both immediately said ‘No,’ but Robert wasn’t happy with this reflex answer and Sarah helped him to develop a more considered response: Robert: Sarah: Researcher: Sarah: Researcher: Sarah: Robert: Sarah: Robert: Sarah:

Just learn how to make things. Yeah, yeah. What, Sarah? She wants us to make things so we can learn. Right. What sort of things do you think you might learn from making things? Hm. Making models and things what’s hard you gotta still do it and when it’s juwhen you can do it again… Then you learn. Then you could do it then you might say… ‘Ooh, that’s very good.’ Can, you can, you’ll do it again.

Here, as during the activity, Robert said little but he seemed to say just what was needed to prompt Sarah into saying what he meant. They both also seemed particularly involved and earnest at this point in our conversation, 45

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as if they were lowering the mask of playfulness to allow me a glimpse of what they felt was really important. Only a glimpse though! When I asked Sarah if she would like to do it again she snapped back instantly with ‘No! No way!’

In Conclusion It would be nice to be able to say more about what Robert had made of the activity but both he and Sarah seemed rather puzzled when I asked them why they thought Mrs Dillon might have asked them to make their models. This was clearly not a familiar topic and, not surprisingly, the children didn’t have much to say about it. At present young children seem to be caught in a vicious cycle: teachers have little time to talk with them about their learning so they have few opportunities to develop the skills that would enable them to tell teachers about their learning. When teachers do ask children about what they have learned, the children’s limited responses may prove discouraging and the teachers may conclude that the children are not yet ready for this kind of conversation. When teaching purposes are determined more by the requirements of a tidy, generalized curriculum than by the complex needs of particular children, purposeful teaching may fail to promote purposeful learning. Together with all the normal pressures of managing her class, Mrs Dillon was being observed teaching a part of the curriculum in which she was not fully confident; this may have made her more determined to focus on what she had planned, more than on what she knew about Robert and Sarah. The need to see the task through may have made it difficult for her to see through the task and to explore what these children had made of it. Robert and Sarah were also not helped to see through the task, to understand how it might contribute to their wider learning, because Mrs Dillon focused them so clearly on what they had to do. It would be unreasonable to expect Mrs Dillon to match the quality of conversational learning that can be found in the home environment, where the child can decide on the topic of conversation and where the adult can draw on detailed knowledge of the child’s previous experiences (Wells, 1987; Thomas, 1994). School does, however, have a special part to play in providing opportunities for the ‘transactional calibration’ (Bruner, 1986) of ‘common knowledge’ (Edwards and Mercer, 1987) and this negotiation of understanding need not always involve discussion between teacher and children. Matthew Lipman has argued that the classroom should be a ‘community of enquiry’ (Fisher, 1993) in which children are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning, negotiating with their peers as well as with the teacher and he has shown how even 6-year olds are capable of sustained discussion and argument if they are given opportunities and encouragement. Robert and Sarah 46

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certainly seemed to support each other well in our discussion about their work and Neil Mercer has shown that children can be helped to ‘construct knowledge together’ (Mercer, 1995) although, at present,‘…there is no evidence to suggest that such preparation for collaborative activity is a normal part of life in most schools or other educational institutions, anywhere in the world’ (Mercer, 1995, p. 115). In England and Wales, as the requirements of the recently ‘slimmed down’ National Curriculum become more familiar, teachers may feel able to devote more of their attention to getting to know children and helping them to think about how they learn. Unfortunately, however, time for study of child development and learning on initial teacher training courses has been severely squeezed by pressure to prepare teachers to deliver the National Curriculum. In teacher training (no longer referred to as teacher education), as in the classroom, the statutory prescription of ‘what [students] should be taught’ is making it difficult to find enough time to focus on how children can be helped to learn. Helping children to think of themselves as confident learners is bound to take time and, when a legally prescribed curriculum has to be covered, taking this time demands a good deal of confidence. Furnished with maps of what should be taught, we should now be able to venture further into the still uncharted territories of what children learn.

References BENNETT, S.N. and DUNN, E. (1992) Managing Classroom Groups, Hemel Hempstead, Simon and Schuster. BRUNER, J.S. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION (1995) Key Stages 1&2 of the National Curriculum, London, HMSO. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE AND WELSH OFFICE (DES/WO) (1989) Science in the National Curriculum, London, HMSO. EDWARDS, D. (1990) ‘Classroom discourse and classroom knowledge’, in ROGERS, C. and KUTNICK, P. (eds) The Social Psychology of the Primary School, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. EDWARDS, D. and MERCER, N. (1987) Common Knowledge, London, Methuen. FISHER, R. (1993) ‘Talking to learn’, Aspects of Education, 49, 93, pp. 36–48. GALTON, M. (1989) Teaching in the Primary School, London, David Fulton. HARRI-AUGSTEIN, S. and THOMAS, L. (1991) Learning Conversations, London, Routledge. MERCER, N. (1995) The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teachers and Learners, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters Ltd. MUSCHAMP, Y. (ed.) (1991) Strategies for Classroom Assessment: Seven Case Studies from the NPC(SW) Project ‘Assessment, Teaching and Learning in the Primary School’, Bristol, National Primary Centre (South West). PARKER-REES, R. (1993) ‘The communication of learning purposes in tasks set for some Y1 and Y3 children’, unpublished MPhil thesis, University of the West of England, Bristol.

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Rod Parker-Rees POLLARD, A., BROADFOOT, P., CROLL, P., OSBORN, M. and ABBOTT, D. (1994) Changing English Primary Schools? London, Cassell. THARP, R.G. and GALLIMORE, R. (1988) Rousing Minds to Life, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. THOMAS, A. (1994) ‘Conversational Learning’, Oxford Review of Education, 20, 1, pp. 131–42. WELLS, G. (1987) The Meaning Makers: Children Learning Language and Using Language To Learn, London, Hodder and Stoughton.

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Pupils’ Lives and the Curriculum as Lived Experience: Editors’ Introduction

The following two chapters take as their focus some ways in which pupils’ meanings are located in multiple contexts extending beyond the immediacy of a curriculum task. In her study of three bilingual Muslim girls, Maguire presents their language learning and social worlds as inextricably entwined. ‘Shared and Negotiated Territories’ thus reveals the complexity of the girls’ subjectivities and the tensions between their individual and social agendas as each negotiates a sense of self within and across situations. In ‘At Least They were Laughing’, pupils reveal meanings in their classroom talk that are embedded within the wider contexts of the socioeconomics of families and community, peer group affiliations and status and classroom identities. Reputations and relationships are in the balance in the tensions between, on the one hand, fulfilling teacher expectations and the requirements of a task and, on the other, fulfilling social functions vis-à-vis an audience of peers. Through the following studies we perceive ways in which pupils’ responses to curriculum are shaped by their awareness of a range of evaluative contexts and by the implications for their evolving identities. Home, community, peers and friends are ever present contexts within which primary pupils’ classroom meanings and responses are located.

3

Shared and Negotiated Territories: The Socio-cultural Embeddedness of Children’s Acts of Meaning Mary Maguire

Research becomes inquiry and conversation, that is, dialogue. (Bakhtin, 1976, p. 114)

Conversation: A Window on Understanding in Human Inquiry The conversational tone in 8-year-old Heddie’s letter to research assistant Alicia Romero about her initial impressions upon returning to Iran after four years of elementary school in Quebec problematizes the challenge of understanding children’s perceptions and experiences of schooling, learning and living in the 1990s. In the Name of God Dear Alicia Hello. I hope you are fine. I miss you so so much. Dear Alicia. I’m going to tell you all about here. My hole family lives in a small city called Tonekabon. In Tonekabon I went to school for about two weeks. Then our summer Holidays began and school is closed for three months. Now I spend most of my time playing. Sometimes I go to my cousin’s home. Sometimes I go to my uncle’s home or Aunt’s home. Sometimes when I don’t have anything to do I practice my cursive or write a bunch of inglish and persian poems. In the afternoon I watch Kartoons like: perin, little woman, Mimi. Then I go outside in our big yard and play with my two ducklings which my grandpa bought for my birthday and I also have to golden cute chiks. Dear Alicia I’ve got to tell you that I like Iran very much but I also miss Canada very much too! I will be writing more about here later. Love Heddie Ps. I’m going to write a persian poem that I made. (Heddie, age 8, letter from Iran to research assistant, June 1995) Children’s conversations and texts provide insights into how their understandings are constructed and negotiated through the shared territories of languages 51

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(Himley, 1991; Maguire, 1995). Sharing and negotiating evoke varied resonating metaphors for interpreting minority language children’s acts of meaning (Bruner, 1986). Their acts of meaning involve taking a social attitude and evaluative stance towards the world. These acts of valuing are located in their individual contractions and co-participation in the cultural practices of different communities. In this chapter, I examine three minority languages, primary children’s experiences of biliteracy—Heddie, Sadda and Emma. I explore their cultural positioning and the different subjectivities they bring to learning as reflected in their textual representations and open-ended conversations at home and school. Each has a distinct personality: Heddie is effusive and expressive; Sadda is precise and reflective; Emma is reserved, very neat in her person and her work. All three girls have a younger sister whom they love to teach. Their relationships with their sisters alternate between assuming the shared role as ‘older sister’ and negotiating co-equal partnerships in play situations. A shared territory among these three 8-year-old girls is embedded in their religious affiliation as Muslims. They also are third graders, attend the same English Protestant elementary school, live in close proximity to each other in high rise apartment buildings in inner-city Montreal, and recall coming to Canada when they were 3 or 4 years old. Their fathers are graduate students at the same English university in a unilingual French province. Their parents have taken advantage of the five year window in Quebec’s language legislation, Bill 101 that restricts immigrants from entering the English school system: immigrants who do not intend to remain in the province for more than five years can send their children to an English school. The evidence presented here is based on a three-year, federally funded, multi-site study of the biliteracy development and school success of a selected group of minority language children in two different Canadian cities, Montreal and Ottawa.1 Three fundamental principles conceptually frame this discussion and the larger study: • •

•

Biliteracy development is deeply rooted in socio-cultural historical forces; Children’s emerging control of any symbolic system like written language is simultaneous with their active co-participation in cultural practices and cultural dialogues with significant others; Children’s cultural identity is socially derived, individually generated and enacted, and historically and politically situated.

Thus, it is necessary to look at their texts as ‘culturally expressive works’ that are historically situated in time and place (Himley, 1991; Maguire, 1995). Their texts then must be understood not as an ‘experiential add on component’ in a school curriculum but as meaningful and purposeful acts of meaning. They are windows on and representations of their lived experiences and cultural stances (Maguire, 1994a). 52

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Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of learning as socially and culturally mediated and Bakhtin’s (1976) concept of language as involving dialogic relationships provide the theoretical framework for my central argument: children subjectively locate themselves in the languages, cultures and communities in which they find themselves and construct their meanings of the world. Children’s literate actions are not givens; they experience biliteracy through an evaluative lens. Thus, how and what they experience as literacy practices in communities, classrooms and schools are not neutral political, cultural nor social phenomena. I use the term nested contexts (Maguire, 1994) to argue that more than one evaluative context at a given time influences the constructive, generative, social and cultural possibilities of children’s acts of meaning.

Nested Contexts: Appreciating the Multiple Textures In Canada, we usually talk about majority and minority language contexts within an English and French duality. A common denominator for many Canadian children is that their formal educational experience will be a biliterate one in the two official languages. In addition to serving Anglophone and Francophone communities, many Montreal schools also serve children who come to school with diverse cultural backgrounds and from homes where non-mainstream languages are used. Little is known about how these children (nor their parents) perceive school, learning, becoming and being biliterate. Some personal testimony from 6-year-old Heddie provides insights into how she and her classmates learn to make text-to-life and life-to-text moves (Heath, 1983) at Bridgeview elementary school. This inner-city, ethnically mixed, Montreal English school includes Arabic, Farsi, Chinese, German, Greek, Ukrainian, Dutch, East Indian, Bengali and English speaking children. At the end of her first year as a new arrival from Iran to the Canadian scene, Heddi offers this advice on teaching a second language: I would have them [children learning a second language] look at books and…after they could read, I would tell them to look at all kinds of stories and then pick a little part of this story and a little part of that story. Like a girl that’s ah…named Rosie and a girl that’s ah…named, I don’t know, whatever, and then they meet each other. It’s like two books connecting each other so they have to use their imaginations. (Heddie, age 6, interview with research assistant in school, June 1993) Her advice reflects two concepts that frequently appear in current literacy discourse: dialogue and intertextuality—the ability to make connections through conversations between and among texts in varied contexts (Maguire, 1994). It also reflects how we became insiders to three children’s diverse social networks— through informal conversations with them and their families and connecting to their texts. 53

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The next excerpts from home and school interviews with Heddie point to the complexity of children’s biliteracy and cultural positioning in different contexts. She is learning two mainstream languages, English and French and two non mainstream languages, Persian and Arabic. I foreground her reflections because they challenge current theory in second language acquisition that tends to slot children into dichotomized categories (e.g., first/second language, coordinate/ compound bilingual) and to characterize learners as neat, definable and measurable types (e.g., limited English proficient, fast/slow learners). On Learning English I remember that I was very lonely and that I didn’t have any friends. I felt very sad because I found English a very interesting language and because I couldn’t speak English I was quite sad. After um I learned a bit English, I was very happy then because…I thought English was a very good language and it is. Mrs Aren [kindergarten teacher] was a very good teacher because whenever I had some snacks…she…and I was trying to say I have this for snack and I have that…I really wanted to say but I couldn’t so she just held up my snack and for instance I got a banana and she said, ‘This is a banana’ and she wrote it on the board and that’s how I got to learn English. She was very kind to me and whenever I felt a little lonely she tried her best to cheer me up. I started writing in Pre K and I started reading in grade 1. I started writing before I started reading. I would write said SED. I could read my writing. I spelled it the easy way but in the real books it’s spelled SAID. On Learning French Like I write 2 pages of journal in French. I don’t know why I can’t speak French because I am interested in French but…I guess when I’m writing journal like…whenever I’m talking I’m a little too nervous so I can not talk too much…But when I’m writing if I missed a letter or something so no one is going to read my writing yet. (Heddie, individual interview with research assistant in school, 1994) Miss Jacques really tries to teach us. She really really tries…but she writes the word on the board and I copy it but I don’t know what it means…If only we had a teacher like Miss R, then I think I would be better in French. (Heddie, home interview with research assistant and parents, January 1995) On Learning Persian I like Persian…My father teaches me…I went to that [Iranian] school for week. I didn’t really have fun the first few days because everyone 54

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made fun of me and called me a baby. ‘Hey a baby is starting grade 1 here’. That’s because they were 8 and I was only 5. (Heddie, individual interview with research assistant in school, March 1995) It’s very easy for me to write Persian. I never did, never get mixed up once in English…um…whenever I’m starting to write Persian I never go from left to right. So, it’s not a problem having both languages at the same time. (Heddie, individual interview with research assistant in school, March 1995) Because in Iranian school that I went to for grade one here…for the exams, they never asked us to write stories. But I think if I write a story they won’t say ‘Hey bad girl’. They wouldn’t punish me. They would just say ‘Yeah, Good but ah good’. I think that what they want from us is to write journals about what has happened…not make believe stories…out of your imagination…they want to know us better. They want to know the family, the child. (Heddie, home interview with research assistant and parents, January 1995) On Learning in Iran We wouldn’t have reading and log in Persian because we have homework. In Iran some of the teachers are a bit you know ah…not too generous…I have heard though that the grade three teacher is very kind. The biggest difference is the boys are separated from the girls. On Learning Arabic Here it’s English and French. In Iran it’s half Iranian and half Arabic because we need to learn the Koran. I know it. We have to memorize it. Here there’s English and French class and English most of the time. And there it’s lots of time in Iranian and one and half of Arabic every day because we have to learn the Koran. I know three of them [prayers]. Because it’s just the beginning of my lessons. I know something in the Koran like, Don’t lie because you are going to be the enemy of ‘God’. (Heddie, interview with research assistant in school, March 1995) As children like Heddie talk and write about the little rituals of their lives, they teach us that they are negotiating more than one language, community and culture at a given time. Her evaluative stances on learning four languages reflect the social nature of her thinking, her engagement with the world and her awareness of the norms, expectations and ethos of different school systems and teachers. 55

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Social Networks: Locating and Negotiating Sites for Cultural Making Bridgeview elementary school provides an interesting venue for unraveling the multiple, contextually textured layers of children’s biliteracy. It is located on a busy street in a densely populated, transient district in Montreal. At Bridgeview, children are members of many communities. They are members of classroom communities that celebrate differences. They come from diverse networks of families that use the school for varied cultural events sponsored by local communities. Others come from communities that have experienced long traditions represented in the school and local area (e.g., Chinese New Year and Hanukah). While the physical territory for identifying community in these contexts is spatially shared, the socio-cultural boundaries emerge as permeable and negotiable with each dialogic encounter with the children and their families. The student population is constantly changing. There are children arriving and leaving in mid-year. Emma alludes to the buddy system the school encourages for new arrivals; Heddie remembers negotiating her first social interactions in an English school; Sadda remembers her feelings of sadness when Heddie left for Iran. …We have a new Japanese girl. Her name is Yuko. She came two weeks ago. She doesn’t really know how to speak English. She only knows, ‘My name is…’ Sometimes I do the actions for her. Sometimes Sadda and I play skipping with her. (Emma, interview with research assistant and parents, June 1995) …First I talked to Vahed [another Iranian student] and then I talked a bit to Carmen [a Chinese girl]. After I knew a bit English, only a bit English. I get. I got friends with Carmen and she helped me on word, on lots of words and she really helped me. And that’s how I learned English. (Heddie, interview with research assistant in school, 1994) …I miss Heddie. I went to the airport and I almost cried when the plane left. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, 1995) In revisiting these children’s texts and learning more about the socio-cultural contexts of their homes, I appreciate how they negotiate an evaluative perspective. Immigration patterns over the years have transformed this school and the local neighborhood such that the cultural ambience of this community defies a singular categorization of a particular cultural group. This problematizes my challenge in gaining access to an English language public school within the political reality of Quebec and to new arrivals like Heddie, Sadda and Emma and their families. I foreground Heddie because she was the ‘one centre person’ who provided us with access to the other children and their families discussed here. These families were amenable to our visiting and interviewing them at home about their 56

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children’s experiences of schooling and learning, their cultural values and cultural identities (Milroy, 1981). Although she was not a child initially selected for observation, Heddie’s expressive personality attracted the attention of two research assistants observing in the English classrooms who unintentionally documented her in their fieldnotes. In methodological terms, she became the centre of a social network of Iranian and Muslim children in her class, school and local area. The most striking impressions of this neighborhood are the diverse activities and varied social networks that have different affiliations in terms of work, age, class, gender, religion and languages. As one parent describes, ‘Walking through the neighborhood one quickly senses that many of the children are bilingual, bidialectical and are learning to live a variety of lifestyles.’ Home visits revealed different and distinct communication patterns in terms of the languages their parents speak to each other, the languages in which they speak to their children, the languages they attempt to teach their children, and the languages children speak among themselves. They provide thoughtful exchanges on varied topics that range from their memories of arriving and adjusting to a new country, their children’s first day experiences at Bridgeview, and their perceptions of teaching and learning in different sociolinguistic and cultural contexts. They articulate certain commonalities in their experiences in negotiating the different values embedded in different educational systems, cultures and ways of being.

Heddie and Her Family: Being Here and Being There A sense of family and doing things together, self-confidence, authorship and strong cultural identity appeared very early in Heddie’s writing in her Grade 1 English classroom. These themes emerge in her interviews and her textual representations as illustrated in Figure 3.1, for example, an excerpt from her daily journal. Her written explorations include imaginative stories and stories of personal experience, features of both North American and her Iranian culture. She is at ease in negotiating and translating conversations in English, French, Farsi and Arabic. She loves all her teachers and frequently talks about them as family, especially Miss R.Despite her joyful, effusive personality and positive outlook on life, ‘being a little sad’, ‘knowing no English’, ‘having freezing hands waiting for the bus’ are her major recollections about arriving in Montreal in January 1992. She confesses, ‘the first few days I went to school, it was not really comfortable for me’. She further explains that she did not go to school in Iran because there was no kindergarten ‘there’, ‘although I could speak English when I was half of kindergarten here’. Her parents shared similar comments about being ‘here and there’ and negotiating the norms of schooling in both cultural contexts. Heddie explains: ‘In Iran, we wouldn’t have reading and log in Persian because we have homework.’ 57

Figure 3.1: Heddie’s story of a little ballerina and teaching Persian

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Heddie’s mother, who had previously worked in Iran as a curator in an art museum, recalls her first year as most difficult in her personal well-being: At that time I lost my sister’s son in the war between Iraq and Iran. It was difficult for me leaving my family and come to Canada…I don’t have opportunity to speaking with English people…Because for one year, I was pregnant. I couldn’t go out because I didn’t feel well and I couldn’t stand sitting in class. After that she was born [Heddie’s sister Sara]…I was missing everyone. (Heddie’s mother, home interview with Heddie’s parents, January 1995) Heddie’s father, a graduate student in Electrical Engineering, recalls that ‘the winter was horrible. We had to live in these small apartments when we were used to living in big places. We don’t have any yard in this place.’ His sense of self includes particularities of time and place: ‘The first time I came to Canada, calculating when my kid was born was a problem. It’s the beginning of the Iranian New Year. It’s 1374.’ He confesses: I was so busy trying to adapt to the educational system that was totally different than mine. I didn’t have time to take English courses, so I was really trying hard to keep up with my classmates. I didn’t have time to think about missing at all. (Heddie’s father, home interview with Heddie’s parents, January 1995) While Mr Hussani was adjusting to the cultural context of learning in a large Canadian university, he attributes the ‘collaborative ethos of Bridgeview to Heddie’s positive attitudes towards learning in Canada’. He perceives differences between the two educational systems: ‘It is the way they move with the children. She has the feeling that the teacher loves her. Not only loves her but pays attention to her.’ This is in keeping with their Iranian cultural values of hospitality and personal attention (Hoffman, 1989). It is not something Heddie nor her parents ‘expect of the Iranian school system nor its teachers’. Heddie notes, ‘In Iran some of the teachers are a bit, you know ah, not too generous. I have heard though that the Grade 3 teacher is very kind.’ They perceive this mutuality between child and teacher and personal attention as critical factors in Heddie’s learning English so quickly. Her mother also recalls Heddie’s strong motivation to learn and tenacity of person: She like so much how to write in Persian too. Even in Persian, because anytime I wanted to write a letter to my sister, she told me, ‘Please, please teach me. I want to write a letter to my aunt’. And she started learning Persian when she was five years old and she told me, ‘Please teach me. If you don’t teach me, I teach myself because I like to learn how to speak, know how to write and how to learn Persian’. (Heddie’s mother, home interview with parents, March 1995) 59

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Keeping up with the Iranian norms of schooling and maintaining a cultural identity frequently surfaced in conversations with Heddie and her family. Although there is an Iranian school near by, her parents teach her Persian and Arabic at home. Heddie explains: There’s an Iranian school here…I don’t go there. Some people go there. Some do not. Their mom and dad teach them. You don’t have to be a teacher to teach. There’s a book to tell you everything about how to be a teacher and to teach. My mom and dad teach me everything; they’re not real teachers like teachers that have been chosen teachers. (Heddie, interview with research assistant in school, March 1995) Heddie is very proud of her dual system of schooling: ‘I am in Grade 3 English and Grade 3 Persian.’ Her father teaches her science and math and her mother art, music, Iranian songs, poems and stories. According to her mother, they ‘hadn’t planned to teach her; it was her idea’. She and her father do science experiments together. Heddie describes her home learning and what she believes she is learning: My Dad give me homework everyday. I have to do it right here. We learn about God. There’s another book. It’s not God’s book but there’s a book that we learn how to be nice to people. Then we get our book and we write handside [cursive]. They say if you work, you get a nice return and if you don’t and you’re bad to people. You go to hell. There’s five books. One is science, one is the thing where you learn how to be family to God and then there is about family and then there’s…you have to copy the little fun book and then the other is math. Math—the letters I mean the numbers are different but the signs are not different. The times is the same. (Heddie, interview with research assistant in school, March 1995) Getting and maintaining the 20s on the Iranian examinations is an explicit and frequently articulated important value for Heddie and her parents. Her father reports that, ‘She always gets 20 after 20. She passed with an excellent exam.’ This is their academic and cultural barometer for ensuring Heddie’s successful re-entry into the Iranian school system. Heddie’s strong cultural identity as an Iranian female and her sense of self confidence in approaching womanhood surfaces in her conversations and texts about wearing the Chador. Her mother comes from a family of seven girls and one boy and perceives that her father treated them all as equals. She encourages this same sense of self-respect in Heddie: ‘I let Heddie accept it [chador] herself.’ Her mother’s subjective history conveys a sense of personal agency: ‘My sister doesn’t wear it but I choose to wear it.’ She says that she and her husband enjoy their girls: ‘We are somewhat different from other Iranian families who pray just for boys.’ In one of her journal entries from her Grade 3 class, Heddie 60

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writes about her career possibilities: ‘I would like to be an artist, a piano player, a sicolojist, an aesternot and a Grade 6 teacher when I grow up. I got a sticker book from my dad when I played one of the best piano players from Iran.’ In her written texts, Heddie presents herself as a child who is very involved with her family and friends. She uses a wide range of expressives to serve many functions—to signal an event that has happened, to refer to an object, to announce an anticipated event, to separate one genre from another, to signal and announce herself to her teachers. For example, she begins one journal entry with ‘Dear Miss R. I’m going to tell you about my country’. In another, she provides a detailed account of Iranian New Year and a drawing of food spread on a table. Our new year is on March 20 And if you celbrate it once you wil want to celebrate it every day! You’ll have so much fun you won’t know it its night time or day time! You’ll see lots of thing’s on a shining polished table like: a fishbowl filed with gold fish ‘candy’s cookey’s & treats apple’s onion’s all kinds of flowers’ chocklet’s cake’s ‘straberry’s & blue berry’s rasberry’s and a hole lots of things. I JUST LOVE OUR NEW YEAR. (Heddie, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, October 1994) Her Grade 1 English entries are entirely expressives—invitations, statements, assertions, explanations, commentaries and apologies—as she lists all the things she loves. Even when she writes short narratives or descriptive sequences midyear, they are frequently peppered with expression of her feelings. By Grade 2, she is writing fictional narratives that include classmates as actants in the stories as the following excerpt illustrates: Once apon a time there livd as selfish prince and there also livd a very very kind and polite man and the polit man was named Mohamed [student in class]. Mohamed loved children. but the selfish princ dident. the selfish princ was so so so so impolit and selfish and so onkind, the princ was named rola. Mohamed Heyuted Rola. (Heddie, journal for Grade 1 English teacher, February 1993) 61

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The biggest difference between the first and second year entries is in the increased repertoire of written genres, verbs, temporal markers and topics. The narrative writing increases in quantity and thematic and rhetorical complexity. The narratives are frequently reworkings of stories which she has heard or read (e.g., Jack and the Beanstalk, The Little Mermaid, and stories about princesses and personal experience). She continues to include entries pertaining to religious events as well as descriptive pieces about events in her daily life, her culture, her language and her country. She is clearly aware of multiple types of language representations and the possibilities texts offer for representing her lived experiences. Furthermore, she takes on other voices in her stories (Bakhtin, 1976) as this excerpt illustrates. One day she wished that her parents would let her go to the Caribean. But when she asked them, they would say no sweety. One night there was the biggest star you’ve ever seen. She said: (Star light star brighte firt star I see tonight I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I make tonight.) Then she wised to be in the Carbien that morning. (Heddie, journal for Grade 1 English teacher, January 1993) Her voice and joyful personality emerge in both her interviews and texts. By the end of Grade 1, her parents are more comfortable living here and are quite pleased with her progress at home and school, especially with respect to her English writing. Although Heddie says she loves Miss R better than all her teachers, she believes she has more freedom and sense of personal agency in writing with Miss Fraser: ‘Miss R tells me what to write, and most of the journal in Grade 1 is about what I wanted to write myself.’ However, Heddie’s ambivalent attitudes towards French is a pattern that emerges in Grades 2 and 3. This may be attributed in part to her parents’ attitude towards French and to the limited classroom opportunities for writing connected discourse in French. Because of their concern about the possible consequences of learning too many languages, they are not worried about her learning French—‘a language that is not needed when they return to Iran’. When Heddie’s Grade 1 French teacher encouraged the children in mid-year to write a journal called ‘Ma Liberte’, her playful personality emerges in her beginning French texts, many of which are characterized by a joking tone and words or lines inserted in Persian. Bonjur elce Mom mama a le cole demein 2 garcon crashe et mova mon 62

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mama ju di et madam Maravey le garc, on et coocoo le garc, on et bo coo coo coo orvar Elce ton ami (draws heart) (Heddie, journal for Grade 2 French teacher, March 1993) This text signals the beginning of a conflict situation that Heddie, Sadda and Emma negotiate in different ways in French classes in Grades 2 and 3. Some took on a different persona when the social order of these classrooms broke down and, thus, different subjectivities emerge. In her earlier interviews Heddie positioned herself in terms of categories like girls and boys and different educational systems: ‘The biggest difference is the boys are separated from the girls.’ In French class her frame of reference means good girls and bad boys. What began as a positive attitude towards French near the end of Grade 1, changed dramatically during the second year. In contrast to the strong rapport she enjoyed with her Grade 1 teachers—English teacher Miss Fraser and her French teacher Miss Elsie and her Grade 3 teacher Miss R—Heddie is not impressed with her French teachers in Grades 2 and 3. She attributes their lack of discipline to a group of disruptive boys who are routinely punished for their misdemeanors. She tries to maintain her nice girl social identity by complying with what the teacher expects of her and adopting an equivocal evaluative stance: It’s a nice class if only the boys don’t ruin it because they, the girls are always nice. But the boys are silly. And it’s always the boy’s names on the blackboard, so if they would be good it would be better. And it’s a nice class. Like, I’m learning how to name the fruits and vegetables…she would say ‘bla, bla, bla, bla’ and write it on the board. I would copy it but I didn’t know what it meant. (Heddie, interview with research assistant in school, March 1995) Mme J did not have much to say about Heddie except that she was ‘a nice girl and she works very hard’. Complicating her equivocal responses towards French is Heddie’s perception of her father’s attitude and goals: I don’t talk French at home. I just know the name of five fruits or something. I’m not really interested in French because my dad said, ‘You learn two languages that’s enough. Because maybe when you learn some other languages that you get mixed up with those two’. My dad says, ‘It’s better if you don’t learn anything else but English and Persian.’ (Heddie, interview with research assistant in school, November 1994) This image of a nice little girl interested in many languages turns into a potential for rudeness and cheekiness as illustrated in the following excerpt from one of our observations in her Grade 3 French class. The excerpt provides a window 63

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for understanding how implicit negotiations occur in children’s acts of meaning. Their different subjectivities emerge in the subtle shifts and slides of meaning in their social interactions. Heddie enters and sits next to Sadda. They are speaking Persian and appear to be commenting on the stencil that Mme J has just distributed. Heddie has her journal open, pencil in hand, ready to write. She looks at Mme J writing the date on the blackboard. She looks at the stencil muttering ‘BBBBBBB’ to herself. The class is very noisy. Mme J says, ‘Don’t write on the stencil.’ Heddie writes her name on the stencil. She looks at her journal and writes the date. A boy enters; another group of boys call him names. A fight ensues and the teacher yells for them to be quiet…. Emma quietly goes about her work. Heddie doodles on the stencil. She draws a cloud and starts talking to herself. She is reprimanded by Mme J.Heddie continues to doodle and touch her hair. Annie whispers to one of the unruly boys: ‘She’s going to write everything down and then she’s going to show it to the principal’. Heddie’s eyes open wide. The teacher continues reading the sentences on the stencil and urges the children to repeat after her. Heddie appears to be confused and talks to herself: ‘Canard. Where does it say Canard?’ Heddie is picked to read. She sounds out the words slowly. The teacher responds, ‘Bravo Heddie’. Heddie sits down and says ‘Bravo yeah. What’s so great about that?’ The exercise continues. Heddie starts to chat with Annie: ‘Annie your name is on the blackboard with the boys, why?’ Annie: ‘I don’t know.’ (Fieldnotes and Grade 3 French class, November 1995) In Grade 3 English and French classes, Heddie, Sadda, Emma and Annie sit together; this little network of ‘good girls’ provides them with a sense of political solidarity in negotiating the ‘unruly boys’. Heddie recalls that she and Sadda actually ‘met in kindergarten. We helped each other out and in Grade 1 Carmen went, like I had no friends. She was my friend then. Well we are both Iranian. We’re kind of a little part of the family.’ During second grade their teachers report that although they were not in the same class Heddie and Sadda ‘could often be seen walking arm in arm on the school playground together’. Heddie explains: ‘We talk to each other in Persian so no one knows what we are talking about.’ In several entries she talks about their shared understandings: ‘we trade jackets’, and ‘our mothers knew each other before we do. We are from the same country and we speak the same language and we always hang around with each other. We are like cousins.’ Next to her country Iran and her culture, the topic of friendship occupies the most textual space in her English and French journals over the three years. In the weeks before the family leaves for Iran, Heddie writes about her ambivalence in leaving: ‘I really like my country, but I’m like I’ve really got used to here so I feel sad that I’m leaving here. So I am happy about going back but sad about leaving Canada. Iran is my first home and Canada’s my second 64

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home…Finding a house will take a long time. I’m going to live well not live but stay with my grandparents for a month…so I get to study very well because there’s a big exam.’ Her strong identification with English and Persian continues in the letters she sends to Alicia and to her best friend Sadda about her re-entry to the Iranian school system.

Sadda and Her Family: Coming Here and Going There A sense of friendship, kinship and nostalgic memories about her grandparents and living in Iran are the most frequent leitmotifs in Sadda’s journals over the three years. She and her family live across the street from Heddie in a small sparsely decorated apartment that conveys a sense of impermanence— a family on the move. The Saroyan’s arrived in Canada six months before the Hussani’s and plan to return to Iran next year. Sadda’s mother describes her experiences in terms of ‘coming here and going there’. As we got to know the Saroyan’s, the bonding between these two families as well as other Iranian families in this building became transparent. For example, Sadda reports in her journal about the system of care and protection the families have created for themselves: When my mother goes to evening classes in English, I call Mohammed [another Iranian classmate] house to go to their house or to come take care of me. Mohammed lives in my building but I live at the 9th floor and he lives at the 12th floor. Today is Monday so tomorrow my mother is going to school. Mohammed’s mother goes to school on Mondays and Wednesdays, sometimes Mohammed’s dad comes late and Mohammed calls me. The End. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, January 1995) She accompanies this entry with a drawing of her mother at school and a poem (see Figure 3.2). The mothers of Heddie and Sadda became close friends when their eldest daughters played together as 4-year-olds. They share similar circumstances— a difficult first year entry into a new country, adjustment problems, knowing very little English and caring for their younger daughters at home. Both families are concerned about keeping up here and maintaining a cultural identity as Sadda’s mother describes ‘when going there’. They are concerned about their children becoming and being biliterate in English and Persian but entertain different views about their learning of French and Arabic. Sadda’s predominant stance is personal and subdued. Like Heddie, her entries mostly recount personal experiences related to family, school and friends. However, they are reflective, evaluative accounts of her situations, her feelings about living in Iran and in Canada. She is less effusive and less overtly presentational. 65

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Figure 3.2: Sadda’s poem and drawing of her mother at school

I wonder what I’ll be when I am big someday One day I was sitting in my chair and thinking that when I am big, what could I be. I said to myself, I could be a teacher, a dentest doctor, a doctor and a lot more things. Then my dad came and told me what are you thinking of? I said, I’m thinking that when I’m big what could I be. Then

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you are just in grade one, you have 11 more years to think about this. Then he said, if you want to think about this now, you could! But then I said, I don’t now what to be? my dad said, there are lot of things that you could be when you’re big. Like a sailer, a driver, a teacher, doctor and lot of more things. When my dad said all of this, he left the room. Then I said, to myself that I could be a doctor and a driver. But then I said, I don’t now which doctor to be. But I do have 11 more years to think about this, by (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, November 1994) Eed Fitr For Muslims today this is Thursday, is Eed Fitr. On Eed Fitr we have to find the moon in the sky. If we don’t we have to do Ramadan for 24 hours again. Last year my mother and father didn’t know that on Thursday is Eed Fitr so they did ramadan again. But sometimes if you do ramadan on Eed Fitr and you know that you’re supposed to do it god wouldn’t like that if you didn’t know like my mom and dad it’s o.k. I am happy that it is Eed Fitr and because a few couple of days is Iranian New Year. By (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, March 1995) Most entries conclude with ‘by’ or ‘by by’ and involve the use of multiple tenses as she recounts a past event, includes possible future directions, career possibilities and presents an ongoing present tense reflection of Eed Fitr. Sadda is very precise in her interviews; she records time and place details with the same precision in her journals. Her competence in using tense and time markers can be seen in an example taken from the description of her interview with a research assistant: she asked me some questions and while I was answering she was recording me. There is a strong reliance on her use of modality in her English writing, especially ‘can’ and ‘must’. This reflects her understanding of what is possible, usually for her personally and what is obligatory in terms of her familial and cultural expectations. Her friendship with Heddie is solidified through their exchange of symbolic memorabilia. I’ll miss you I’ll miss Heddie a lot when she goes. But I gave my picture to Heddie and she gave her picture to me to remember each other all the time. She is my true best friend and a nice partner. When I was in kindergarten, she was the first one to come to me and say do you want to play? She is kind and caring and a fabelus friend. I am going to miss her as a sister an a couson. She always cares about me and I care about her a lot too. Maybe on Sunday I will go with her to the airport and say goodbye to her. I just can’t wait to go to Iran too and someday I may see Heddie in stores or outside in the park. When she goes to Iran she’ll bring me a note so I could know her address so 67

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then I could give her notes too. I hope she has a safe and a wonderful fly. Have fun in Iran Heddie. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, April 1995) While Heddie’s early texts reveal a strong identification with North American artifacts such as videos and stories she is encountering and reading, Sadda’s early texts frequently include little memories about the significant objects or events she misses such as her dog, her lamps (lambs), her grandparents’ store in Iran and her grandmother reading stories. The First Night of Winter We celebrate the first night of winter. Every family gets a watermelon, dried nuts, pomergranate, cookies and some more things. Every family stays until mid night. I like celebrating the first night of winter. It is fun. In the first night of winter all the grandmothers reads us a story. I like the first night of winter. I like the games that we play in the first night of winter. And thats the way we celebrate the first night of winter. (Sadda, assigned writing for Grade 3 English teacher, November 1994) She picks up on these topics and writes little retrospective accounts as illustrated in these journal excerpts. Recounting a recent Visit to Iran In Iran I have a dog. My dog doesn’t have a name. In Iran I have lots of lamps. I don’t let my dog and my lamb stay in my house. At my house I have a yard. I made a home for my dog and my lamp. My dog pretexts my lamps. At night when we are sleeping some strangers came and stoled some things, but my dog pretexts the lamps By by (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, October 1994) A Memory of living there My grandfather has a store in Iran. In his store he has books, cheese, gums, cakes and some more things. When I was in Iran I went to my grandfather’s store with my sister and got cakes and some more tings. My grandfather has a lot of things in his store. My grandfather’s stores is a little old and he is going to get a new store. This year when I went to Iran my granfather was changing his store. My grand fathers new store is nice. I like my grandfather’s new store. May my father could get a store too. By by (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, October 1994) 68

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There is a sense of back and forth movement in Sadda’s social worlds. She alternates between culturally positioning herself living in Iran and living in Canada. The next excerpts include announcements of current events, evaluative comments about the social practices she is experiencing at school or roles she is being asked to assume (e.g., watching a play in English or being captain of her group in French). In drama On Wednesday we went to drama. The play was very good. I remember when the man saw the girl’s face and it was ugly but the man loved the girl form the inside and not from the outside. I like Heddie from the inside but not on the outside and I like someone that I don’t like from the inside but in the outside like Amanda. I saw my drama teachers at the play. It was a little scary when the two lions or tigers were roring. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, December 1994) In French In french madame Joseph picked captains in each group. I’m the captain of my group and Heddie is a captain for her group and so do Nellie, Hiran, Illya and Peter Lee. In my group I have Christian, Andy and Martin. When we are the captain of our group we have to pass out the bok and kelected them. We have to do lot of things when we are the captain of our group. Like, we have to tell the kids in our group to be quiet when the teacher is talking and we have to make the desks straight and when we have noting to do in our class we could talk to the kids in our group and we can do some activities in the group. But when we want to talk to our group we have to whisper. If we do all these things we will get a surprise tomorrow. After every week the captains will change. The end. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, December 1994) Sadda attempts to accomplish what she values as important. Excelling in school is one of those things, especially with respect to the Iranian curriculum that she is studying simultaneously at home. In Sadda’s world everyone (including all the members of her family) goes to school and takes it seriously. She recalls when she ‘used to go to school where everyone had to sit in the big long seat. I was beside my best friend and I was beside another girl. We weren’t aloud to speak to boys. In fact boys and girls had separate schools.’ It is not clear whether her textual productivity is motivated by her pleasure in writing, or from her concern for doing well and appropriating adult expectations into her acts of meaning. For example, in one entry she writes about a journal contest at school and is very aware of how many pages she has written over a four month period (‘I have 54!’). This goal of doing well might be what motivates her to evaluate other types of performances such as the school play, guest dramatic 69

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presentations, concerts and her responsibilities. She does not simply describe what she likes, but also tries to consider where the performance was strong or lacking, what she and the collective group can and should do, and what possibilities exist for engaging in social interactions and activities. Like Heddie, she writes and talks about her ‘learning in Persian’ and ‘getting the 20s’: ‘I do homework in Persian, Science, Religion, Math and another one. Soon I will take a test and if I get a 20 I will pass. I don’t know what I will get, I hope I pass. Before I have had 20s but I don’t know this time.’ Sadda’s mother assumes most of the responsibility for the home teaching. She explained that Sadda had ‘a very difficult time for the first two months especially because she couldn’t speak English. She complained some mornings: I have a stomach ache and I don’t want to go to school. After three months, she really liked her school and every morning she woke up one hour before and anxious to go to school.’ Her mother seemed more accepting of her own situation and familial responsibilities during these months. She explains: The first year I was a little homesick. I was home all the time. He was very busy. He wasn’t homesick. It’s normal men are very busy. They don’t know about our problems. I was alone with the children during the year. (Sadda’s mother, home interview with Sadda’s parents, June 1995) Although Sadda writes about the people and things she misses in Iran, her mother does not dwell much on ‘adjusting to coming here’. She even jokes about some cultural misunderstandings related to their eating habits: ‘We don’t eat pork. I ate pepperoni and only realized after.’ She first started teaching herself English and then went to school after eight months. There, she reports finding a new social network of women with whom she has something in common—taking English classes: ‘I made a lot of friends, Chinese, Japanese, French too.’ Despite her lack of English she says she felt confident negotiating the shops after two months, although less so in making home and school links with Sadda’s teachers: I could find my way. You don’t need to speak English too much to shop. You just take what you want. Put it in cart and go there [cash]…I can handle my problems like when I go to doctors. (Sadda’s mother, home interview with Sadda’s parents, June 1995) The first year was difficult because I couldn’t go to Sadda’s school and talk with her teacher. The first year he mostly went. After two years we went together. Last year I went by myself. (Sadda’s mother, home interview with Sadda’s parents, June 1995) Sadda’s mother did not seem at ease in our initial conversations with the family. Her husband dominated most of the conversation at the beginning with his own field of knowledge, epidemiology and interest in causality. He was quite explicit 70

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in articulating his beliefs, discussing the social practices they encourage at home and multiculturalism: We are Muslim so I teach her what we believe. French instruction is not as good as English. Kids can learn many languages at the same time. This is a great opportunity for kids. Canada accepts a variety of multiculturals so living here, coming here is not so hard in terms of cultural conditions. (Sadda’s father, home interview with Sadda’s parents, June 1995) Like Heddie, Sadda identifies strongly with the intertwined Iranian/Muslim tradition of ‘wearing the scarf. My country Iran I like my country a lot. In my country people are all muslim. But some of the muslims in my country are liying to us and their just saying that they are muslims but they really aren’t. In our country people wear a cloth named choder. Choder is a thing that your whole body gets covered. My country is on the other side of the word. In my country, my granfather has a store. His store is next to his house. Iranian people pray five times a day. I pray 5 times a day too. Women and girls pray with choder. But man and boys pray without a choder. In Canada, Canadian muslims don’t wear a choder. But they wear a coat name monto in my language. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, October 1994) Her mother says, ‘I never taught her to read the Koran or wear the scarf. She want to read the Koran and wear the scarf. She and Heddie talk about wearing the scarf. She will decide. I feel comfortable when I wear scarf. Sometimes it’s not only religion. It’s tradition.’ Sadda says she doesn’t write in Arabic but she can say her prayers in Arabic. According to her mother, ‘that’s all she needs to know’ but ‘because of Heddie’s influence she has started writing stories in Persian.’ Sadda’s parents believe that she will have to catch up in terms of math and science when they return to Iran. While Mr Hujaini is generally pleased with Bridgview, he ‘expected that the kids would learn more math and computers’. Her mother feels ‘her math and problem solving ability in Persian is the same as it would be when going there [in Iran].’ They think ‘Iranian schooling is more classical, it’s more regulated and (they) will follow the books when living there.’ They plan to speak English at home when they return ‘because she will learn Persian all day in school’. They are pleased she is learning French although ‘we don’t have French in Iran’. Sadda’s first opportunity to write connected discourse in French was in Grade 3, although even this French teacher provided few invitations. Like the other French teachers in the larger study, they invested most of the children’s school time in work sheets and practice exercises. Mme J allows the children to 71

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write in a journal ‘Ma Liberti’ and to code switch into English when they are stuck. This is a strategy Sadda used a lot, Emma used at the beginning and then abandoned and that Heddie never used. In spite of Sadda’s limited French, we see similarities between her French texts and English texts, such as her tendency to locate the reader in the text through her use of specific time markers and her evaluative comments on films or performances she has observed. La pransess de I’Halloween Moi j’aime un pranses. Moi je un pransess. Moi j’aime la I’Halloween. Moi jaime le bon bon. Le custume le beau. L’Halloween is moi le fevorite day. Le fanteau et scary. Lundi et I’Halloween. ovwa [au revoir is a ritualistic expression her teacher uses in saying goodbye to the children at the end of a French class] (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 French teacher, October 1994) Ce que j’aim aime et pas aime de film ‘La guerre de tuques’ Le film se beau. Mo not j’aime la gareau et fee le kiss. Moi ji’aime la tue de film except mo not jaime la garsea et fee kiss (ovwa) (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 French teacher, 1994) This is a glimpse of her aspirations to be a doctor. She identifies herself in one entry as ‘docteur Erfana Hajaini, Doctuer de coeur’ and titles the piece Ma future profession. Ca je se grand mot un docter. Moe j’aime un coeur docer pas come grand couson le coeur docer too. et moi ja’aime un coeur doctor too. Moi, j’aime to rescu un person et la malade. ovwa Sadda’s parents feel that when they return that ‘she will measure up’. Her mother explains: ‘When we returned to Iran last year to visit family, Sadda attended an Iranian school for two weeks. Everyone was surprised because she was in an English school with English people. It should be very difficult. She was happy. Her teacher told me she is doing better than some of her students in Persian. She had a very good mark.’ There is a competitive edge that runs through Sadda’s texts and her interviews that does not seem apparent in Heddie. In the next entry, she signals to her teacher that she is doing two journals as well as her responsibility to do well on the Iranian tests. Exams My exams were kind of easy. The first day I had math, drawing and cursive. The second day I had reading and Science. The third day I had dectation and joural and the fourth day I had questions form a book that tells about our culture. After my exames I always wished to have good marks, and I did. I got all of my works excellent and I was in top of everybody. From now on. I do more reading and log at home 72

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because I don’t have Iranian homework. I am so happy that my tests are over. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, May 1995) The Ice Cream Sale I am so excited about the ice cream sale. Its going to be on Thursday May 25, 1995 and the prices is one dollar. We made posters for the ice cream sale and I was chosen. Good luke that my tests in Iranian are not on that day and the day for the Canadian village. But I can’t come on the trip that is on May 31. Because my tests start on May 30 and I can’t come for the parents night. I wish my tests finish fast so I could come back to my school and from that day to summer I just have English homework. My sister is going to by ice cream. She is in kindergarten, End. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, May 1995) In Sadda’s last journal entries of the 1995 school year, Emma becomes the central focus—signalling the transient nature of these girls’ social network of friends and their continual renegotiation of new friendships and relationships. On Saturday at five o’clock Emma came to my house. We had lots of fun. We played lots and lots of games. First we played a game, that Emma was the mother and my sister, Emma’s sister and I were her children. After we played puzzles and then we watched some cartoons that we taped in our video. Then I showed Emma my piano and we played it, turn by turn. It was fun and that’s what we did when Emma and her sister Nurie came to my house. (Sadda, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, June 1995)

Emma and Her Family: Living Here and Teaching There A sense of calmness and playfulness are the most salient features of Emma’s demeanor and approach to literacy. The smallest of the three girls, she appears very self-confident, rather serious and seldom smiles. Her seemingly quiet demeanor can be deceptive. When invited to do so, she readily contributes her ideas but she accomplishes this rather calmly and unobtrusively. Her father explains that this quietism is cultural: ‘In Indonesia, it is impolite to talk out. To keep quiet is good.’ Although she seldom writes about her Indonesian culture or Muslim holidays, many of her texts, which are always very neat, are about ‘living and playing here’ as illustrated in Figure 3.3 Mary Goes to School. In contrast to the strong emotional presence Heddie establishes in her interviews and journals, and the explicit concern about achievement that Sadda expresses, Emma’s voice is more distant and subdued. While her father 73

Figure 3.3: Emma’s story of ‘Mary goes to School’

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maintains that it is the Indonesian custom to speak five or six languages, Emma maintains that she ‘doesn’t speak much Indonesian now, doesn’t read or write Arabic but does okay in French’. Her father explained the contradiction this way: We speak Javanese and Indonesian. Emma was born in Java and Javanese was actually her first language. In kindergarten, she started learning Indonesian, the national language. Since arriving in Montreal, we try to speak English at home. Now that she does so well in English we will begin teaching her in Indonesian and will take classes in the summer so we’re starting to think again about giving the Indonesian and the Javanese. (Emma’s father, home interview with Emma’s parents, June 1995) Considering that Emma has been at Bridgeview for only two years, she demonstrates a remarkable facility in English and French. Within one year she abandoned the strategy of using English words in French classes to push her meaning along. She seemed less concerned about the lack of social harmony between the teacher and the children in Grade 3 French class although certainly well aware of the norms and expectations: ‘There are stations in French class now. There is games, reading and art. We can choose if we are good. I don’t think we get to do that today because some people are not good.’ Unlike Heddie who attritubes this problem of disruptive social behavior to a core of little bad boys’, Emma distances herself from the problem and calmly goes about her work. Many of her French journal entries contain positive comments from her teacher about her quiet and gentle demeanor: Ton travail et toujours aussi beau aet propre. Tu est douce et gentille.’ The dominant impression that emerges is an inner and outer smoothness in her approach to school and her sense of being. Although quiet, she appears very self-confident and in charge, even asking her teacher about promised upcoming activities: ‘When are we going to work on that?’ While she occasionally mentions her teachers by name, she never explicitly invokes them as an audience like Heddie and Sadda do. Emma feels she holds a prominent position in her family as she recounts many outings with her ‘dad for walks, to his university office and to the library while [her] sister stays home with [her] mother’. Emma’s father, a graduate student in Islamic studies, notes that he and his wife were teachers in Indonesian: We’ve had experience in how to teach kids. I always give a story…It’s easier to understand. Even for adults story is easy. We have stories in Indonesia about the Lost Generation. They know about these stories in Indonesian. So we try to explain in English so they got the meaning and now they got the meaning by using another language. I give another story. I give the real fact of the really daily life here which is different, like how to dress, how to eat, the food. They know because I bring them 75

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sometime to restaurant, I bring to library and I bring to school. (Emma’s father, home interview with Emma’s parents, June 1995) Emma’s father teaches her history, math, science in Indonesian, Indonesian language and a subject called religion and ideology that Emma describes as ‘a story about morals and values’. Friday evenings is their ritual time for the cultural practice of reading the Koran together. Her father says that he ‘didn’t come here just to study but to learn how to live. I try to give experiences to my kid.’ He believes that the Indonesian school system puts too much emphasis on memorization. He wants to focus on ‘applying what he has learned about living here to teaching there. From my own experiences of schooling here and there, they only teach students to only memorize, not to think’. In contrast with Heddie’s and Sadda’s parents, who are concerned about re-entry to the Iranian school and conforming to the expectations and norms of the Iranian school system, Emma’s father wants to make major policy changes in the Indonesian school system. ‘I would give suggestion to my own country, to analyse it takes time. I try to bring this idea to my country—to my Indonesian friends. What I’m trying to do here with my kids is to teach them to analyse, teach them to think.’ Similar to Heddie and Sadda, Emma writes about when she, her parents and her one-and-half-year-old sister arrived in Canada knowing little English: ‘When I got there my mother, my sister and I didn’t know how to spick English. I knew how to spick English a little bit. I could say yes, no, how are are you and fine. Now I could speak English Because I went to Bridgeview.’ Emma made remarkable progress within the first year. She feels she is ‘pretty good in French’. This is a change from her first two weeks at Bridgeview when, her mother reports she would cry, ‘No, No, I don’t want to go to English school’. Their greatest adjustment to settling here related to differences in food tastes and smells rather than climate and language differences. Her mother explains: ‘I order the spices I need like the soya sauce, special bay leaves and chilli from a special store in Toronto. Now we are accustomed to eat pizza in restaurant.’ Emma’s father recalls arriving at Mirabel airport and being given a baguette and orange juice by his hosts: ‘It was funny for us. We don’t drink orange juice for breakfast. We didn’t like the bread.’ In some of her entries, Emma writes about her own experiences with North American food and eating rituals. About Cereal I like cereal, when I went home from school, I ate, some cereal. There are lots of different kinds of cereal, some of them are colored and some of them are not. Some of them are sweet and some of then are not. My favorite cereal is Kellog’s Special K and Fruit Fibre. Most people in Canada eat their cereal for breakfast. You could make something like a cake and its made out of a cereal named Kellog’s Rice Krispies. (Emma, journal for Grade 3 English teacher, September 1994) 76

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Emma defines herself in terms of her abilities, the things she does well, her personality and her interests such as riding her bicycle and collecting stickers. How I see myself I see myself good at some sports I see myself a little shy I see myself as a kind person I see myself a person who like to read I see myself as good in cursive I see myself as a person who likes to sing. (Emma, language exercise book for Grade 3 English teacher, January 1995) In her French journal, she writes ‘Mon pere est model pour moi parceque il study’. In contrast to Sadda who evaluates the situations, people and objects she encounters, Emma presents herself as one who likes to categorize her world. Her general strategy is to list and repeat. For example, ‘I like x’ will then be decomposed into as many instances of ‘x’ as she can manage. She attempts to do the same in French: ‘In autonme, the leaves turn brun, or rough et orange et jaune and a little bit of jaune.’ There are many examples of her strategy of listing objects, events, people, favorite colors (red, pink, yellow, purple), favorite toys (barbies, teddy bears), favourite dolls and videos she has watched (Beauty and the Beast, Free Willy, The Lion King, Snow White). She presents her English teacher with an inventory of all the stories she has read and written by mid-year. Emma claims that she is an avid reader and likes to read because reading makes me smart’. She rarely talks or writes about Indonesia, the Muslim holidays and never refers to wearing the Chador. Her French entries are attempts to comply with her teacher’s norms and expectations: ‘Comment repecter les reglements. J’ai leve ma main pour pare. J’aie reste assis. J’ai ecoute dan las classe. J’ai est gentil. J’aime les reglements.’ Of the three children, she is the most comfortable transforming a teacher assigned writing task with her own textual imprint and literacy configurations. For example, in a story she writes about a poor family, she adapts the conventional ending of a story: ‘And they didn’t get poor after all.’ She demonstrates remarkable skill as a second language learner in using reported speech and appropriating the language of story characters she has read about. She takes on different personas and is quite skillful in picking up local idioms and using them appropriately. While Heddie and Sadda seemed more constrained by teacher assigned writing tasks, Emma’s playful persona and curiosity emerge in these narratives, such as the next text. The Three Angels [Teacher assigned task to write a story] Once upon a time there were 3 angels. They were magic. They flew around Florida. One day a boy named Tom went to Disneyland with her 77

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mother and father and his little sister name Jane. The angels followed were ever they went. One of the angels who was smart said, ‘I think we should given them something they really want’ she said. ‘Maybe we should give them a car’ said the other angel who gives ideas. ‘I think that’s a great idea but we have to pretend that we are selling cars and we have to pretend that we have one car that is free’ said the angel who was wise. So the angels told the family that they want to sell a free car to them. Tom and Jane and their mother and father were very happy but they didn’t know that the sellers were angels. This family were so happy that they gave the angels jewelleries. The angels flew to the sky and were very happy. (Emma, assigned story writing for Grade 3 English teacher, October 1994) In contrast to Heddie and Sadda who seem to identify with their mothers, Emma appears to identify with her father’s role as a professor and with his emphasis on learning as illustrated in the following excerpt. Ma Future Profession Can je suis et gran je veait un docteru au un professeur. Je ve ait un docteeru parceque un docteur ede un person qui malard. Je vit ait un professeur pacreque un professuer ede people learn. (Emma, journal for Grade 3 French teacher, March 1995)

Shared and Negotiated: Respecting Children’s Voices Heddie, Sadda and Emma are aware of the evaluative contexts and intersubjective nature of their language and learning. Their literate actions are situationally defined, shared and negotiated in and across the events and lived experiences in their classrooms, families and communities. Their acts of meaning are relative to their individual ways of negotiating different social contexts of value (Bakhtin, 1976). Heddie announces herself, Sadda reflects on her situations and Emma presents an inner and outer smoothness. Their different presentational styles include the relationships they construct, and perceive they are allowed to construct through their social interactions between and among themselves and significant others. The opportunities their parents and teachers provide for accessing and engaging with authentic literacy practices both shape their discourse choices and complicate its expression. While journals functioned as venues for Heddie and Sadda to express themselves, teacher assigned stories allowed Emma to assume different personas and authorial narrative stances. This chapter has attempted to show the complexity in understanding three Muslim girls’ subjectivities, their textual representations of their lived situations, the tensions between their individual and social agendas and how their cultural identities are negotiated in daily lived experiences. All three families have a number of things in common. They all have Muslim, school oriented parents 78

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with high aspirations for their children whom they see as high achievers. While these girls share these contexts of values, their texts and conversations reflect their individual perspectives and perceptions of what is significant and can be negotiated in the world in these different social situations. Their language learning and social worlds are inextricably intertwined. As language learners, they are organizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to various social orders. Through language they negotiate a sense of self within and across different situations and at different points in time. The shared and negotiated territories in which their reading, writing, and language use dwell vary; thus, they participate in and represent the making of meaning in different ways. Their sharing and negotiating suggest varied cultural terrains for exploring the cultural locatedness of minority language children’s identities and voices and for understanding their acts of meaning. Through conversation, then, bilingual children make sense of their world in its many forms and contexts and, through conversation with researchers, convey this social-cultural understanding to others.

Acknowledgment I appreciate the sensitivity and understanding of Alicia Romero, research assistant and graduate student in the Department of Second Language Education who conducted the majority of the home visits and established excellent cultural dialogues with the families. I also appreciate the insights of Barbara Graves, a PhD student, for her careful analysis of the children’s written texts.

Note 1

The larger study is supported by funds from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 410–92–0597—Biliteracy Development and School Success of Minority Language Children in Different Bilingual Programs in Ottawa and Montreal—Maguire, Pringle and Taaffe). It includes participant observations over three years in English and French classrooms, interviews with children, teachers, parents and principals in four different schools and analysis of children’s written texts.

References BAKHTIN, M.M. (1976) Speech Genres & Other Late Essays (Emerson, C. and Holquist, M. (ed.), Trans. by V.W.McGee) Austin, University of Texas Press. BRUNER, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press . DYSON, A.H. (1989) Multiple Worlds of Child Writers: Friends Learning to Write, New York, NY, Teachers College Press.

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Mary Maguire HALLIDAY, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, Baltimore, MD, University Park Press. HEATH, S.B. (1983) Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University Press. HIMLEY, M. (1991) Shared Territory: Understanding Children’s Writing as Works, New York, NY, Oxford University Press. HOFFMAN, D.M. (1989) ‘Language and culture acquisition among Iranians in the United States, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 20, pp. 118–31. MAGUIRE, M.H. (1994) ‘Cultural stances of two Quebec bilingual children informing storytelling’, Comparative Education Review, 38, 1, pp. 115–44. MAGUIRE, M.H. (1995) ‘The intersection of cultures, languages, classrooms and communities’, in CAKIMAK, S. and COMBER, B. (eds) Inquiry into What? Empowering Today’s Youngsters and Tomorrow’s Citizens, Urbana, III, National Council of Teachers of English. MILROY, L. (1980) Language and Social Networks, New York, Blackwell. MOLL, L.C. (1990) (ed.) Vygotsky and Education. Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociohistorical Psychology, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press. Vygotsky, L.V. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

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‘At Least They Were Laughing’: Assessment and the Functions of Children’s Language in Their ‘News’ Session Ann Filer

Introduction But [people] do more than understand each other, in the sense of exchanging information…By their everyday acts of meaning, people act out the social structure, affirming their own statuses and roles, and establishing and transmitting the shared systems of values and of knowledge. (Halliday, 1978, p. 2) The ‘news’ session in its various forms, whereby pupils show objects and tell the class about their out of school interests, events and activities is a ubiquitous feature of English primary schools. Pupil ownership of a non-curricular content has meant that it has been used widely in developing the confidence of pupils in their first few years of schooling in speaking before an audience of peers and their teacher, in listening and in asking and answering questions. With the advent of the National Curriculum in England and Wales and its associated assessment procedures (Department of Education and Science, 1989), the news session is, for the same reasons, now widely used in the assessment of young pupils’ speaking and listening skills. Indeed, informal observations indicate that, with the advent of assessment procedures in primary schools, variations on the news session are increasingly used for older pupils than has formerly been the case. In this chapter I show pupils, in their news sessions, doing as Halliday suggests. If pupils are being assessed on their ability to ‘exchange information’ in this context, then they are also, at the same time, being assessed on the way in which they act out the social structure with respect to statuses, roles, shared values and knowledge. I further argue that the National Curriculum attainment target of ‘speaking and listening’ (Department for Education, 1994) is based on a model of language broadly aligned to a ‘communicative competence’ model of language as envisaged by Hymes (1971). As such it is based on a theory of language as knowledge in the head of the subject. It takes, that is, what Halliday (1978) terms an intraorganism perspective. 81

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This analysis of the classroom language of Year 3 pupils in an English primary school uses an alternative model of language. It takes an interorganism perspective of language as opposed to an intra-organism perspective (Halliday, 1978). Such a model is semantically based and sees utterances as ‘actions which are performed with language’ (Stubbs, 1986, p. 145). It is, in other words, a model based on meaning and function. Using Halliday’s model, therefore, I examine pupils’ meanings in the context of the Monday morning news session together with the meanings they attributed to other pupils’ news. I show through this analysis that a pupil’s ‘purpose’ vis-a-vis an audience of peers in a classroom go beyond the requirements of the task as envisaged by the National Curriculum attainment target of ‘speaking and listening’. I also make an examination of pupils’ differentiated experience of the news session using Halliday’s (1978) notion of language as a series of options in the semantic field, and through the conditions governing pupils’ access to those options. This study represents a small part of a longitudinal ethnography of teacher assessment of pupils in an English primary school in the early 1990s and is supported by a more detailed analysis in my PhD thesis (Filer, 1993a). The cohort was a Year 3 class of twenty-eight white, predominantly working-class pupils whom, at the time of this study, I had then, in the early 1990s, been tracking for nearly three years. They were now 7 to 8years-old.

Context and Theoretical Background The Classroom Context On Monday mornings, with all pupils sitting on the carpet, those who wished to tell news, and this was the majority of them, took it in turns to tell. Their teacher, Jenny Luke, expected that they should do so with minimum prompting or questioning from her. There was no selection by Ms Luke of the knowledge content in a news item to be focused on, for example, by means of questions put to the listening class by her. As I shall show, though, this does not mean that pupils were not aware of teacher preferences for certain sorts of news. However, on the basis of research evidence (Lees, 1981; Wood and Wood, 1983; Labov, Cohen, Robins and Lewis, 1968) and on the basis of earlier research with this cohort (Filer, 1993b), a situation in which the teacher is less controlling and in which there is increased personal involvement in the topic on the part of pupils provides a context in which pupils will talk more and with greater complexity. Within the limitations that pertain to any whole class activity, therefore, the Year 3 news sessions as conducted by Ms Luke would seem to be likely to provide good conditions for assessing pupils’ language. 82

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Where, in the following, I make reference to pupils’ friendships and general classroom status vis-a-vis their peers, this is derived from sociometric questioning, interviews and observations and is supported by my knowledge of the children developed over three years prior to the events (Filer, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c) and my continuing knowledge of them through their primary years (Filer with Pollard, forthcoming).

Two Models of Language Speaking and listening and ‘communicative competence’ The history of the term ‘communicative competence’ is complex, involving diverse but often interrelated schools of linguistic and sociolinguistic thought. A brief outline of the history of the term could start with Hymes (1971) who adopted it from Chomsky (1965) in order to describe the tacit knowledge that underlies linguistic behaviour. Hymes stressed a broader application of the term than Chomsky however, who described such competence in terms of linguistic knowledge only. Hymes described it in terms of the knowledge of social conventions of language use in terms of what to say, when to say it, to whom, in what manner, etc. Such a model of language competence, broadly based on the Hymes (1971) model, I would argue, represents a model for the teaching and assessment of ‘speaking and listening’ in the National Curriculum. The National Curriculum relating to Key Stages 1 to 4 describes the requirements for the teaching of ‘speaking and listening’ in the following terms: To develop effective speaking and listening pupils should be taught to: • • •

use the vocabulary and grammar of Standard English; formulate, clarify and express their ideas; adapt their speech to a widening range of circumstances and demands; • listen, understand and respond appropriately to others. (Department for Education, 1994) National Curriculum Levels 2 and 3 are considered appropriate for primary pupils of the age and attainment of the cohort in question. When we move on to the specific attainment targets against which pupils will be assessed, therefore, we find that for Level 2, reflecting the above requirements, reference is made to the need to ‘show awareness of the needs of the listener’ and to ‘respond with increasing appropriateness to what others say’. For assessment at Level 3, pupils should ‘begin to adapt what they say to the needs of the listener, varying the use of vocabulary and the level of detail’. We can clearly see the roots of these aims in the Hymes model outlined above. We can see it in notions of ‘adaptation’, of ‘circumstances and demands’, in 83

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‘appropriateness’ and in ‘the needs of the listener’. Notwithstanding requirements to listen, it is, I would argue, above all, a one-way performance model of language whereby what is at stake is the development of an ideal, disengaged and efficacious speaker able to match speech to audience and to the purposes of the task in hand. Whilst theories of communicative competence may incorporate factors such as social situations and social roles of subjects, they are, essentially, about knowledge carried in the head of subjects. They take what Halliday (1978) describes as an intra-organism perspective on language. An intra-organism perspective is a biological/psychological perspective whereby language is viewed in terms of internal mechanisms and capacities. Though it is recognized that language takes place in a social context, questions concerning, for example, how individuals know how to behave linguistically in certain contexts are viewed from inside the head, looking out at the social. An alternative way of viewing language is to see it from an inter-organism perspective. An alternative model of language If Hymes and intra-organism perspectives are representative of a theoretical understanding of language described broadly in terms of knowledge of situation and conventions, then Halliday and inter-organism perspectives are representative of an understanding of language in terms of meaning and function in a social system. From an inter-organism perspective, language is viewed as a resource in which, rather than competencies, there are interconnected choices, with conditions in the social sphere governing access to those choices. Whereas in an intra-organism model of language, speech and the situation in which speech takes place are conceptually divisible, in the inter-organism model, language is inseparable from its social setting and language and society are inextricably bound together in ‘meaning’. For Halliday there are a limited number of meanings available in any given social situation. The available meanings constitute the ‘meaning potential’. What one ‘can mean’ in a social situation equals what one ‘can do’ (1978, p. 27). Hence an inter-organism perspective is concerned with function in the social system; what one ‘can do’ functionally in a situation being realized linguistically through the series of options available in that situation. People in interaction are therefore for Halliday making choices in the environment of other choices, and, because not all meanings are available to them, different social groups will have differential access and orientation to these options.

The News Session—Pupils’ Perspectives What follows is an analysis of two rounds of interviews, though primarily it relates to the second of these. Both rounds were conducted with individual pupils, the first with six pupils, the second across the whole cohort. The 84

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interviews were semi-structured and designed with the aim of investigating Halliday’s notion of options in the semantic field. I wanted to begin to establish what, in Halliday’s terms, the ‘meaning potential’ was in the news sessions; that is, what constituted the range of possibilities for what pupils could be meaning/doing in those sessions. The first round of interviews were exploratory in nature and carried out in depth and they began to alert me to the presence of something that looked like Halliday’s options. These options, in the context of the news sessions seemed to be concerned with what pupils were meaning/doing vis-a-vis their peers as well as in relation to the official agenda. For example, Peter was discussing his Grandma’s stroke with me and he told me that he would not talk about this in news time. He told me that, ‘The problem is the teacher.’ Peter’s mother had told Ms Luke about the stroke, he said, and: She keeps asking questions and everybody keeps asking questions and gathers round…I don’t mind one or two people that I can trust asking about it, like on the way home or whispering in the playground. (Peter) Peter was, of all the children, perhaps one of the most sensitive to different speaking and listening contexts. It was, for example, two years after his entry to school before he was happy to volunteer a question or comment in a whole class situation. Martin, on the other hand, was one of the highest achievers in the class, and certainly so with respect to spoken language skills. He, for example, was the child that each teacher most often sent around the school with messages, and he always commanded high status with his peers. Yet, he too felt at least some circumspection concerning the content of his news. He told me: Sometime I worry that other children will think that the things I have done are babyish. (Martin) It was responses such as these, in the first round of interviews, which told me that some pupils at least were having to consider the content of their newstelling in the light of peer responses. The responses suggested where, in the news session, I might locate Halliday’s options. The next set of interviews, those conducted with each child in the class were, designed to clarify and elaborate the notion of options. That is, I was wishing to explore Halliday’s ‘meaning potential’: what a pupil ‘can mean’ or ‘can do’ in the social situation of the news session. A range of criteria by which pupils evaluated the news of their peers was identified, together with the sorts of news content that fulfilled these criteria. The range of meanings that attached to these categories of news-telling represent Halliday’s ‘meaning potential’ within which there are options. The use of the word ‘options’ does not of course mean that individual pupils will have access to the full range of identified meanings. It became clear that most pupils’ news, as reported by peers, fell into one category or another in the range, though some pupils were able to move between two or 85

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three categories. As will become clear in the analysis, though, the nature of the news categories and their relative statuses meant that most children were constrained by social factors and classroom identities that prohibited, or at least inhibited, the use of the full range of categories. As Halliday suggests to be the case, access to options in a field will depend on the social groups to which children belong. Children’s evaluation of the content of the news of their peers fell into two main categories. These two main categories are what I have called special events and common events. The notion of special and common are constructs that I arrived at through analysis of pupils’ accounts of what constituted ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ telling of news. Special events refers to those outings, treats, purchases, etc., which to a greater or lesser extent fell outside the routine experiences of the children’s lives. Common events, on the other hand, were the routines of, for example, family life and out of school play that all the children were familiar with, together with the ordinary outings, purchases, etc., that most experienced as a matter of course. Both special and common can be further analysed to cover all other examples of news cited by the children. Thus further categories will be derived from this main distinction. In the following analysis I have only used data that refers explicitly to the content of news. Comments such as ‘interesting’, ‘exciting’ or ‘boring’, which could refer to the process or to content, I have excluded. Making a distinction between their teacher’s views and their own, I asked the children to nominate pupils who they thought were good and pupils who they thought were not so good at telling news and to give the reasons for their choices. They were also asked about the content of their own news and how ‘good’ or ‘not so good’ theirs could be. Children were allowed to nominate as many children as they wished as either good or not so good news tellers. Twenty-six children were interviewed. Ten children explicitly made the sort of distinction between special and common events that I have outlined. The following will help to elucidate the two main categories (or options) in news telling. David nominated six pupils as being good at news telling because: They go to interesting places. Peter nominated three pupils because: They always seem to say exciting things…‘Cos they, like instead of saying like ‘I called at Stuart’s house’—I’m only making this up—they say like ‘I had a barbecue’ and they tell you what they had. Peter went on to cite one boy who did not tell good news: Well the problem is he says things that everyone’s done like ‘I went to the zoo’. 86

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We see in Peter’s explanation that positive evaluation of the news of peers is about novelty value. Similarly, Nicola explains: Well, say someone said they went to a safari park, that would be interesting. But if they said they went out on their skateboard, that’s boring. In a similar way, Nicola explained: Susan’s is a bit boring sometimes. The other day she was on about getting new trainers. Ricky came in for criticism from several peers for being boring. Bobby for instance said scathingly that: He talks about pencils and crayons for news. This notion that some items are invalid as news can also be seen in Tina’s criticism of Louise: She doesn’t really tell news. She just says things like ‘I went on my bike’. Things like that. Altogether, fifteen children, just over half the class, were cited as telling news that was good because it was interesting in these sorts of ways. To confine ourselves to the above ten children who explicitly differentiated between what I have conceptualized as special and ordinary events, those children cited between them eleven children as telling of special events. As these ten children each cited between three and six pupils as telling this sort of news this suggested a strong consistency of opinion regarding who told of special events. Three of the eleven pupils cited were cited differently by other children, which might suggest that they also had access to other options. Although, clearly, there was status in the telling of special events, the children who did so, did not necessarily escape criticism. Six children make negative comments about the news of individual children in this category. Martin’s news, for example, was generally highly rated for interest and excitement, having more positive mentions in this way than anyone else in the class. Martin was one of several boys involved in organized out of school sport. He sometimes told about his weekend football matches and clearly this was not of such universal popularity as, say, a visit to Alton Towers might be. Robert rated Martin’s news as: Boring, because he always tells about football results. Nicola similarly rated Martin’s football stories as ‘Boring’. 87

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Children whose socio-economic circumstances allowed them access to the higher status of the telling of special events were in line for a different sort of criticism, as well as that related to the personal interests of listeners. They could be accused of ‘showing off. David, a close friend of Martin and also highly rated as a teller of special events, was accused of showing off by Graham and also by Nathan: AF: Nathan: AF: Nathan:

Who do you think does not tell news so well? David. He shows off. Shows off? In what way? He takes his Grandma’s dog for a walk. He shows off. He says ‘I went to a party.’ He walks down the road real cool…He’s a show off.

Concern about consequences could, in this way, cut across and reduce options to which pupils’ socio-economic status otherwise gave them access. Peter’s news, for example, was rated highly by the above ‘cool’ David, himself a teller of special events, because: Peter always goes to interesting places. Robert, on the other hand, rated Peter negatively as ‘showing off. He complained: He [Peter] always goes swimming and tennis and telling what he’s got. High status David, who rated Peter’s news highly, was not, however, a friend of Peter’s. Peter was a somewhat marginalized, low status child among his peers. He was in the same loosely structured friendship group of low status, fairly low achieving boys as Robert, his critic here. Though usually rejected by Robert, Peter always vied for his friendship with another in the group. For reasons to do with sensitivity to criticism and the maintenance of friendship, therefore, Peter was learning to be circumspect in selecting his news. He told me: I say things that people are not going to go on about. Like I said about my bed [Peter had been telling me about his new cabin bed] but they did, like, ‘Can I come over your house? Can I come over your house?’ Nathan or Bobby or John get jealous and say things to my friends like ‘You don’t want to go over his house’ and say what better things they have got. Thus Peter was prepared to forgo some measure of status, that the socioeconomic circumstances of his home life gave him access to, in favour of the much needed support and friendship of some of his low status peers. One option apparently open to those who aspired to the status of telling of special events was to lie. Three boys between them accused seven others of 88

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lying. Stuart told me: They tell things that they haven’t been on and that. They just wish they had. Every bit of news Thomas tells is lying because he lives next door to me and he’s always in and he can’t go to the places he says he goes to. Nathan was quite confident that he could detect a lie. He told me: If they say it in a certain sort of way you know they’re lying. Another option to avoid the label of being boring, cited by several children, was to say nothing. Sally was a child who was cited by her peers as going to interesting places and she said of herself that she went to exciting places and told exciting news. I asked her if she had ever done it ‘not so well’. She told me she hadn’t because: If my stuff is boring I don’t say anything otherwise they will think ‘Oh this is bor-ring’. It was possible, however, to tell of common events without acquiring the tag of being boring and that was done by converting such events into comedy. There were two distinctly different sorts of comedy cited. Firstly there was what might be described as conventional comedy, against which could be contrasted deviant comedy. Two girls fell into the former category. Katie had over the past two years, school records and observations showed, lacked much involvement in speaking activities involving the whole class. Over the weeks of news-telling, as organized in Jenny Luke’s class, she had developed a reputation for telling comic stories about her family. Six children cited Katie as being good at news-telling because she was funny. Susan told me: I like Katie’s news best because she’s got this little sister and she tells about her dad. He steps in dogs’ mess. You should have heard. He went in the bushes to do a wee and he came out and stepped in dogs’ mess. As alluded to here, Katie also told a series of stories about the naughty things her toddler sister got up to. My observations of news sessions left me with the impression that, over time, the facts of some of these ‘naughty sister’ news stories were increasingly being embellished by Katie. No pupil however, accused her of ‘lying’. I also observed Susan, the other girl cited as telling comedy, giving a funny and animated account of hiding amongst furniture, stacked up for house decorating, so that her parents could not find her. Though these girls were making reference to very ordinary day-to-day events by developing the comedy in them, they avoided the label of ‘boring’. Six children cited incidents of this sort, comedy of everyday events, as being funny and the best sort of news. 89

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In addition to these two girls, six boys derived comedy from day-to-day events, but in the telling of what I have termed deviant comedy. They were nominated by five children with approval and by seven with disapproval. Children who liked this sort of news best were not necessarily in any way deviant in their own classroom behaviour. News that fell into this category included exaggerated, dramatized accounts of fights, accidents and misbehaviour. Helen gave an example: I don’t like John’s and Adrian’s. Like John always says he goes to the park and fights or crashes into lamp posts and his teeth fell out. Caroline also disliked this sort of news: Always messing about and saying rude, sort of stupid things in their news and everybody laughs. Some people don’t laugh. There was a strong consensus of opinion that Ms Luke did not like news about fighting. Lara told me about what was approved and disapproved: Thinking about something to do with all your family, really. Sometimes she doesn’t like it. If you say ‘Yesterday I got in a fight’ she doesn’t like it, but if you say ‘Yesterday I fell off a horse’ that’s okay. And if you say ‘Yesterday I went on a picnic’ she will say ‘I wish I could come’ and things like that. Teacher disapproval often meant that the news was cut short. Nathan, a teller of deviant comedy, told me: If it’s funny, like about fighting, she’ll say ‘Next!’ If everyone starts laughing she says ‘Next!’ At the time of the interviews, Nathan and Thomas had recently been involved in telling an item of news that had been the subject of much disapproval on the part of both Jenny Luke and many of the children. It was frequently cited in interviews with children and later with Jenny. Thomas gave me his account: I do it different. I tell what I do to my sister. I hit her sometimes and sometimes I hide in a cupboard and see her undress and see her bare. The others tell me to bring in a picture but I didn’t take one. Thomas told me that his sister is sixteen and about to leave school. I asked him what Ms Luke said about his news. He replied: 90

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She says, ‘Thank you. Get off that chair. See you next year.’ The events of that afternoon at Thomas’s house also involved Nathan and Thomas subsequently ‘being rude to Thomas’s Nan’. Becky disapproved and told me the story and told me that Ms Luke had said, ‘I don’t want to hear any more of that’. Nathan told me his version, which I did not altogether follow or capture in notes but which centred more on the events involving the grandmother: Sometimes I do it boring. Sometimes I do it funny. Sometimes middles…Then I said [to the class], ‘There was this old lady [Thomas’s Nan] and she sat on a chair and she went Bang!’ And they all laughed. Some people were laughing. Some weren’t. That’s okay. At least they were laughing. Thus, despite teacher disapproval and that of many peers, from the point of view of Nathan, as well as apparently for Thomas, the story was a success.

Options—Meaning and Doing in the News Session In summary, a typology of news items for this cohort consists of a primary distinction between special events and common events. Some telling of special events might be lies and common events can be made into comedy. Both of these options, lying and comedy, avoid the tag of ‘boring’ which otherwise holds for common events. Comedy can further be categorized as regular comedy and deviant comedy. In this typology a set of meanings can be seen that can be related to Halliday’s (1978) concept of ‘options’. The news situation offers, in Halliday’s terms, a ‘meaning potential’ and in children’s responses it can be seen that they are ‘making choices in the environment of other choices’. According to Halliday’s model of language in use, there will be a social function which is being realized through the meaning options. We see in pupils’ accounts functions beyond the immediate and obvious imperatives to fulfil the requirements of the lesson and the teacher. With respect to the audience of peers, we see functions beyond the immediate needs of the audience for interest, amusement, etc. We see rather, as Halliday suggests, functions in the social system. Statuses, identities and affiliations are being shaped and reinforced both positively and negatively. Reputations and relationships are in the balance. A typology of options in the news section, together with the meanings and social functions they fulfil in the peer culture (as presented below), is summarized in Figure 4.1. 91

Figure 4.1: A model of pupils’ ‘news’ telling as Halliday’s (1978) functions in a social system

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Groups, Options and Orientations According to Halliday’s conception of language as function, different social groups will have different orientations to, and draw different meanings from, the function of language in a given context. Options are not open to all but in the situation there will be conditions that affect the access of different groups to the options. From the perspective of the children, which I have outlined above, and from a further analysis of the data, there begins to emerge a picture of conditions affecting access to the options. Clearly access to the sort of special events cited by the children was largely dependent upon socio-economic circumstances of the family. In the number of children who cited it and contrasted it with the boring and common place, clearly too it had high status. The fact that some children who told of special events were accused of showing off or lying confirms its potential for conferring status, whatever the truth of the accusations. Clearly, as well, at least half the class seemed to have access to the option of telling of special events on a fairly regular basis. My close knowledge of the families and socio-economic status of ten of the children (Filer with Pollard, forthcoming), as well as a more generalized knowledge of the others, indicates a range of financial resources across the class. For example, trips to the United States and Disneyland had been enjoyed by several children, and riding lessons, computers, electronic toys and holidays abroad were standard fare for a sizable proportion of the children. Others in their dress and grooming had more of the appearance of poverty compared with their wealthier class mates and in the words of one teacher, ‘are lucky to get a crust’. Four children in the cohort, at this point in the study, had a father or both parents who had been long-term unemployed. As Halliday suggests to be the case, different pupils will have different orientations toward, and draw different meanings from, language in a given context. With respect to the telling of special events, what was good, exciting status-conferring news for some, was resented by others and ‘showing off’. As the data shows, socio-economic status did not always guarantee automatic access to the option of telling of higher status news. The classroom status of oneself and one’s immediate reference group may impose the need to be circumspect and avoid alienating those whose friendship support you need. As well as socio-economic conditions and classroom status, gender also appears to have had an affect upon access to options. Girls were cited as telling less special events news—only three of them were cited compared with eleven boys cited as telling that sort of news. They were also cited as telling about common events more often. Six out of the seven pupils cited as telling this sort of news were girls. This may not, of course, be a reflection of reality. Studies show, for instance, that different evaluations are made of the same kind of talk according to the gender of the speaker (Jenkins and Cheshire, 1990; Cheshire and Jenkins, 1991). Although the numbers are too small to draw firm conclusions concerning selectivity, it can be said that in this study girls cited boys and girls equally, but boys cite boys more often than they do girls: 93

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• •

Eight boys and eight girls cited between them twelve of the thirteen boys in the cohort. Seven girls and only three boys cited between them only eight of the thirteen girls in the cohort.

There are several factors at work, though, that could have affected the distribution of the choices and the invisibility of some of the girls. The nature of the questions that asked, in effect, for the best and the worst, together with the high proportion of negative citations of boys’ news (deviant comedy) compared with girls’ news, means that no firm conclusions can be drawn from these figures concerning prejudicial evaluations or citing of news by gender. Still making reference to the apparently different distribution of the content of girls’ news between special events and common events, it can be said that this was clearly not a reflection of girls’ socio-economic status relative to boys. That is, it is not the case that girls did not have access to special events. What may have been happening is that some girls may have chosen to emphasize different events or different aspects of events in their news. Murphy’s (1988) research suggests that in classroom talk girls express feelings more than boys. Boys’ talk, on the other hand, is episodic, factual and commentative. If this is so it may be that boys’ talk more closely matches the expectations and traditional format of news sessions than girls’ talk. The above, in relation to my data, is speculative. However, if in fact girls did tell about ordinary, day-to-day events in their news in larger numbers than boys, a more substantive explanation that would account for this is that they clearly did not have access to the alternatives that were available to boys. They did not, for instance, accuse, or stand accused of lying about special events. Not only did they apparently not lie, but also they did not have the option of telling deviant comedy. Deviant news belonged primarily to those boys in this cohort who since their entry to school, to a greater or lesser extent, had been regarded as ‘problems’ and who had represented a challenge to successive teachers. Whether or not these girls had the sort of risky/deviant out of school experiences upon which they could have capitalized, none of the girls in this cohort displayed the sort of behaviour that traditionally attracts teacher disapproval and the ‘deviant’ label. The assumption that ‘problem’ boys chose deviant comedy may not be a strictly correct one. Given the low status that telling about common events attracted, especially among the boys, and, in the absence of high status special events to tell of, in avoiding the former, pupils may have been forced to choose between the good opinion of a teacher and status in the eyes of their peers. Clearly the above analysis may not cover all varieties of news that pupils might tell. The nature of the questions put to the pupils, for example, in requesting information about ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ news-telling, may mean that some options were omitted from their response. An example of a category omitted may well be the sort of news that Peter discussed with me in the preliminary interviews. Such news would cover such events as family misfortunes and 94

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accidents generally and some children did tell this sort of news from time to time. This sort of news could be classed as special events, though, of course, without socio-economic, status-conferring factors coming into play. Two children mentioned this sort of news with respect to accidental injury to themselves and expressed a reluctance to tell it because of other pupils’ inappropriate laughter at their misfortune. Stuart described his experience of such unintended comedy in news-telling: AF: Stuart: AF: Stuart:

AF: Stuart:

What do you do if you haven’t done anything interesting? I just say I haven’t got any news today. Have you ever done it not well? Yeah. I broke my leg and I didn’t like telling all the class how I’d done it because it was dangerous. I fell off a climbing frame and a big fat man jumped off a trampoline and landed on top of me and they had to cut open my leg because they couldn’t get an x-ray. Why didn’t you want to tell them? Because they was all laughing.

Clearly the groups that were definable in terms of their various access to meanings did not include all the groups that might be found in schools generally. Though, for example, I have described some of the differences between groups of children in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, differences within this particular cohort were probably more clearly of an economic rather than a class-cultural nature. Clearly, within a multi-ethnic cohort of pupils, for example, groups and the meanings they have access to would go beyond those identified with this cohort. I would see the functions that pupils are carrying out vis-a-vis their peers as the same within this sort of classroom situation whatever the social or cultural make-up of the group. This would also accord with Halliday’s (1978) notion of language performing a limited number of functions within the social system. In summary then, the meanings and groups that have been identified reflect the Halliday model with respect to the following. •

•

Meanings in the news session in this class can be represented as a system of choices, access to which was circumscribed by socio-economic circumstances, classroom identities and affiliations and probably gender identities. Language was being used for functions concerned with establishing and maintaining status, identities and peer relationships and this in addition to any purposes with respect to teacher requirements.

The question arises as to what extent functions with regard to school requirements and functions with regard to peers were compatible. If they were not compatible, then clearly we are in a situation whereby a teacher is not necessarily accessing the sort of language she is trying to assess (see also Filer, 1993b). What we see, of course, is that some, those of high socio-economic status and high classroom 95

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status, had access to options that were compatible with teacher requirements. Clearly, though, for some pupils there were tensions between teacher expectations and favourable peer group evaluations of their news. For some, that is, the options of saying nothing or telling deviant comedy were preferable to telling news that was acceptable to the teacher. Many children were having to choose between maintaining self-respect and identity within the peer culture and pleasing the teacher. As well as giving rise to issues of academic differentiation, the news session was also socially differentiating. Not only did different groups draw different meanings from the content of news sessions as described above, but also the news session itself had different meanings for different groups of pupils. For some it was a situation in which they could both fulfil teacher requirements and at the same time positively reinforce high standing and identity in the peer culture. For others, even when fulfilling teacher requirements, it may well have been a negative experience, confirming their lesser status in the peer culture.

Conclusion The importance of the listener’s perspective and the circumstances and demands of the situation feature prominently in the National Curriculum (DFE, 1994) attainment target of ‘speaking and listening’, because clearly they are central to any notion of effective communication. However, the perspectives of children on their news sessions as described and analysed in this chapter, shows that a pupil’s purpose with regard to an audience of peers embodies considerations that go beyond any particular task as envisaged by the attainment target. It is, moreover, difficult to imagine a situation in which audience and context awareness with respect to official tasks could be isolated from audience and context awareness with respect to meanings and social functions associated with membership of a peer culture. Halliday (1978, p. 109), for instance, cites linguists going back to Malinowski (1923, 1935) and Firth (1957) on what he describes as the ‘well established concept’ that context was not to be interpreted in terms of the concrete audio and visual ‘props’ surrounding a situation. It was rather to be understood abstractly in terms of its relevance to the text. The context of a situation therefore may be totally remote from what is going on in the concrete act of speaking or writing (Firth, 1957, p. 182). In this chapter I have described social factors in pupils’ lives that are economic, cultural and gender based and that are also relevant to the contexts in which their speaking and listening skills are assessed. In this chapter also I have, using Halliday’s terminology, described two different models of language. I have described an inter-organism, function-based model which takes into account the wider context of pupils’ utterances such as those of the home and community, friendships and gender, which the children brought to the news session. I have also described an intra-organism, competence-based model on which, I have argued, the National Curriculum and its assessment procedures are based. 96

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Though Halliday believes that different models can co-exist serving different goals, he argues that an intra-organism, psychological perspective is not a necessary one for the exploration of language which is part of the social system. Both he (1982) and Stubbs (1986) would argue for a meaning/function, interorganism model of language as one relevant to education. Halliday states, for instance, what Chomsky has always made clear, that the linguistics of formalism and notions of ‘competence’ originally associated with his name have little relevance for education. Language has to be accepted ‘for the typically human mixture of order and chaos that it really is’ (Halliday, 1982, p. 11). Awareness of the impact of the complexity of classroom life on pupils’ responses need not prevent teachers from confidently making assessments of their pupils’ strengths and weaknesses, their achievements and needs. What such awareness does mean though, is that teachers will recognize the provisional and context-related nature of the assessments they make. However, those who, for whatever purpose, seek to measure, grade, and rank pupils and their schools and, more importantly, need to convince others of the ‘objectivity’ of the exercise, do not, of course, address this complexity.

References CHESHIRE, J. and JENKINS, N. (1991) ‘Gender issues in the GCSE oral English examination, part 2’, Language and Education, 5, 1. CHOMSKY, N. (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (1989) The Education Reform Act 1988: The School Curriculum and Assessment, London, HMSO. DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION (1994) General Requirements for English Relating to Key Stages 1 to 4, London, HMSO. FILER, A. (1993a) ‘Classroom contexts of assessment in a primary school’, unpublished PhD Thesis, University of the West of England. FILER, A. (1993b) ‘The assessment of classroom language: Challenging the rhetoric of ‘objectivity’, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 3, 2, pp. 193–212. FILER, A. (1993c) ‘Contexts of assessment in a primary school classroom’, British Educational Research Journal, 19, 1, pp. 95–107. FILER, A. with POLLARD, A. (forthcoming) The Social World of Pupil Assessment, London, Cassell. FIRTH, J.R. (1957) Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951, Oxford, Oxford University Press. HALLIDAY, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic, London, Edward Arnold. HALLIDAY, M.A.K. (1982) ‘Linguistics in teacher education’, in CARTER, R. Linguistics and the Teacher, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. HYMES, D.H. (1971) ‘Competence and performance in linguistic theory’, in HUXLEY, R. and INGRAM, E. (eds) Language Acquisition: Models and Methods, London and New York, Academic Press. JENKINS, N. and CHESHIRE, J. (1990) ‘Gender issues in the GCSE oral English examination, part 1’, Language and Education, 4, 4, pp. 261–92. LABOV, W., COHEN, P., ROBINS, C. and LEWIS, J. (1968) ‘A study of the non-standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City’, Final Report of Cooperative Research Project No 3288, Columbia University.

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Ann Filer LEES, J.M. (1981) ‘Conversational strategies with deaf children’, MPhil Thesis, University of Nottingham. MALINOWSKI, B. (1923) The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages, London, Kegan Paul . MALINOWSKI, B. (1935) Coral Gardens and Their Magic 2, London, Allen and Unwin/ New York, American Book Co. MURPHY, P. (1988) ‘Gender and assessment’, Curriculum, 9, 3, pp. 165–71. STUBBS, M. (1986) ‘Chapter 1: Relevant models of language for teachers’, Educational Linguistics, Oxford, Blackwell. WOOD, H.A and WOOD, D.J. (1983) ‘Questioning the pre school child’, Educational Review, 35, Special Issue 15, pp. 149–62.

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Withdrawal, Resistance and Adaptation in Shaping the Experienced Curriculum: Editors’ Introduction

In our third pair of research studies we see pupils presenting difficulties through their acts of resistance and withdrawal from the curricular intentions of their teachers. In ‘The Politics of Primaries’ we see pupils engaged in antagonistic, timewasting and delaying strategies to influence their teacher’s delivery of the curriculum. Spaulding presents these expressions of pupil power as intentional acts to minimize discomfort in the face of boredom, lack of understanding and lack of confidence to succeed. Spaulding believes teachers should interpret such responses as signs for concern, indicating a need for pedagogic adaptation to the learning needs of pupils. In the subsequent chapter, ‘Experience Through the Eyes of Quiet Bird’, we are able to follow the process of just such an adaptation. Nicholls, with teacher Ann Bates, liaised with a pupil’s family in exploring reasons for his resistance to tasks and withdrawal from classroom relationships. Their growing understanding of the child’s own sense of self informed their explorations in presenting the curriculum in ways that were personally relevant to him. This third pair of chapters, like each of the others, shows pupil engagement, or disengagement, with classroom tasks and learning, as emotional and social acts. They moreover particularly highlight that mediation and adaptation of curricular experience to pupil needs is not simply about relating it to something ‘cognitive’ or ‘ability’ related. As in other chapters, such needs are concerned with each pupil as an individual at the deepest level of socio-cultural experience and identity.

5

The Politics of Primaries: The Micropolitical Perspectives of 7-Year-Olds Angela Spaulding

Kids know stuff. If they don’t want to do something they figure out how not to do it…Some kids ask lots of questions on purpose… sometimes kids interrupt and ask and ask questions they already know …It keeps kids from having to do the things they don’t want to do. (Grade 2 students, St. Paul’s Elementary School)

Introduction Do 7-year-olds have a micropolitical understanding of their actions? Consider the following types of familiar student behavior in primary classrooms: tattling, showing affection, arguing, giving compliments, inattention, creating distractions, ignoring, asking repeated questions, interrupting, appealing to do something else, protesting, and stalling for time. We often understand these occurrences as part of what happens when working with young children. Some may see these classroom acts as simply developmentally appropriate behaviors, immature acts to avoid tasks, or egocentric behavior—social psychological explanations of why children of this age act and interact as they do. Yet is there more to it than this? Can we also understand these behaviors through a political frame? In recent years, some researchers have argued the value of examining the micropolitical character of classroom and school life. According to Blase (1991, p. 1), the ‘micropolitical perspective provides a potent approach to understanding the woof and warp of the fabric of day-to-day life in schools.’ And, as Ball (1987, p. xi) states,‘…to deny the relevance of micro-politics is in effect to condemn organizational research to be for ever ineffectual and out of step with the immediate realities of life in organizations.’ Micropolitics, simply stated, is about human behavior and purpose. Yet, nothing in the complex social world of the classroom is ever simple. Thus, micropolitics is also about the complex interaction of unpredictable social players vulnerable to multitudinous external and internal forces. As Blase (1991, p. 1) explains: 101

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Micropolitics is about power and how people use it to influence others and to protect themselves. It is about conflict and how people compete with each other to get what they want. It is about cooperation and how people build support among themselves to achieve their ends. It is what people in all social settings think about and have strong feelings about, but what is so often unspoken and not easily observed. Most micropolitical studies in education focus on the political behavior of principals and/or teachers at the school or district level. Yet, there is no reason to presume that the complex and dynamic micropolitical world stops at the classroom door or that it is limited to only adults in school. My research, in fact, reveals that even second grade students are capable of intentional micropolitical acts utilized to influence others in order to get what they want in the classroom. These 7-year-olds are capable of using both conflictual and cooperative types of micropolitical strategies as they negotiate and navigate life in the classroom. Reflect back to the student behaviors listed at the beginning of this chapter. According to Blase (1991), these occurrences may also be understood as political acts if the intention is to influence, protect, achieve their own goals, negotiate a preferred path, or build support. Thus, from a political lens, we can see that these classroom occurrences are not always actions about getting along (i.e., social skills) but also ones that may be about power and control. I have devoted the rest of this chapter to describing and examining the micropolitical strategies of second grade students at St. Paul’s elementary school. After introducing the school and the classroom, I will provide vignettes of cooperative and conflictive classroom actions. For the reader, these snapshots of classroom life provide a rare opportunity to ascertain, for example, how 7year-old students use such behaviors as stalling for time, repetitive questioning, ignoring, interruption, pleading, affection, protesting, and intermediaries as intentional micropolitical behaviors to influence what happens in their classroom. In addition, I will describe the political intent of students involved in each vignette—and, at the end of the chapter, I will suggest an approach towards the development of a micropolitical framework within which we can understand some aspects of classroom interaction.

St. Paul’s Elementary School A typical morning at St. Paul’s elementary school begins with students arriving as early as 7.30 am. Parents perform the familiar ritual of the morning carpool line. Those arriving between 7:45 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. often find the carpool line backed-up as far as two blocks away from the school. As the line of cars move slowly forward, each parent pulls into the school parking lot and drives carefully into a narrow lane that runs parallel to the clean, upscale, two-storey school building. Typical of each school morning, the headmistress and her assistant 102

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stand on the sidewalk waiting to greet each arriving car. These two greeters offer a wave and a friendly smile, while at the same time ushering students from their cars and into the school building. Friendly parting waves are exchanged as parents continue their drive out of the carpool line and back to the city roads that will take them to the rest of their day’s agenda. St. Paul’s school, 30 years old, is known for its academic excellence. It is also known, by outsiders, as an elite school providing an education for the upper class of the suburban city in which it is located. An overwhelming majority of the parents of St. Paul’s are white collar professionals: doctors, lawyers, professors, corporate executives, and state and local legislature members. Insiders, parents in particular, describe the school membership as ‘close-knit and informed’. As one parent states, ‘I always know what is going on at the school. In my son’s classes, I know every child and the majority of parents, plus I know each of his teachers on a first name basis. You get to know these people because of the high level of involvement parents have in the school. The instruction here is very good. It has to be. The parents pay for excellence and accept nothing less.’ The school population consists of approximately 500 students. This population is spread throughout grades from preschool through the eighth grade. St. Paul’s prides itself with its small student-teacher ratio (16–1) and its emphasis on academic excellence in a Christian environment. According to the school leadership, the curriculum is ‘specially designed to nurture children’s sense of self-worth and success and to encourage their inborn zest for learning’. In addition, school literature explains that ‘many of St. Paul’s students are of exceptionally capable intellect, so special care is taken to challenge their unique abilities and interest’. Parents spend approximately $4,500 a year per student to send their children to St. Paul’s.

Mrs. Cole’s Second Grade Classroom Eighteen of the students arriving in the carpool line this particular morning begin making their way down the long corridor to Mrs. Cole’s second grade classroom. Mrs. Cole is a teacher of twenty-two years. She is a 45-year-old white woman with two grown children of her own. She is known to be a patient teacher who works well with students on a one-on-one basis. She rarely raises her voice and always dresses in a very stylish manner. She describes herself as a ‘learning stylist,’ referring to her ability to match her instruction to the individual learning style of each student. She explains, Some students learn best by hearing, others by seeing, and some by touching. Some students learn best with noise, some with quiet, some in a desk, and some stretched out on the floor. I try to create a classroom environment that is flexible enough to provide students the opportunity to learn in a way that is most comfortable and best for them. 103

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Although her class does not begin until 8:00 a.m., Mrs. Cole begins receiving students as early as 7:40 a.m. Students enter her classroom after stowing their belongings into their assigned individual lockers located just outside their classroom door. Decorating the classroom door is a collage of photos depicting Mrs. Cole and her students engaged in various classroom activities. The classroom itself is a welcoming place. One entire side wall is lined with floor to ceiling sized windows. Window blinds allow students and Mrs. Cole to adjust the amount of sunlight coming into the classroom. Two other walls hold chalkboards and bulletin boards. Student work is attached to each wall both above and below the chalkboards. Student work is also displayed on the bulletin boards. Running the full width of the back wall is a cabinet area used for storage of teaching supplies. At one end of the cabinet top is a sink complete with paper towels and soap. Several cages occupied with hamsters and gerbils are set on the opposite end of the cabinet top. Again, student artwork is displayed on the wall area above the cabinet. Various centers or work areas are set up throughout the room allowing students to pursue reading, science, math, or other special topic games and activities when time permits. Beanbag chairs, rugs, and a couch provide extra seating for students when they are not working at their desks. Individual student desks are grouped in units of five, with three desks left over to form a smaller unit in order to accommodate the eighteen students. On the lower right hand side of each desk is a large, attached storage area where students keep their books and supplies. A few desks are neatly arranged but the majority are cluttered with wrinkled papers and disarrayed books. Mrs. Cole’s traditional teacher’s desk sits at the side of the classroom facing the centre of the room. Her desk is surrounded by filing cabinets, bookshelves, storage baskets, flip charts, and various teaching resources.

The Political Players This morning, Jeffrey and Brian walk into the classroom together. Jeffrey and Brian are good friends and can be found together most of the time. Jeffrey is the leader of the pair. He speaks his mind and tends to pull Brian into his classroom and playground activities. Jeffrey is often the object of conversation between the other primary teachers because of his argumentative nature and his unruly hairstyle. Actually, Jeffrey simply refuses to let his mother comb his hair in the morning and, as a result, his thick, blonde hair stands straight up in more than a few places. Mrs. Cole describes Jeffrey as ‘a free spirit’ with a ‘mind of his own.’ Brian, on the other hand, tends to follow Jeffrey’s lead. He is more outwardly emotional than Jeffrey and has had many tearful moments in the classroom when things do not go his way. Mrs. Cole describes Brian as ‘one that hits the panic button frequently.’ Jeffrey and Brian begin discussing their plans for recess. There, they will pretend to be monsters that ‘eat up the girls.’ Megan, an excitable and endlessly 104

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talkative 7-year-old, overhears the boys’ discussion and runs to find her best friend Jennifer. Jennifer is quietly seated at her desk playing with a stuffed toy dog she brought from home. Megan and Jennifer relate well to one another and have been best of friends for three years. Megan whispers loudly in Jennifer’s ear and the girls laugh as they glance over at Jeffrey and Brian. Jeffrey and Brian begin to make monster faces at the girls. A kind of forewarning of what is to come later at recess. The boys look and sound quite fierce with all of their gesturing and growling noises. Megan screams playfully and runs to her desk. Mrs. Cole, hearing the screams, turns quickly and calls the classroom to order, asking each student to quickly and quietly be seated in their desks. Jennifer looks slightly embarrassed and quickly tucks her stuffed toy dog into her desk. The day officially begins with the assignment of seat work by Mrs. Cole.

The Morning Begins: Stalling for Time Mrs. Cole assumes her usual place at the front of the classroom where she proceeds to give students their morning seat work instructions. Seat work consists of a series of workbook pages that students are to complete quietly at their desks. It is here that we see the first glimpse of micropolitical interaction. Mrs. Cole begins her instructions, Mrs. Cole: Turn to page 10 in your math book and let’s discuss your seat work for this morning. Megan: What page are we on? Mrs. Cole: We are on page 10. Megan [loudly asks again]: What page? Mrs. Cole: 10. Megan: 10? Mrs. Cole [looking impatiently at Megan responds rather sarcastically]: Page 10, it comes after page 9Megan: After 9? [Megan grins] You mean page 10 comes after 9? Mrs. Cole [speaking slowly in a controlled manner]: Megan, we are on page 10. Megan: So we are on page 10 that comes after 9? Mrs. Cole [replying abruptly]: That’s what I said. Megan: Oh, I thought you said we were on a different page. Ten, huh? Mrs. Cole: 10! 10! Turn to page 10! Megan: I’m on page 10. Are we going to do page 11? Mrs. Cole looks at her watch, shakes her head and looks exasperated. She ignores Megan’s last question concerning page 11. During this verbal exchange with Megan, several students began talking. Mrs. Cole again reminds the class of her previous instructions to sit quietly at their desks. After a few more 105

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minutes Mrs. Cole again has all the students quiet and ready for her instructions. She then continues to explain the instructions on page 10 of the students’ math books. It is obvious that the verbal exchange between Megan and Mrs. Cole resulted in loss of classroom time, was annoying to Mrs. Cole, and caused her to work harder to keep students involved in listening to her instructions. What is politically intriguing is Megan’s explanation of her actions. Megan reveals clear political intention as she explains, I dislike math seat work and it makes me want to put off doing it so that we don’t have enough time and then maybe we won’t have to do it all, you know cut it short…Kids like to do stuff they like. If they don’t like it, they don’t want to do it. If they don’t want to do it they figure out how not to do it. So I figured out that if you ask a lot of questions then we don’t have time to do so much. Megan’s response reveals her ability to select and strategically use intentional political acts in the classroom. Her strategy could easily be called stalling for time, for her goal is to stall Mrs. Cole’s instructions in order to limit the amount of time available for math. She knows only so much time is allotted to each subject area and that Mrs. Cole likes to keep on the schedule for the day. Any delaying tactics then reduce the time she has to spend on subjects she would prefer to minimize or avoid. When others have the same dislike for math seat work, an individual political strategy by Megan can turn into a collective form of opposition.

Still Stalling for Time: The Use of Repetitive Questioning After seeing that her students are busy with their morning seat work, Mrs. Cole calls a group of five students to come to the back of the room and seat themselves on carpet squares for reading instruction. Mrs. Cole seats herself in front of the group. Jeffrey, Jennifer, and Brian are all in this reading group along with two other classmates, Mike and Becca. Mike and Becca are both strong, academic students. Becca is a loner and is known to be rude on occasion to other students. Mike is well liked, and seems to feel comfortable and at ease regardless of whom he is with. Mrs. Cole begins to introduce the reading lesson. Today we are going to read a story entitled McDuff’s Dragon. Everyone turn to page 58.’ Jeffrey and Brian look at each other and roll their eyes in a nonverbal communication that makes known their lack of interest in the story of McDuff’s Dragon. Mrs. Cole misses the boys’ silent communication. 106

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She pauses until the sound of pages turning ceases. ‘OK. Is everyone there?’ The students all respond affirmatively. ‘Good. I tell you what, let’s try this. I want everyone with black shoes on to read together. OK, now if you have black on…’ Interrupting Mrs. Cole’s comments is an intense discussion between Jeffrey and Becca about their seating arrangement. Jeffrey, according to Becca, is seated too close to her and is crowding her space. Mrs. Cole intervenes, ‘Shhhhh, listen. Boys and girls, listen.’Jeffrey and Becca cease their arguing. Mrs. Cole continues, ‘If you have black on your shoes I want you to read together.’ Mike, Brian, and Jeffrey begin to point and discuss their shoes. Mrs. Cole responds to their discussion by stating, ‘Everyone get quiet. Are we ready to read?’ Mike, Brian, and Jeffrey continue talking among themselves. Jennifer distracts Mrs.Cole with a question just as she is beginning to say something else to the talking boys. ‘Mrs. Cole, I have some black in my shoe, does that count?’ Mrs. Cole responds to Jennifer with a simple yes and then turns back to the talking boys to say, ‘Shhhhhhh.’ The talking escalates as Becca now joins in the conversation. They all seem to be discussing Jeffrey’s shoe colors. Finally, Jeffrey points to his shoe and asks, ‘Is this black, Mrs. Cole?’ Mrs. Cole: ‘Yes, Jeffrey…. SHHHHHHH.’Jeffrey: ‘Does all my shoe have to be black?’ Mrs. Cole: ‘No, Jeffrey…Shhhhhhh. Boys and girls, get quiet. When I call a color look at your clothes to determine if you have that color or not on your clothes. If you do then you can read.’ Jeffrey: ‘I thought you said our shoes not our clothes to have black.’ Mrs. Cole: ‘I meant clothes, your shoes are part of your clothes.’ Brian asks, giggling, ‘What if we don’t have on any clothes?’ The rest of the group laughs. Brian seems pleased to have his comment come across so entertainingly. Mrs. Cole frowns at the group as she responds to Brian’s comment, ‘Then you won’t read will you.’ Jeffrey intervenes back into the conversation, ‘You mean you can’t read if you don’t have clothes on? What if you don’t have clothes on but you have shoes on?’ Looking sternly at Jeffrey, Mrs. Cole responds, ‘Do you have any black on your shoes?’ Jeffrey: ‘Not on this pair. But I have a pair at home that have black stripes. Does that count?’ Mrs. Cole: Just the shoes on your feet now. Do they have black on them?’ Jeffrey: ‘I have this black stuff, tar, on the bottom of my shoe.’ Mrs.Cole: ‘Did you buy your shoes with that tar on them? Is that a part of your shoe?’ Jeffrey smiles slyly, ‘I don’t think so, maybe.’ Firmly, Mrs. Cole raises her voice and asks, Jeffrey, do you have black on your shoe?’ Jeffrey looks down at his shoes and then back at Mrs. Cole. She looks upset. Jeffrey decides against another comment for fear of getting into trouble and simply says, ‘No.’ ‘Then it is not your turn to read.’ Mrs. Cole looks away from Jeffrey toward the other group members. ‘Now, if you have black on your shoe or clothes, you may read. Let’s begin.’ Mrs. Cole begins reading out loud. Jennifer and Mike, who have black on their shoes, join in. 107

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The reading lesson continues with similar student questions resulting with each new color combination that Mrs. Cole announces. Jeffrey is usually the one to initiate the repetitive and often silly questioning. Brian chimes in quickly following Jeffrey’s lead. Mike and Becca watch for a moment or two and join in once the conversation is in full swing. Jennifer, although smiling and seeming to enjoy the dialogue, stays relatively quiet and only seems to participate if she truly does not understand what she is to do. At the end of the lesson, Mrs. Cole wearily tells the students to ‘Put your reading books away and return to your desks.’ Jeffrey and Brian race back to their desks as Mrs. Cole admonishes them to slow down. The rest of the group also makes their way slowly back to their desks. Later, Brian and Jeffrey explain the reading group lesson from a clearly political perspective. Brian explains, Some kids ask lots of questions on purpose and Mrs. Cole has to keep repeating herself…see the kids already know the answers but they ask the questions anyway and they ask the same questions in different ways…one kid asks and asks and another kid asks…so then Mrs. Cole, she says the same answers over and over. Jeffrey jumps in and takes the conversation from Brian, he further explains, ‘It takes a lot of time so she [Mrs. Cole] don’t have time to explain everything and we don’t have time to finish everything. We do this…It keeps kids from having to do the things they don’t want to do, things they don’t like. Brian and Jeffrey’s comments, similar to Megan’s previous comments, reveal not only students’ use of intentional political actions in the classroom but also students’ abilities to recognize, extend, and strengthen political strategies initiated by other students. In the case of this particular classroom portrait, repetitive questioning is a collective strategy, involving more than one student. Jeffrey and Brian were key political players in the reading lesson while Mike and Becca provided a supporting cast. Jennifer, on the other hand, did not appear to join in, only to observe. Thus, this classroom portrait reveals that students have differing political roles. Jennifer, while not actively participating in the political maneuvering, was very much aware of the intent of her classmates’ actions. She explains, I was afraid I might get in trouble if I acted like Jeffrey or Brian. I am quieter than them but I knew what they were doing. It happens a lot. I don’t like to get in trouble, like have Mrs. Cole call me down, so I try not to do things that I think would get me in trouble. Jennifer smiles and then says, I try to do nice things where they try to do mean things. I think Mrs. Cole lets you do more things if you are nice than if you are mean. Thus we see that, whilst Jennifer may appear to be relatively passive in the context of the political interaction within the reading group, she is not without 108

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political strategies of her own. Rather, it is the case that her political influence lies in more cooperative forms of action, as opposed to the more conflictual ones which she sees her peers using but which she clearly cannot comfortably manage.

Ignoring: ‘Oh, did you. tell us to stop?’ Similar political action takes place in the next reading group that Mrs.Cole calls. Megan is a member of this group along with four of her classmates: Chrissy, Welsley, Cole, and Blake. Mrs.Cole drops her use of color calling after experiencing so much trouble with the first reading group. She reverts back to calling out student names when it is their time to read. She calls on Megan, Chrissy, and Welsley to read out loud and in unison from their reading books. The girls read for the next 2 or 3 minutes. Mrs.Cole nods her head in approval at their efforts and then verbally tells them to end their reading, ‘OK, thank you, you may stop reading now.’ The girls do not appear to hear Mrs.Cole and they continue reading. ‘OK girls, that’s far enough. You can stop now.’ The girls continue reading. The rate and volume of their reading begin to increase. Megan, with her head bowed over her book glances quickly over at both Chrissy and Welsley. She loses her place temporarily before joining back in. Chrissy and Welsley do not look up but continue reading. ‘Girls, girls!’ Mrs. Cole’s voice is abrupt and loud. When she does not get the response she wants from the girls, she raises her voice even more and sternly admonishes the girls, ‘Stop! Stop reading! It is someone else’s turn.’ The girls immediately stop reading and look up, wide-eyed at Mrs.Cole. Megan drops her mouth open with a look of innocence and asks, ‘Oh, did you tell us to stop?’ ‘Yes, several times. It is now Cole and Blake’s turn to read. You need to listen better next time.’ Mrs.Cole’s voice shakes slightly as she speaks. ‘I guess we didn’t hear you,’ responds Megan. Mrs.Cole looks at Megan but says nothing. She then instructs Cole and Blake to read and bows her head to follow the reading in her book. Megan glances at Mrs.Cole to make sure she is not looking before passing a silent non-verbal message communicated through a smile toward Chrissy and Welsley. The silent message is received. Chrissy and Welsley both smile back at Megan and then return to find their place in the reading book. Later, during an interview, all three girls acknowledge that they heard Mrs.Cole’s initial instruction to stop reading and yet ignored her instructions. At first, Chrissy and Welsley seemed hesitant to discuss the episode. They grinned shyly about their actions as their glances bounced back and forth between each other and the floor. Megan, on the other hand, was not reluctant to share her thoughts. She explains, 109

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It [the reading lesson] was boring. We do that same thing every day, every day, every day. I guess we were just trying to have some fun. We just ignored her for a while, not a long time. Just long enough to have some fun and to take up reading time. Welsley cautiously chimes in, ‘It wasn’t very interesting and it’s long so we did it.’ Chrissy grinned and nodded her head in affirmation. Interestingly, when asked, Chrissy and Welsley both stated that they would not have ignored Mrs. Cole’s requests if they had been acting on their own. The girls were willing to become more aggressive and to take greater risks when participating in a group rather than as individuals. They seemed to feel some degree of safety in acting within the group. Megan, on the other hand, said that she might have ignored Mrs. Cole even if the other two girls had not participated, but she preferred to know that others were, as Megan stated, ‘in with me.’ Watching Megan it is easy to see that her outgoing demeanor is also reflected in her political interactions, making her more of a political risk taker than many of her peers.

Interrupting and Pleading: ‘Mrs. Cole…Mrs. Cole…Pleeeeeeeeese, can I?’ After completing her lessons with the reading groups, Mrs. Cole begins to work with Aaron, who recently missed school because of illness. The majority of the class is still working on their morning seat work, except for a few students who finished their work early. Mrs. Cole tells the early finishers to read their library books. The students who are reading library books are free to read wherever they wish in the classroom as long as they do not disturb their classmates. Mike has moved to the couch to read and is stretched out on his back with his head laid back on the couch arm. Becca is seated in a large bean bag chair in the back corner of the room reading her book. Brian, is also an early finisher. Mrs. Cole glances up to see him playing at his desk. From the battlefield sounds he is making, Brian appears to be using his pencils as if they were toy soldiers. Occasionally, he blows the pencil soldiers up with his eraser missile. Mrs. Cole interrupts his play, ‘Brian, please get your book out and read.’ Brian moans, looks longingly at his battlefield and whines, ‘I don’t want to read.’ ‘Brian, get your book and begin reading. The next time I look up I want to see you reading. We will be going to computer shortly so you don’t have much time.’ Mrs.Cole returns to her work with Aaron. Brian finds his reading book and slowly crawls under his desk. He stretches out on his stomach. Using his elbow as a brace, Brian rests his chin in the palm of his left hand while using his right hand to carelessly flip through the pages of his library book. From his position 110

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under his desk, Brian guilefully watches Mrs. Cole. She is explaining an assignment to Aaron. After only a few moments, Brian slowly crawls out from under his desk and walks over to where Mrs. Cole is seated. ‘Mrs. Cole.’ Mrs. Cole, in the middle of explaining Aaron’s assignment, does not respond to Brian’s interruption. ‘Mrs. Cole.’ Brian tries again. Still there is no response from Mrs. Cole. A little louder Brian asks, ‘Mrs. Cole, can I give the gerbil water?’ Mrs. Cole still does not look at or respond to Brian although Aaron, very much aware of Brian’s interruption, keeps glancing back and forth between Mrs. Cole, Brian, and his paper. With Brian’s interruptions, it is obvious that Aaron is having a difficult time staying focused on what Mrs. Cole is explaining to him. Finally, trying a new approach, Brian tugs several times on Mrs. Cole’s sleeve and asks again, ‘Mrs. Cole, can I?’ Mrs. Cole looks less than pleased as she takes a deep breath and slowly turns toward Brian, ‘No Brian, you are supposed to be reading.’ She turns her attention back to Aaron. Brian: ‘But he [gerbil] needs water.’ Mrs. Cole: ‘Not now, Brian.’ ‘Mrs. Cole, [Brian pauses momentarily when she does not respond] Mrs. Cole, can I move his house?’ Mrs. Cole takes another deep breath, gets out of her chair and stands frowning at Brian. Neither of them speaks for a moment. Finally, Mrs. Cole places her hand on Brian’s shoulder and guides him over to the gerbil cage. They both stand for a few moments more looking at the gerbil cage. At last, Mrs. Cole breaks the silence, ‘Why, Brian? His house doesn’t need to be moved. You really need to get busy reading. You are interrupting the others’ work.’ Brian whines, ‘I don’t want to read, I would rather feed the gerbil.’ Mrs. Cole: ‘But it is time to read now. Maybe later you can feed the gerbil but now you need to read.’ A new thought seems to occur to Brian, ‘Can I read by the gerbil so I can watch him?’ ‘How are you going to watch the gerbil and read at the same time?’ Brian: ‘I can do it. I have done it before at home. Pleeeeeeeeese, can I?’ Mrs. Cole looks tired. She shrugs her shoulders and begins to walk away from Brian. She looks back, raises her eyebrows at Brian and says firmly, ‘OK, just make sure you read.’ Brian smiles and plops down on the floor beside the table that holds the gerbil cage. He spends what little reading time that is remaining looking and poking his pencil at the gerbil. He never begins reading. By using a combination of interruption and pleading, a kind of one-two-punch aimed at Mrs. Cole, Brian prevents his own reading activity. Brian also is able to adjust his initial use of interruption when he decides his first few efforts are 111

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ineffective. He does so by increasing the intensity and frequency of his interruptions until he successfully achieves his goal—to avoid reading. In addition, Brian’s political maneuvering affects other classroom members. For example, with the break in instruction created by Mrs. Cole’s departure, Aaron begins folding his notebook paper to create paper footballs. Brian’s political thoughts are revealed in his explanation of his actions: I didn’t want to read. I get tired of reading. I like it sometimes but I didn’t want to then. So when I don’t like it, I keep interrupting Mrs. Cole and asking and asking about doing other things I like better but she will say, ‘go back and do your reading.’ So I keep trying and asking. Sometimes though when I keep interrupting and you know, asking and asking, she gets tired of me interrupting and she will let me do something else that I like better. Sometimes it just takes up my time so we don’t have time left for me to read. Brian uses interruption, followed by pleading (‘asking and asking’) either to: (1) wear Mrs. Cole down so that she allows him to forfeit the disliked activity in exchange for a more preferred activity, or (2) consume so much time with his persistent use of the strategies that he dramatically decreases the amount of time he must participate in the disliked activity. His activity demonstrates how his use of both interruption and pleading, are often bundled together and utilized in an unrelenting manner in the rapid-fire world of the classroom. Brian knows not only what political strategies to use but also when and how they should be used.

Affection: ‘You’re the best teacher in the world!’ After completing their morning seat work and reading circles, Mrs. Cole’s class leaves her classroom to attend computer instruction. Computer class, taught by Mrs. Kerry, is conducted in the computer lab located on the second floor of St.Paul’s elementary building. During this 30 minute break from her students, Mrs. Cole checks student seat work and prepares for her afternoon lessons. Upon returning to the classroom, students will prepare to go to lunch. Mrs. Cole is standing by her doorway, warmly greeting her students as they return from computer class. As Jennifer makes her way through the door, she stops momentarily to wrap her arms around Mrs. Cole’s waist, squeezes gently, and says to Mrs. Cole, ‘You’re the best teacher in the world.’ Mrs. Cole smiles and responds to Jennifer with both a reciprocal hug and a smile. Following Jennifer into the classroom is Welsley who also stops to hug Mrs. Cole. Welsley, arms snugly tucked around Mrs. Cole’s waist, leans back slightly so that she can look Mrs. Cole directly in the eye. She announces, ‘You are so, so pretty.’ Mrs. Cole smiles as Welsley moves off toward her desk. Several other students pass through the 112

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doorway before Chrissy hesitates in front of Mrs. Cole. She seems undecided on what her next action should be. Abruptly, she leans against Mrs. Cole for a quick, semi-hug, and without making eye contact says, ‘Mrs.Cole, I like your dress.’ She stands frozen for a moment, unsure of what to do next. Mrs. Cole responds to Chrissy much the same as she responded to Jennifer and Welsley, with a pat on the back, a smile, and a verbal thank you. Chrissy looks pleased as she smiles and walks to her desk. Mrs. Cole proceeds to tell all the students to clean up their desk areas and to sit quietly so that they may go to lunch. Mrs. Cole specifically instructs several students to pick up the paper off the floor. Students scurry around in various directions cleaning up their desks and floor area. Occasionally a student darts off to the trash can to dispose of unwanted waste items. Mrs. Cole patiently waits and watches the activity until all students are seated quietly in their seats. ‘OK girls, you may quietly line up at the door.’ Mrs. Cole waits as the girls quickly get up, push their chairs in, and form a straight line at the door. The boys look less than pleased as they roll their eyes, shake their heads, and make several moaning noises about Mrs. Cole’s choice of letting the girls line up at the door first. The girls use both physical touch and verbal compliments to influence Mrs. Cole. They verbally compliment Mrs. Cole and then reinforce their verbal compliments with actions indicative of affection, such as eye contact, smiles, near proximity, touch, and hugs. On the other hand, the boys in Mrs. Cole’s classroom seldom, if ever, compliment Mrs. Cole or use actions indicative of affection. They are much more comfortable with maintaining physical distance. Jennifer discloses her own political thoughts as she discusses girls’ intentional use of actions, such as compliments and hugs. She explains: Girls all the time do this, they say ‘You’re so pretty,’ ‘I love you,’ ‘I like you,’ ‘You’re the nicest teacher I have ever had.’ When you say those things, that helps Mrs. Cole feel good about herself and it helps us. See, she tells us things before she tells the boys. And you get to do more of the things you like to do. You can then be a teacher pet and favorite. Welsley listens and agrees with Jennifer’s assessment. She further explains: Hugs and things like that are important. And things like keeping your eyes on her [Mrs. Cole] while she is talking. You know, looking right at her, not looking around at other people or things or turning around. You may not really be listening but you still look right at her because she thinks you are listening. Straight at her, and then you smile so she will think you like her. And girls do other things to make her know we like her—like sit by her during special programs. Sometimes we even fight over who is going to sit by her. And you hug her a lot. Even when we go out the door to PE [physical 113

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education class], computer, or lunch we will stop and give her a hug…doing these things helps Mrs. Cole to like you back and that makes you feel good. And it helps you get things like rewards—like getting chosen to help in the classroom, getting to be line leader, getting to go first to places like lunch or PE, or other fun things like getting stickers or snacks, or what’s really good is getting extra free time to do whatever you want. Interestingly enough, the boys, even though they themselves do not use affectionate hugs to influence Mrs. Cole, are very much aware of the political intent and success behind the girls hugging. Brian, for example, comments, Those girls do that stuff all the time. They hug and stuff like that. [He rolls his eyes as if disgusted by such shows of affection.] They do it just to be teacher pets and to get special favors and rewards. Mrs. Cole likes hugs…boys just don’t hug much. We aren’t girls, you know. Nobody wants to be a sissy boy. Sometimes Mrs. Cole hugs us [boys] but not very often and not long. We don’t like that. From his comments, Brian makes a clear distinction between the political behavior of boys and girls. Brian would not hug Mrs. Cole for he felt that hugging, though effective, was a strategy reserved only for girls, or ‘sissy boys.’

Protesting: ‘It’s not fair. You always let the girls go first.’ What began as an account of affection from some of the girls turns into a story of protest from some of the boys. Mrs. Cole stands at the door for several moments waiting for the boys to get quiet again so that the class can proceed to lunch. ‘OK, boys, you may line up here.’ [She points to a space on the floor in front of her and directly left of the girls.] The boys quickly get out of their chairs. Several boys race to get into line. Mrs. Cole instructs these boys to return to their desks, push in their chairs, and to concentrate on walking their way back to the end of the line. The boys reluctantly accept Mrs. Cole’s reprimand and walk correctly to the lunch line this ‘second time around.’ The class is now standing at the classroom doorway in two parallel lines— boys in one line and girls in the other. Near the back of the boys’ line, Jeffrey and Brian are having a pretend sword fight. Mrs. Cole instructs them to be quiet and to put their hands down at their sides. Mrs. Cole waits until Jeffrey and Brian have complied with her instructions and then double checks to see that both of the lines are quiet and still. She then touches Jennifer, who is the leader of the girls’ line, on the shoulder and tells her to lead the girls on to the lunch room. Jennifer, just as she did earlier on her way back from computer class, reaches out and quickly hugs Mrs. Cole as she passes her on route to the lunch room. 114

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Jeffrey, from the back of the boys’ line, looks directly at Mrs.Cole and intensely demands, ‘Hey, how come you let the girls go first?’ ‘I didn’t have to ask any girls to be quiet and to put their hands at their side,’ replies Mrs. Cole. ‘Girls are your favorite. I saw girls talking. The girls were talking!’ Jeffrey’s voice intensity is increasing and he is visibly upset. Several boys, including Brian, are mumbling about how unfair it is the girls have gone to lunch first. ‘Shhhhhhhh. Boys you may go to lunch.’ The boys’ line begins to move out of the classroom toward the lunchroom, following the girls. A mumbling of protests can still be heard from the boys’ line. Jeffrey continues his comments as he walks heavily, almost stomping, out the classroom door. ‘Girls can talk and not get in trouble but boys can do nothing and get in trouble. Dumb ol’ girls, dumb ol’ girls.’ ‘Jeffrey you need to get quiet.’ ‘It’s not fair.’ ‘It is fair.’ ‘It’s not fair. You always let the girls go first.’ ‘I let the quietest line go first. You weren’t quiet.’ ‘The girls weren’t quiet. I saw them talking.’ ‘Jeffrey, that is enough!’ Jeffrey looks Mrs. Cole directly in the eye, stops, and says loudly ‘It’s not fair!’ Mrs. Cole stops and looks at Jeffrey for several seconds. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before responding to Jeffrey. She looks tired. She shakes her head and glances momentarily at the ceiling as if seeking divine guidance. She leans down and speaks softly to Jeffrey, ‘Next time, the boys can go first, OK Jeffrey? It will be the boys turn tomorrow. But now you must go quietly and eat your lunch. Please, Jeffrey, can you do that?’ Jeffrey, although not visually happy, says no more, turns and walks on toward the lunchroom. He proceeds through the lunch line to collect his food and then seats himself in chair, next to Brian. Jeffrey believes there is an issue of classroom gender inequality. He explains his verbal protests as occurring from what he sees to be acts of favoritism by Mrs. Cole toward the girls of the classroom. He states: Kids need to tell her [Mrs. Cole] when it’s not fair. We tell her because we don’t like it, we hate it, we can’t stand it…we let her know how we feel, like how it isn’t fair. When she knows how strongly we feel and that we are going to feel that way until she changes it she will change her mind. Like letting the boys go first to lunch as much as the girls. 115

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Of the many political strategies observed in use by this class of students, only affection or protesting is gender related. The girls are much more inclined to use particular displays of affection to gain some advantage in the decisions Mrs. Cole makes. Some boys resort to direct protests, but these occasions are few.

Intermediaries: ‘See we told our parents…. Now Mrs. Cole can’t do that anymore.’ In the midst of the above interview conversation about gender inequality, Brian chimes in with the comment: Some things aren’t fair. Boys let Mrs. Cole know that they don’t like it and that it’s not right and that they aren’t going to do it so she can change her mind. Most of the time she changes her mind, but if she don’t we tell our parents and they tell her. Brian’s comments demonstrate an additional political strategy that students use in the classroom—that of intermediaries. It also reveals how students can adjust their political strategies depending upon a chosen strategy’s success or failure. Brian expounds on his concerns about classroom equality and the conditions under which parents can help students. He provides the following example, We [referring to the entire class] don’t get in bad trouble very much. When we have been in trouble is when the whole class has to sit down during recess. What happened is that we were not talking but the whole class has to sit down because a few kids are talking. Like if someone starts talking and they get in trouble, we all get in trouble. Then we have to sit down and miss out on play time. We didn’t like it and we told Mrs. Cole but she wouldn’t listen to us and she wouldn’t change it. So we told our parents about it, like how unfair it was and that it wasn’t our fault and that Mrs. Cole wouldn’t listen to us. But now we don’t have to do recess like that anymore, you know miss play time anymore because a few kids were causing trouble. See we told our parents. Our parents talked to Mrs. Craig [the headmistress] and she talked to Mrs. Cole. Now Mrs. Cole can’t do that anymore. She can’t make us sit down when it’s someone else’s fault. Only the people talking can sit down. In some situations then, students can use their parents and the headteacher as intermediaries to successfully influence Mrs. Cole to change her actions. When the influence of students is ineffective or limited, students will often engage others to assist in their political influence. 116

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Towards a Micropolitical Framework for Understanding Student Actions In this chapter I have portrayed some micropolitical acts of a group of 7-yearolds. Micropolitics is about power and power is the ability to achieve desired goals, outcomes, or preferences. According to Blase (1991), power is achieved through the use of political strategies. This type of power is evident in both the actions and verbal explanations of the primary students at St. Paul’s school. The political actions and verbal explanations of these primary students do more than just confirm Blase’s findings. When applied to the classroom, the data can be further developed into a rudimentary political framework from which to understand some aspects of classroom life. From this perspective we can see that second grade students have the abilities to determine goals, to perceive goal compatibility or incompatibility, to select and use political strategies, and to evaluate the consequences of their strategies in terms of goal achievement. These goals provide a lens through which students view and interpret the teachercreated classroom environment and the outcomes of their actions within it. Students thus come to perceive their goals as being either compatible or incompatible with that environment. If a student’s goal is compatible with the priorities of the classroom, goal achievement is expected and most likely achieved. If a student perceives the goal to be incompatible with the classroom environment, then particular micropolitical strategies can be selected to support goal achievement. Once a student selects and initiates a strategy, the preferred strategy will be evaluated to determine if it is effective in achieving the goal. If the student perceives the strategy to be ineffective, other options can be considered. The student may decide to vary the strategy through increasing the intensity of the strategy (i.e., frequency, duration, loudness), modifying the complexity of the strategy (i.e., using multiple strategies at the same time), or expanding the level of inclusion (i.e., soliciting other individuals or groups to help reach goal achievement). Alternatively, a student may decide to switch to a new strategy— one that is perceived as having a better chance in achieving the preferred goal. Or, a student may re-evaluate and possibly modify his original goal if he or she perceives the strategy to be ineffective in achieving a preferred goal. The proposed micropolitical framework for understanding student actions thus consists of three dimensions—goals, strategies, and consequences. Within each dimension are decision points where students much determine what, when, where, how, and how much force they will exert on the classroom environment to achieve their own goals. Initially, students must ask, ‘Is this act I am being asked to do compatible with what I want to do?’ ‘Will I use cooperative or conflictive strategies?’ And, ‘Which strategies will I use?’ Once a strategy is enacted, students then ask themselves the following types of questions: ‘Is this really working?’ ‘Do I still want to do this?’ ‘Should I leave my options open?’ ‘Does this one deserve another strategy?’ ‘Is my original goal still important or not?’ 117

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In Mrs. Cole’s classroom, the students do not activate these questions at the same time, in the same sequence, or with the same intent. When they do address the questions, their answers or decisions are not necessarily the same. Brian, for example, wanted to avoid reading. He clearly states, ‘I didn’t want to read. I get tired of reading…’ In the segment reported earlier, Mrs.Cole asked Brian to read his library book while she assisted a student with work missed because of an illness. Based on both Brian’s previous and present interactions with the classroom environment, he determined that his goal of ‘not reading’ was incompatible with Mrs.Cole’s goal that ‘everyone would read.’ Brian strategically reflected upon the situation and selected a micropolitical strategy that he felt would optimize his efforts in reaching his goal of avoiding reading. His first chosen strategy was verbal arguing. He initiated this strategy by firmly stating to Mrs.Cole, ‘I don’t want to read.’ It took him very little time to note that this strategy would be ineffective in achieving his goal. This was reaffirmed by Mrs.Cole’s counter-response to Brian in which she tells him to, ‘…get your book and begin reading.’ She further made her intentions known by stating, ‘The next time I look up I want to see you reading.’ Brian evaluated his strategy of verbal arguing and perceived it to be ineffective. As a result, he opted to try a new strategy, one that I term persistent interruption. Persistent interruption is the process of using questions, remarks, and noises to disrupt the teacher’s concentration. In this case, Brian used interruption while Mrs.Cole tried to work with another student. At first, Mrs.Cole responded to Brian’s new strategy of interruption by ignoring it (her counter-strategy). Brian evaluated the effectiveness of his chosen strategy and decided to vary this strategy by intensifying his efforts. He became louder and more persistent, and then added a nonverbal component: ‘Mrs.Cole…[now much louder] Mrs.Cole…Mrs.Cole [he tugs on her sleeve], can I water the gerbil? Mrs.Cole…Can I move his [gerbil] house?’ Brian then had Mrs.Cole’s attention. She got up and moved with Brian over toward the gerbil cages. Brian realized that his interruption strategy had been effective in getting Mrs. Cole’s attention and in distracting her. He then continued his strategic assault by quickly turning to a new strategy, that of pleading: ‘Can I read by the gerbil so I can watch him?…I can do it. I have done it before at home. Pleeeeeeeeese, can I?’ Mrs.Cole finally conceded to let Brian both read and watch the gerbil. Brian’s smile as Mrs. Cole walked away from him confirms his goal achievement. He never began reading. Thus, Brian’s goal of ‘avoiding reading’ was achieved. While it was necessary for Brian to vary and adapt his strategies to achieve his goal, it was not necessary for him to modify his initial goal. Brian demonstrates a considered and oppositional micropolitical style with numerous strategic alternatives at the ready. It is noteworthy that Brian, like the majority of students in Mrs. Cole’s classroom, uses conflictual types of micropolitical strategies. Jennifer is the only student who relies exclusively on cooperative strategies. Although she 118

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recognizes the conflictual political behavior of her peers she is not likely to join in. In contrast to Brian, Jennifer has fewer strategies, is less developed and explicit in the reasons for her actions, and tries to avoid conflict. Her micropolitical style is intuitive and supportive in spirit and practice. Chrissy uses both cooperative and conflictive micropolitical strategies. She used cooperative strategies when operating alone and conflictive strategies when operating within the safety of a group. Chrissy worried about the punishment that could result from using conflictive micropolitical strategies. At the same time, Chrissy did not hesitate to join in when other students initiated a conflictive strategy especially if she thought it would benefit her individually. Chrissy adopts a somewhat passive and conformist micropolitical style that places importance on gaining and maintaining a favorable position with both the teacher and her peers. Welsley is also aware of the repercussions of her political strategies. Her decision on whether to yield to fear of punishment depends upon what is at stake. Some things, according to Welsley, were worth getting in trouble over. She explained, Sometimes I’ll do part of what I don’t like but not all of what it is because I don’t like it. I know sometimes I have to do those things or get in really big trouble but not all the time and not if I hate, hate, hate it…Then it wouldn’t matter if I got in trouble…But we talk to Mrs. Cole about it and we work it out. Unlike Chrissy, Welsley is prepared to individually assert her will through both cooperative and conflictive strategies. Her micropolitical style suggests an appreciation of compromise, a sense of where to ‘draw the line’ and when ‘enough is enough’, and a capacity to draw on a wide range of strategies to change the circumstances to her liking. This emerging framework then provides an organizer for understanding the repertoire of micropolitical strategies available to students, for portraying the decision-making process inherent in students’ micropolitical acts, and for comparing the different styles students develop to influence what their classroom life most emphasizes. The classroom is a complex and dynamic world where the socio-political acts of students figure prominently in the negotiated experiences they co-construct with their teacher.

Micropolitical World of the Classroom The 7-year-olds of Mrs.Cole’s classroom are micropolitical players. They both act and understand their actions in terms of priorities they define and strive to achieve. While they are not always politically successful in influencing the course of classroom life, it is not for lack of trying. These students are clearly adept 119

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strategists—some more than others—and represent a force to reckon with in the ongoing socio-political realities of the classroom. What can we learn from this portrayal? A return to the reasons why these students resort to micropolitical strategies offers some clues. Many of the students describe their use of political strategies as resulting from a dislike of a classroom activity. While dislike is the term used by the students, such an affective response indicates deeper goals. It is likely more than the students simply liking or disliking an activity. The students stated that they dislike a classroom activity when they do not understand the activity, when they lack the confidence in their own abilities to successfully participate in the activity, when the activity provides little or no challenge, and when they fear failure and the resulting consequences of failure. Interestingly, the political intent behind these reasons seems often center in educational concerns. It is not always a matter of the students trying to divert or subvert the teacher’s agenda, but rather reacting as concerned learners. If they anticipate academic success, they cooperate; if such success appears unlikely, they find ways to reduce the problems or pain that might ensue. In these circumstances, the teacher should interpret the use of micropolitical strategies as signals of concern and as a call for a pedagogical response to the learning needs of the students. Finally, the use of cooperative or conflictive strategies by the students frequently is a reaction to micropolitical moves made by teachers. It can alert teachers to the nature and acceptability of their influencing acts and, where necessary, inform them about any adaptations they need to make in order to maintain their curriculum agenda. For the teacher too is a micropolitical player often at the centrestage of classroom life.

Acknowledgments A version of this paper was first presented to a conference of the American Educational Research Association (San Francisco, 1995). I am grateful to the participants on that occasion for their comments and to Dennis Thiessen for his comments on later drafts.

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The study reported here is part of a larger study analyzing the micropolitical interaction that occurs between and among elementary/primary age students and their teacher (See Spaulding, 1994). Grounded theory methods (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) were used for collecting, coding, and analyzing data attained from a second grade classroom where the nine month research project took place. Data were collected through participant observation and interviews. Credibility criteria used included: prolonged engagement, persistent observation, triangulation, peer debriefing, member checking, and thick description.

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References BALL, S. (1987) The Micro-politics of the School, New York, Routledge. BLASE, J. (1991) The Politics of Life in Schools: Power, Conflict, and Cooperation, Newbury Park, CA., Sage. BLASE, J. (1990) ‘Some negative effects of principals’ control-oriented and protective political behavior’, American Educational Research Journal, 27, 4, pp. 727–53. BLASE, J. (1989) ‘The micropolitics of the school: The everyday political perspective of teachers toward open school principals’, Educational Administration Quarterly, 25, 4, pp. 377–407. GLASER, B. and STRAUSS, A. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research, Chicago, Aldine. SPAULDING, P. (1994) ‘The micropolitics of an elementary classroom’, unpublished doc-toral dissertation, Texas Tech University.

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Experience through the Eyes of Quiet Bird: Reconnecting Personal Life and School Life John G.Nicbolls* and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates

As part of a larger project on improving learning through home-school collaboration, John Nicholls, Professor of Education, interviewed David Richardson, a small and delicate second grader who, it had been recently confirmed, had learning disabilities.1 The interview was conducted in early December to help the two strangers become acquainted. John was particularly interested in the ideas of James (1907), and the relationship between pupils’ academic experiences and their personal lives. With the help of David’s parents and Ann Bates, his teacher, therefore, John was hoping to explore the ways in which David’s school and personal experiences enlighten, stimulate, and complement one another. In this opening interview, however, John’s excitement and confidence were undermined by his inability to establish effective communication with David. ‘So. I want to see what you think about school. Is there anything special that comes to mind…that you think about school and you want to tell me about first?’ Small, pixie-like David did not seem anxious, but gave no answer. Neither tense nor defensive, David was hard to read. Self-contained, perhaps? He was definitely cute and a touch winsome. ‘I’ve got some questions, but I thought maybe you could just give me your first ideas. What do you think about school?’ John paused. David showed no embarrassment, yet stayed silent. ‘Maybe if I ask you this one? Can you think about a time when you had a really good day in school? Was there ever a day like that, that was really good in school?’ ‘Mmmnn. No.’ John Nicholls died in September 1994, and his account is written posthumously. It is based on his first draft of a forthcoming book, Fractured Experience: The Challenge of Learning Disabilities to Democratic Education, in which a much fuller version of this case study appears. 122

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Most children can think of good times in school so John continued hopefully, ‘Not really? Not a really good day, eh?’ David did not flicker. ‘Was there any time when you had a good hour or good few minutes, a minute that was really good?’ ‘Sometimes.’ ‘Ok. What was happening in those times when you had a few good minutes? What were you doing?’ Silence. Then, ‘Forgot.’ John asked about bad times and again encountered silence. On they went, with John awkwardly doing most of the talking. John asked about homework, and David had nothing to say. ‘Ok,’John babbled. ‘Suppose there wasn’t any homework. When you go home, you can choose anything you want to do. What would you choose?’ Silence. ‘You can choose. When you are free, do you have some things you like to do?’ No answer. ‘Do you sit there and look, or do you run around?’ ‘Run around.’ ‘Yeah! What sort of places do you run.’ Ha! ‘What do you look for?’ ‘Lots of things.’ ‘Oh. Ok. What things? I don’t live here so maybe there’s a lot of different things you can look for that I don’t know.’ ‘Rocks.’ ‘Rocks. Oh yes! Are there neat rocks here?’ David nodded. ‘Good. So you’re interested in nature are you?’ David nodded. ‘Rocks. Any other things, are there? Are there a lot of animals there?’ John was leading—many children brought up animals in his interviews. ‘Some.’ ‘Ok. So you look at things outside. Any other things? Anything else?’ Silence. ‘Ok. How about TV? Watch that?’ ‘Mnmm.’ ‘Ok,’ John proceeded, ‘What about reading? Are there some books you like to read at home or pictures you like to look at in books?’ No answer. ‘Do you like books at all, or not much?’ ‘Not much.’ ‘Ok. Um, did you ever like looking at books? When you were littler, did you like it more?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You did? That’s interesting. What sort of books did you used to like looking at?’ Silence. ‘Animal books or anything?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘That’s interesting David, that you liked looking at books a bit more than you do now. Can you tell me why? That happened to one of my boys. He used to like it, then he sort of changed. Why did that happen to you?’ Silence. 123

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‘Hard to tell? When do you think it happened? This year or…’ ‘Last year.’ David interrupted, suddenly surprisingly decisive. ‘Oh. So, before you got into first grade you liked books, is that right?’ ‘Mmm.’ ‘And in first grade you didn’t?’ ‘Mmm,’ David nodded. ‘Well, tell me something about first grade. That would really help me. Could you tell me some stuff about first grade. What happened in first grade? What was it?’ ‘Bored.’ David left little doubt about these feelings. This sentiment was as clear as anything he had said and seemed to come with a tiny impish sparkle in his eyes. ‘Got bored did you? Hey, that’s no good.’ John could not get more detail, so changed his tack. ‘What if you were the teacher? What would you think of that would help make it fun again? Would just looking at pictures make it fun again?’ Silence. ‘Can’t think of anything? Maybe we can think about that again? Maybe I can try and think of things, eh?’ ‘Nah.’ A trace of scorn here. ‘Don’t think so?’ ‘Nah.’ When the discouraged John came home after this initial interview, he talked with me, Theresa (Terri) Thorkildsen, his wife and the narrator of this story. David reminded John of me and the motivational difficulties I experienced throughout my formal schooling. Because I was clever enough to succeed in school without special labels, but was often disengaged from the formal agendas of my teachers, John regularly solicited my advice on the kinds of questions to ask David, Ann, and David’s parents. At this point in our deliberations, we concluded that David’s belief that reading could never again be fun revealed a faint hint of a devil-may-care tough guy. David did not relish school, visualized no reform, and left his attentive listener stammering. Yet, he did not give an articulate critique of school. What did David think about the kinds of knowledge he was asked to acquire? Did his life in school lead to personal discovery? Or, did he see school learning as simply something the adults in his life made him do? Listening to David, it is easy to assume that his silence and alienation from reading occurred because he had learning disabilities that prevented him from tuning into the intellectual world that other second graders took for granted. Yet, if David had not been in a public environment wherein his abilities could be compared to those of his classmates, we might look for other explanations. It is conceivable, for example, that David disliked reading because it forced him to engage with a medium for self-expression that he found unfulfilling—a stance 124

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that would lead him to erect barriers to separate his school and personal lives. During a 6-month study of David’s home and school lives, John discovered evidence to support both of these possibilities. David did have difficulty reading with the fluency and comprehension his peers took for granted. He also camouflaged his artistic nature, social conscience, and vivid imagination, hiding important dimensions of his identity from those in school. David seemed to accept the traditional view that personal impulse and desire were illegitimate concerns in school, yet he could not always resist the temptations of these impulses.

Meet Quiet Bird The day after the initial interview, all the second graders in the school sat on the clean, polished floor of the gymnasium to hear from Singing Bird, a Chippewa visitor from Michigan. Singing Bird explained that, just as the children did not come to school on horses or in buggies as their ancestors might have, so she lives like a modern American. She went on to help the children experience some of the cultural rituals her people retained from their past. John was on the floor, too. He was an outlier near the back of the large island of occasionally squirming but generally attentive children, just behind David who had placed himself on the flank. Well into her program, Singing Bird said, ‘You all have a special gift. How many of you believe that? How many believe you have a very special gift to give?’ A sea of hands went up, but David’s was not one of them. David’s thoughts were well hidden. ‘They have much to offer,’ went the refrain of Singing Bird’s Song of Children. ‘Won’t we listen to what they say?’ To listen to David, a boy who would not speak, required ingenuity. A minute after claiming to have no special gifts, David pulled some food from his bag and twice successfully teased the girl next to him—pretending to offer her the sandwich, then pulling it away. There was an impish twinkle that helped John to see that perhaps it is through gesture and not words that David revealed his identity. Singing Bird’s performance capped the second graders’ projects on the Indians of North America. John remembered that earlier that day, when David’s class completed sentences, David had found another way to assert himself. The first sentence read, ‘My Indian name is…’ David wrote, ‘Quiet Bird‘. In the spirit of Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1963), this seemed like a revealing caption for David’s approach to schooling. The next sentence to be completed was, ‘I chose it because…’ and David simply wrote ‘It’s a good one.’ Even though Ann encouraged students to give and justify their views on matters that are open to interpretation, Quiet Bird kept secret his thoughts. Was David unable or unwilling to articulate the source of this imaginative name? It was difficult to know if David chose Quiet Bird on 125

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an impulse that was hard for him to explain, or if this was an example of a carefully crafted camouflage stemming from the belief that school was no place for personal revelation. Talking with David’s mother, John found confirmation for his emerging hunch that David’s personal and academic experiences were not in satisfactory relation. David’s mother gave vivid descriptions of David’s stubborn adherence to a dichotomy between school work and the rest of his life, and his concern with obtaining correct answers on worksheets. ‘David doesn’t really say a lot about school,’ his mother told John. ‘He’s generally here, like ten minutes before I get home. He’s usually like he is now, out the door. If it’s daylight, he’ll be outside. I have him come in for dinner and then he has spelling words…It’s scheduled after dinner…He’s had his time to play and he’s full of food so now he can stretch his little brain.’ ‘David never really pulls out papers from school,’ continued Mrs. Richardson. ‘I mean, unless he gets 100 on his spelling tests. Then it’s right in my face and it’s up on the refrigerator. And, he’s very proud and I’m proud, too. He gets rewards when he’s done well. A special treat of some sort…’ ‘It’s my impression, in observing, that school’s not a lot of fun. Is that right?’ said John to David who was suddenly pretending to hide behind a chair. David did not respond so John continued talking to his mother. ‘But, he also has some fun, like he is now. He fits it in around things. But, I think it’s hard to make a lot of schoolwork fun…He’s trying to do the work, but it’s not his.’ ‘Expertise.’ ‘Maybe that’s part of it,’ said John. ‘I’m wondering if it’s like his life is divided up, like there’s schoolwork and there’s fun and you can’t do both at once?’ ‘Well, we do reading. When I read to my little ones, he’ll be there. Now he’ll help with reading. I’ll read a page and he’ll read a page…. He enjoys it, if it has something to do with trucks, fire trucks, firemen.’ David had disappeared and returned bringing an attractive toy truck, made by his grandfather, and a larger fire truck. ‘You know,’ said John looking at the way David handled his toys, ‘Ann has been thinking of ways to connect that [imagination] to schoolwork.’ ‘Well, he does things. He has a farm downstairs. It’s usually set up on our pool table ‘The impression I get watching in school, and Ann does too, is that there’s a rich something going on in there that doesn’t come out in school.’ ‘David is really stubborn compared to my other kids…and he didn’t have preschool and the older boys had preschool…Being as stubborn as he is, there are times when I want him to do his spelling words, he’ll just have a fit. He will cry for fifteen minutes. And I’ll go “David, I know you want to go do 126

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this with somebody, but you know this is the time, and your crying is wasting your time” and then he’ll stop and then think about it. And he’ll do it and he’s done. And he’s fine.’ The theme was consistent: even though David wanted to do schoolwork, it was not his. He had to make himself do it or someone else must make him do it. Ann also confirmed this observation that David’s lack of voice’ represented a separation of his school and personal experiences when she told John that, for David, going to school must be almost like being a victim. ‘Like going to the doctor. Not that going to the doctor is oppressive for some people either: some can take charge even there. But, it’s like he lacks entitlement. Some [students]…see good schooling as a sort of right.’ Although David hid from opportunities to publicly reveal his identity, he was not at odds with classroom life. David had many friends and often participated in whatever activities were planned, but contributed in a playful or mischievous way that sometimes suggested he was alienated from schoolwork. This was apparent when Ann called the class to join her on the rug and discuss the Indian legends they had read. David arrived quickly and sat away from the group, against the wall. Ann urged him to move so he could see and thus participate. David moved, but not enough to make himself included. The class discussed factual and interpretive, potentially controversial, questions. There was a lively discussion of whether one legend involved trickery or whether it involved clever action and planning. David seemed not to follow the conversation and did not contribute. We saw, in David’s behavior, support for Dewey’s (1938) assertion that some students can assume it is the responsibility of the teacher to keep order because order is in the teacher and not in the shared work being done. Later, Ann observed that with legends ‘David is working very much at the literal level. I work to get him to understand what happened in the story. He stays on task pretty well then. I think it’s when he feels a little inadequate or he feels the conversation is going in a way he doesn’t understand, he might get silly…Now, in his skill group, I’ll ask a question or one comes up, and he’ll say an answer under his breath, as though he’s testing the water. Then, I’ll encourage him to say it to the group. But, raising his hand and saying I have something to say that I know is right ...’ That’s a bit different…?’ asked John. ‘Yes, [David] wants them to laugh, but not think he’s stupid. He did the funniest thing when he was Star of the Week…[The ‘Stars’] give an oral presentation where they tell about themselves…For whatever reason, [the 127

John G.Nicbolls* and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates

children] began to ask whether you’re a vegetarian. They ask this each week. When they asked David, he said, ‘No, I’m an American.’ [The class] laughed and laughed: they thought he was being witty. And, [David] realized they thought it was a wonderful answer, so he was pleased, but surprised. He managed to get out of it.’ After much discussion, John and Ann decided that it would be premature to assume these and other similar incidents could help them understand the roots of David’s alienation from reading. They could have spent months or years wondering if he disliked reading because he lacked competence or because he could not connect the drill and skill activities emphasized in school with the imaginative world John heard about when he visited David at home. Rather than become preoccupied with this question, John and Ann responded as if both possibilities were true. They designed activities to help David learn to appreciate books and to integrate his school life and personal life.

Learning to Love Books In the early months of this project, Ann used an informal sort of ‘ability’ grouping so that students read stories of their choice on a theme addressed by the whole class. They then completed a reading response sheet, consistent with their particular level of skill, wherein they wrote or drew reactions to the book and mapped the plot of the story. Students would also complete an occasional phonics assignment along with sight word recognition, letter sound relationship, and general language structure drills. From day to day, Ann varied the way in which she distributed these assignments, limiting opportunities for social comparison and the ability of students to compete with one another. Preoccupation with social comparison, Ann thought, encouraged slapdash work: students might compete to finish the teacher-structured drills so that they could be the first to do the more imaginative tasks that followed. Ann also wanted to avoid the stigma associated with constant membership of a low reading group. Furthermore, by staggering the order in which students could work on imaginative and more structured tasks, Ann hoped students would see that ‘the literary response is a personal response.’ Yet, even within this supportive classroom, David would avoid listening to Ann’s instructions, make frequent trips to the bathroom, and otherwise stall on his assignments. Poor motivation among students with learning disabilities is common (e.g., Licht and Kistner, 1986). David’s behavior suggested why, regardless of how they started, motivational problems can persist. David was inattentive and sought diversions at the outset. One day, for example, David became distracted from his own work by listening to Eleanor who was sitting behind him reading aloud. He started again, then talked with Liz who was next to him reading an attractively illustrated book. Nearby, Ann was busy helping others and did not notice David becoming engaged in Liz’s book. David caught himself, stretched and exclaimed, 128

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‘Oh!’ before forcing himself back to the phonics sheet he should have been doing. Whereas other children occasionally deviated from what they were doing, David remained busy with anything but the assigned task. When other children finished, they typically chose their own activities. David, by comparison, had barely begun his work. By the very act of choosing, David’s classmates gained initiative he did not. In addition, his classmates spent more time on tasks they probably found more engrossing than on the drills in which David was still mired. David’s attention to the assignments was less focused. Consequently, he was strapped with less interesting work. (See Deci, 1995, for an elaboration of this particular form of motivational trap.) It would be reasonable for David to infer his own incompetence or laziness if he compared his progress to others. Yet, David showed no sign of laziness. Even his ‘off-task’ time was spent in other intellectual pursuits. Nevertheless, the way David forced his attention back but could not apply himself to the assignments suggested to some that he might have gained some satisfaction in completing tasks through a technical-rational approach whereby Ann could dissect the intended curriculum into easily digestible pieces. David’s implicit acceptance that authority resided within Ann was also evident when he expressed guilt or embarrassment about his limited progress and inability to adhere to her wishes. (See Thiessen, 1987, for a more elaborate description of how this vision of education can be internalized by some students with learning disabilities.) He did not finish and his diversions, not being the assigned work, could hardly afford the sense of virtue and competence promoted by successful accomplishment. But impulsive, off-task behavior was not David’s whole life in the classroom. Hoping that students could learn from one another, Ann asked them to read a variety of books in pairs while other students worked with her on more specific forms of skill development. David sometimes became more engaged in this sort of official task. ‘Bob, could you possibly buddy read with David?’ Bob grinned across at David who reciprocated, maintaining eye contact while Ann arranged other pairs. They chose a book, then, very deliberately, looked for space. Finally, they put two chairs in the center of the rug, which was normally clear of furniture. They took turns, reading continuously until recess. Ignoring all around them, David took his fair share of pages with Bob, a more fluent reader, helping judiciously. The next day, the boys finished the book. With Bob’s assistance decoding difficult words, David read with some expression. As they finished, Ann knelt to look into their eyes. ‘Sixty three pages!’ commented David. ‘David. Which part did you enjoy most?’ Ann encouraged. ‘So, did you find some funny things?’ ‘She stuffed the stocking,’ David finally piped up. ‘That’s my favorite part.’ 129

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‘David and Bob, can you turn to the favorite page and read it to me?’ David found a page and read. Ann provoked more discussion then, ‘David and Bob, you need to do your reading response sheet.’ John and Ann agreed that these practices should be modified slightly so that David could have more choices over which tasks to work on and when, could regularly collaborate with his peers, and would feel encouraged to express his personal thoughts. They disagreed in that John would have liked to see Ann stop using drills that dissect reading into discrete skills. To Ann, however, the drills represented an official curriculum that she felt pressurized to ‘get through,’ alongside opportunities for more imaginative tasks. David and his mother, for example in their attitude to nightly spelling work, appeared to hold a more implicit belief in the efficacy of the decontextualized tasks emphasized by the school. John, on the other hand, thought that the ‘things students have to get through’ might be part of what led to David’s divided experience—preventing him from making schoolwork his personal work. To coordinate the conflicting visions of skill development and imaginative learning, Ann gave out work folders and asked David which task he wanted to do first. She hoped that by allowing David to choose when to do various tasks, she could provide him with some of the benefits obtained by the children who did not become overwhelmed by reading comprehension tasks and other drills. Ann told David he need not do all the work immediately and encouraged him to schedule his learning—not to become bogged down on any one assignment. David seemed pleased, started on a phonics worksheet, then went to read with Matt. The two boys formed a good team. They chose a book that was about the right challenge for them both, and each boy could read words the other could not. David played briefly with an eraser, but was soon back to reading the book that he and Matt then finished. After reading, David worked a little on his phonics sheet. Encouraging David not to become bogged down seemed to pay off. Later, Ann showed John a reader response sheet that David had spontaneously decorated with a delicate sketch. The doodling looked like an act of affection for the book, a solid attempt, albeit non-verbal, at expressing his personal reaction to a book. By encouraging David to ‘buddy read’ and allowing him some control over when to do what, his appreciation for books gradually began to return. As the year progressed, such early signs of appreciation for the printed word blossomed into full blown reverence. David began to treat books like powerful, but sacred objects, exactly what Ann had hoped. One day, for example, David came in as school was about to start, went directly to his desk, and sat reading a booklet that he wrote the day before. Meanwhile, Ann gently announced the date and the rest of the morning routine. She almost whispered, maintaining calm without obliging everyone to attend to her. David remained engrossed in reading, with his head on his hand. This gesture, 130

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along with Ann’s quiet manner and the hushed tones of the other children, made John feel like he was in a cathedral—a small, square cathedral, with yellow walls and a flat, low roof. David continued his devotional reading as others tried to answer the day’s opening question: What country is south of Mexico? The question proved difficult, but before attending to it, David finished reading and made a small addition to his book. By the end of the year, David could often be seen reading, deeply engrossed, with his head resting on his hand. Near the end of the year, after discussing fairy tales, David approached Ann to say, ‘I have not read very many fairy tales, because I’m so busy.’ He was ‘busy’ on language drills and did not want to miss reading fairy tales. Reading fairy tales might mean, by implication, not being busy. Could there be a time when David says, ‘I couldn’t get busy reading fairy tales because I was buried in details of worksheets’? That would be asking a lot more. Nevertheless, David was no longer losing momentum in carrying out tasks. This, together with his enthusiasm, suggests some validity for Dewey’s (1938) claim that education should emphasize the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes that direct his or her learning.

Making Room for the Personal Awakens the Intellectual John’s view that David seemed to have difficulty connecting his school and personal lives was also supported by David’s behavior in gym, a place where his particular learning disabilities should not have affected his performance. In gym, David exhibited the same impulsive behaviors and attempts to stay on the edge of the group that he did for reading. One day, for example, the children began by running around the gym to music. David ran slowly, then quickly. He slid along the wall, then waited for Mark. Whereas most students ran at a steady pace, David and Mark cavorted and played tag briefly before David ran off again. David did exercise, but he zigzagged and was not always part of the general flow. Nevertheless, his small deviations were no threat to the general order. When the students were instructed to each get a basketball, David was lying on the floor, apparently daydreaming, quite relaxed. He was last to get a ball. When the group was given instructions on ball handling exercises, David was lying on his back. When the music started, the others began and after a pause, David tried to imitate them. David gave up quickly and bounced his ball until the instructor stopped him. Then, he began to nudge the ball like a bull and to crawl after it. As he passed the instructor, she patted his head—neither a gesture of approval nor a demand to stop his unofficial enterprise. Over the weeks, John noticed that the gym instructor allowed David more latitude than most students. The instructor told John that she liked David, and that David had difficulty with some activities, yet he tried and kept active. 131

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Whereas the gym teacher saw incompetence in David, John saw initiative and self-determination. There was no doubt, however, that David had trouble making the official activities of gym class his own and learning the lessons taught. John gained more insight when telling David’s mother about his behavior in gym. ‘He’s always played by himself. Until recently, all the other kids were older, and he didn’t have play partners. So it was just always David in the sandbox. We have a huge sandbox, and he’ll spend hours building roads using his imagination beyond anything you can believe. I mean this guy has built golf courses, and a construction area. Everything in a sand-box…He’s always been that way.’ ‘You know, maybe that’s a thing the school needs to find a way to use?’ ‘I think they are a little bit with their writing, because he’s written papers about Dad’s work…then about grandpa being a fireman. And he loves to draw trucks.’ ‘Ann certainly encourages that.’ In addition to hiding his imagination, David was also reluctant to discuss personal matters. One day, for example, John asked David how he got a scratch on his eye. Rather than answer, he teased Elliot, saying Elliot did it. Then David asked Bob if he liked lemonade, challenging, ‘Answer yes or no!’ David’s methods for distracting John’s attention seemed to be a polite way of saying, ‘Mind your own business.’ The next afternoon, John was surprised to see David in Alice Kordek’s resource room. John calculated whether he could give David a playful pat on the back as he walked behind him to sit down, and decided to take the risk. David’s need to shelter his personal side made John reflect on what might otherwise be a natural gesture. During this session David surprised John by directly challenging Alice. In giving directions, Alice referred to the children as students. David piped up, ‘We’re not students.’ ‘What are you?’ Alice was surprised, too. ‘We’re pigs,’ said David. ‘Why?’ Alice looked a little worried. Could this be an expression of low self-esteem, commonly assumed to be found among students with learning disabilities (e.g., Pergande and Thorkildsen, 1995)? ‘We ate a lot.’ John was not sure, but David’s comment seemed like a joke. Alice, did not take it that way. 132

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‘Not in here. In here, I’m a teacher and you’re a student. You are not pigs. You are students,’ said Alice earnestly. Perhaps teachers’ reactions to David’s sense of humor had something to do with his unwillingness to share his personal thoughts. Yet David did send ambivalent messages, for example when he politely diverted inquiries into his personal affairs. John and Ann decided to try to help David see that, at least in this school, his personal and academic experiences were equally valued. To do so, however they had to work hard to decode David’s ambivalent messages. Still unsure about his interpretation of David’s comment, John later drove to David’s house. When John arrived, David was outside with his sister. He flopped excitedly on his back in the soft snow as John walked up. Again, not sure how it would come off, John said, ‘Hello. I wonder what that is over there? Is it a boy or is it a pig?’ To John’s relief, David’s grin confirmed John’s assumption about the joke. David’s mother told John, ‘Ann uses his interests…but he can’t do that through everything. He’ll do animals because he loves animals. His grandfather is very good guidance. They spend the summer up there and there are deer in the backyard, raccoons, birds…If they can work with him with nature stuff, he’d do a great job.’ David darted across the room to hide behind John’s chair. ‘You know what I learned today in school?’ John said to Mrs. Richardson. ‘What?’ ‘That he might look like a boy. He might look like a student. But what he really is a pig.’ ‘David you are a pig? Are you? Now you are supposed to be a cheetah [in the school play].’ The adults chuckled. ‘And what about books,’ continued John. ‘We buy books about fire engines. Yes and we just had the book club. He picked out two and I picked out one. David’s got them in his room. They’re downstairs, everywhere.’ ‘It would be really nice to use that imagination. That liveliness, because there is this liveliness.’ Quiet Bird appeared a tougher bird than John first thought, enduring school and protecting his personal world of animals and imagination. This experience reinforced Ann and John’s resolution to encourage David to share his personal thoughts and they became more directive. One day, for example, Ann was talking to George about his weekend when David arrived. David stood beside George and Ann turned to him, ‘How about you David? What kind of weekend did you have?’ David smiled and shrugged. Ann asked 133

John G.Nicbolls* and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates

again and he said, ‘Ok.’ David was clearly pleased to be recognized by Ann, but this was apparent in expression, not words. The work that she was undertaking with respect to David’s learning reflected an aspect of Ann’s major agenda for the year—to make everyone’s learning personal, positive, and comfortable. To achieve her goal, Ann had to listen carefully to what [her students] say.’ Listening to David, she learned that he attended to people and indicated his feelings, but often through art and gesture rather than words. If Ann could expand David’s comfort zone, maybe she could teach him that responding through written text is another means by which to attend to people and express feelings. As the year progressed, David began to accept this agenda. In his journal, for example, David wrote: My day was bad it Killed me i am gowen to Bed. Here was grim emotion, leavened by wry wit. What could be more personal? Yet, David was not ready to share the source of this emotion. When Ann responded in his journal by asking why David’s day was bad, Quiet Bird wrote no answer. Later, Ann asked her question orally, but David became coy and shrugged. The next day, however, David again framed pain poetically. The sun the sun had a bad day it was dark and cloude it started to rand. David’s poems reveal the rich sensitivity to emotion and artistic nature that John witnessed when visiting David at home and that his mother took for granted. With Ann’s encouragement, these isolated forms of self-expression gradually became more common. David was particularly attracted to cleverly illustrated books. When he went in search of a fable book, for example, he was drawn to a difficult one by its illustrations. Ann had to suggest one closer to his reading level, but she understood the spirit of David’s first choice. ‘I think,’ said Ann, ‘students like David have become accustomed to things in school not making sense to them. I think they sense that it makes more sense to others. But…they don’t come to me and say this isn’t making any sense to me.’ Ann had to help David make sense of books. Yet, by encouraging David to make decisions about what he should learn and when, Ann could see his interests more vividly and gently challenge decisions that seemed inappropriate. With Ann’s encouragement, David’s contributions to class discussions became more consistent, but only when he found the work meaningful. As the months passed, David was no longer the boy at the back of the group. He inched forward to the center and once in a while to the front. Through gesture and metaphor, 134

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David accepted Ann’s encouragement, rewarding her with flashes of artistic integrity and symbolic insight into his personal life. One day, for example, the class discussed how particular objects could be starting points for stories and decided to bring objects to use in this way. David’s object was a treasured ring that he had been given by someone in his family. ‘A lot of them had trouble taking an object that was meaningful to them and not just writing about the object,’ Ann told John.‘…But David did not have the need to tell about his object…He showed it and said it was a ring, and really dived right into this writing.’ Once upon a time a boy named George was walking. He stepped on something and turned into a deer and ran away at night. A hunter came in the woods shot at George’s friend. George looked up at his sharp horns and he ran as fast as his little legs can go. [He] poked the hunter in the butt. The hunter went, ‘Ahhhhhh.’ He jumped up tree. George was scared that he would never see his friend and family. The next day George woke up. He looked down. He wished I [was] a hewman. He walked home. He did not make it home. He stepped on something again, but he found what he stepped on. It was a ring. ‘Quite something,’ John responded. ‘The kid is taking off. He’s doing with words what he has been doing with drawing, and his sand pit and stuff at home.’ John suggested that David’s intentions had changed, but perhaps he and Ann had taken this long to see that David often expressed himself and was hardly a passive victim in school. In any case, John learned to accept the nonverbal way in which David actively cooperated in the purposes that governed his study and to recognize David’s strength in incidents like the following. ‘David,’ asked Ann one day, ‘do you have a letter yet?’ Each person was making a page for an alphabet book and many letters were already claimed. ‘Look at the ones that people don’t have and see what you want to do. David, do you want to take O?’ ‘I’m thinking,’ he said. David gave every impression of not wanting to make a hasty, aesthetically inept decision. Earlier, this would have appeared as a lack of confidence, voice, or a failure to accept that stating preferences is a legitimate part of school. By the time this event occurred, however, Ann and John could see that deliberate and sensitive decision-making was David’s way. Another way in which David asserted himself was to seek Ann’s validation of his ideas. Ann did not encourage such dependency in all students, but David seemed to be checking trust and seeking human connection rather than merely 135

John G.Nicbolls* and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates

checking answers. David was not manipulating Ann so that she would solve his problems for him. He was just sharing his thoughts and checking that all was well; perhaps checking that he really had a place and that his judgment worked. Late in March, on a day when he generally held his own, even though most tasks were routine and teacher directed, David handed Ann a note: Miss Bats I like you You our a good teacher from David.

Quiet Bird Shares His Social Conscience This need for reassurance was never evident with David’s art: in this domain he respected his own voice. As he revealed his sensitivity to emotions and artistic nature, David gained security from knowing that it would be respected. Subsequently, his writing voice gained similar integrity. Like students in other studies (e.g., Nicholls and Hazzard, 1993; Stanley, 1993), David’s limited assertiveness began to seem a strength. David was quiet when unsure of his place, but also seemed to be quietly protecting his world. His stubbornness suggested a grip on his own experience. His impishness and imagination found expression in clever thought, writing and drawing, and conventionally acceptable forms of wit. David’s new found security in the classroom was not accompanied by any tendency toward dominance. As Ann told John, ‘He is never mean. There are some [students] I get a lot of complaints about. Some do have a mean streak. Never have I heard anything like that about him.’ When Quiet Bird was quiet, it sometimes reflected an ethical stance, not mere shyness. And, when confronted with potentially oppressive acts, David could initiate a strong ethical critique. ‘David is calling me mean,’ Nate told Ann one day. David did not explain himself clearly. Ann kept them both talking to glean that David was reacting to the egotism suggested by Nate having written ‘Nate the great’ on a name card in the computer room. In the discussion, David revised his charge from meanness to rudeness. This incident fits with David’s other expressions of support for the underdogs. When asked, for example, to draw peace symbols and write two selfchosen slogans on them, David wrote, ‘Homes for the poor’ and ‘Save the Indians.’ Although he did this work as quickly as any in the small group, his peers drew hearts and wrote about universal symbols rather than calls to eradicate particular forms of oppression. Likewise, completed in honor of Martin Luther King’s Birthday, David’s story and the corresponding drawing about his own dreams for the country contained unusually vivid detail on the nature of racial inequality in the United States and a plan for rectifying this. David’s final copy said: 136

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I have a dream that for black and white people will get along and that everybody can sit on the bus together. And to build more homes for the poor. The detailed drawing above this writing was of buildings under construction. Homes for the poor? ‘And see the arrows,’ said Ann. ‘Don’t forget to turn this. [Hidden behind the writing] he showed the world as it’s going to be. Everybody’s on the bus. You see the black and white people and here they are together. And here are the houses they’ve built.’ We felt that the drawings could also be seen as a metaphor for David himself: on the outside he was a learner under construction, but concealed underneath were a rich imagination and a commitment to social justice. Jenny’s is next in the pile—a pastel shaded sheet with three hearts and ‘Peace!’ in large letters. She has written: My dream is to stop people from murdering. My dream is to see on the news that people aren’t but I can’t do anything, it’s really up to the murders. ‘She’d be considered an absolutely top second grader,’ said Ann. ‘But when you look at artistic integrity Ann and John concluded that as David got more expressive in his approach to school work, he revealed a much more developed social conscience than did most of his peers. When one understands that the competitive ethos promoted in American schools makes it difficult for students to respond to their altruistic impulses (Thorkildsen and Nicholls, 1991), David’s attempts to camouflage this part of himself seemed rational. A concern for equality and fairness often does not lead students to seek personal advantage or to demonstrate pride in their work. Yet, it seemed as though David needed to express his ethical concerns in order to put his personal and school experience together. John noticed that David’s concern for the underdog seemed stronger than the need to assert a competent self. Whereas most children sought to please their teachers and show off newly acquired skills, David sought reassurance only while he was working. If David felt like an underdog, he might be able to easily observe instances of oppression without differentiating his feelings and the feelings of others. Yet, there was a toughness in David that seemed to reflect a determination to retain his integrity while struggling to imagine a better world—a toughness that suggested he could step outside his own experience to imagine the experiences of others. The latter possibility is suggested by a note written 137

John G.Nicbolls* and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates

to Ann near the end of the year. David drew attractive flowers and wrote: May is beautiful And Miss Bates. These, of course, can only remain the speculations of adult observers until David finds the words to reveal his knowledge. But, it seems as if adults too often dismiss children’s sensitivity to harm and concerns about fairness; something that, in cases of children like David, could impede academic progress. There is a reason to let a boy who declares himself a pig, be a pig. He might thereby become a deer and then a more ‘hewman’ student.

Conclusion David gradually incorporated his aesthetic and ethical awareness into school tasks and all this came together in his relationships with his classmates and teacher. Not all aspects of David’s life in school came together so fortuitously, however. He did not suddenly become an ideal student and continued to need the guidance of at least three adults who encouraged him to share his thoughts and assert his needs. Indeed, David began to share his personal and academic interests once he accepted the authenticity of Ann’s respect. David’s concern for fairness and for others, his artistic nature and his imaginative interest, and his quiet desire for integrity had been fortuitously met with Ann’s search for these qualities in a classroom ethos of mutual respect. In addition, Ann went out of her way to improve his reading skills and to encourage him not get overwhelmed by the more mundane tasks that detract from the things that make reading fun. We cannot be sure of the extent to which David understood the nature of the changes that the adults in his life were attempting when bringing together his personal and academic experience. We know that student, mother, teacher and John did not all agree on what was appropriate for his learning. But we also know that all three adults saw and appreciated the same imaginative boy. Fortunately the perception of Ann and John was that a divided personal and school life could inhibit achievement. Thus they were able to look beyond easy assumptions of lack of ability’ in David’s failure to accomplish routine tasks and sought a more holistic understanding of his difficulties. John would have liked to claim that he and the other educators involved in the project acted as change agents to help David learn more about himself. Ann and I, by way of contrast, are inclined to believe that David’s camouflage will return whenever he encounters classrooms within which he cannot establish relationships and which threatened his integrity. Nevertheless, we all agree that schools should be cautious about sorting children into ‘low ability’ groups simply because they find little intellectual excitement and meaning in routine, decontextualized schoolwork. 138

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Acknowledgments This project was supported by a cooperative agreement #H023L10010, awarded to John G.Nicholls, called Improving Learning Through Home/School Collaboration from the US Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. We are grateful to Dick Best, Tanis Bryan, and Mavis Donahue for providing wise counsel and to Peter Johnston, Betsy Talbott, and Connie Yowell for their support through a difficult transition.

Notes 1

2

Learning disabilities are construed as discrete malfunctions of learning processes in students who, in other respects, function reasonably adequately. This definition is based on the National Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children, Special Education for Handicapped Children, Washington, DC, US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1968, p. 4. The definition can be shown to have problems, as can the measures used to assess disabilities (e.g., Coles, 1987). Yet, it makes no sense to avoid the study of students on the grounds that the definition is (from the perspective of certain psychological theories and conventions) unclear or its application inconsistent (Bryan, 1991). Schools and teachers vary widely, even wildly, in the criteria and frequency with which they classify students as LD. We see such variation as one ambiguous indication of the diversity of schools in the ease with which they incorporate potentially ‘difficult’ students into regular classes. David can simply be seen as an example of someone the school found difficult to deal with, but apparently not because of general retardation or emotional difficulties. Testing done in first grade and observations made in the early months of second grade confirmed that he had real difficulties with his academic work. Yet, we see the question of whether he ‘really was’ LD as leading us away from our attempts to comprehend his experience and make school more responsive. David was one of four children chosen for more intensive observation in John’s portion of a project on improving learning through home—school collaboration. The principal told David that John was like ‘some kind of uncle or something’ interested in understanding children’s school experiences. John sought to help David, Ann, and David’s parents communicate more effectively about the nature of school. Specifically, John encouraged Ann to take risks when trying to help David’s family understand her commitment to a more personal approach to learning, helped David’s family understand the validity of Ann’s goals, and gave David the kind of personal attention he needed to trust those in school. Everyone involved in the project critiqued John’s notes and the conclusions drawn here.

References ASHTON-WARNER, S. (1963) Teacher, New York, Simon & Schuster, Inc. BRYAN, T. (1991) ‘Selection of subjects in research on learning disabilities: A view from the social side’, Learning Disability Quarterly, 14, pp. 297–302. COLES, G. (1987) The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at Learning Disabilities, New York, Fawcett Columbine.

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John G.Nicbolls* and Theresa A.Thorkildsen with Ann Bates DECI, E.L. (1995) Why We Do What We Do: The Dynamics of Personal Autonomy, New York, G.P.Putnam’s Sons. DEWEY, J. (1938) Experience and Education, New York, Collier Macmillan Publishers. JAMES, W. (1907) Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, New York, Longmans, Green, and Co. LIGHT, B.G. and KISTNER, J.A. (1986) ‘Motivational problems of learning-disabled children: Individual differences and their implications for treatment’, in TORGESEN, J.K. and WONG, B.W.L. (eds) Psychological and Educational Perspectives on Learning Disabilities, New York, Academic Press, pp. 225–55. NICHOLLS, J.G. and HAZZARD, S.P. (1993) Education as Adventure: Lessons from the Second Grade, New York, Teachers College Press. PERGANDE, K. and THORKILDSEN, T.A. (1995) ‘From teachers as experimental researchers to teaching as moral inquiry’, in NICHOLLS, J.G. and THORKILDSEN, T.A. (eds) Reasons for Learning: Expending the Conversation on Student-Teacher Collaboration, New York, Teachers College Press, pp. 21–35. STANLEY, J. (1993) ‘Sex and the quiet schoolgirl’, in WOODS, P. and HAMMERSLEY, M. (eds) Gender and Ethnicity in Schools: Ethnographic Accounts, London, Routledge, pp. 34–48. THIESSEN, D. (1987) ‘Curriculum as experienced: Alternative world views from two students with learning disabilities’, in FRANKLIN, B.M. (ed.) Learning Disability: Dissenting Essays, London, Falmer Press, pp. 88–117. THORKILDSEN, T.A. and NICHOLLS, J.G. (1991) ‘Students’ critiques as motivation’, Educational Psychologist, 26, pp. 347–68.

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Methodological Challenges: Editors’ Introduction

In Chapter 7, Smith describes the playground observation of a group of student-teachers, and the individual and collective insights that resulted. Three ‘reflective orders of child watching’ embrace forms of description and classification, appreciative understanding of children’s experiences, and challenges which are posed by consideration of the needs of particular children. Smith argues that such ‘watchfulness’ enhances understanding and responsiveness in teaching approaches. In Chapter 8 Connolly takes us further into the methodological challenges by highlighting the multiplicity and complexities of both child perspectives and researcher interpretations. He problematizes the ‘authenticity’ of accounts of pupil perspectives and, drawing on his own research on racism, he analyses the major influences which affect the generation of data. Connolly argues that the two most important of these are the values and research methods of the researcher and the social context from which the children speak. In an attempt to gather evidence of pupil perspectives, a sensitive and critical reflexivity is thus essential. Our final methodological challenge is from Thiessen who proposes three levels of engagement with research on pupil perspectives. What indeed might we learn from such work? In answering this question, Thiessen provides a round-up of some of the major implications of the book as a whole. ‘Knowing about’ pupil perspectives is a first, and crucially important, step. ‘Acting on behalf of pupils suggests a further advocacy role. However, the third level, ‘Working with pupils’, moves on again to emphasize the participation of pupils in the implementation and development of the taught and intended curriculum. This may well be challenging in many modern educational contexts, but its potential in contributing to the quality of educational provision is indisputable.

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Observing Children on a School Playground: The Pedagogics of Child-watching Stephen J.Smith

The playground defines an educational site beyond the margins of the prescribed, enacted and assessed, school curriculum. It is where children’s experiences are not as easily planned, objectivized and compartmentalized as in the classroom, yet they are no less educative for that. Here children create their own subject matter through the kinds of activity they play, define their own ways of learning through their associations with other children, and display learned competence through demonstrable physical movements. They live a curriculum which, though it appears inchoate, haphazard, unpredictable and unstable in comparison with the adult-controlled classroom curriculum, is educationally significant, not only because it observes that which truly matters to children, but also because this child-centered subject matter allows us to reconceptualize the curriculum planned for children. Indeed, while curriculum strategists suggest looking to playground activities and incidents for evidence of children’s ‘physical’, ‘emotional’ and ‘social’ developments (e.g., British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1991), one could argue that such developments occur most meaningfully in playground interactions. For instance, ‘physical development’ is usually framed according to games and sports, dances and gymnastic forms that can be taught in skillsequenced physical education programs. But the range of ‘physical’ activities observed on a playground shows qualities of movement, rhythm and bodily control that are not so narrowly contained; furthermore, a close examination of these activities reveals a learning progression more closely tied to social and emotional well-being than to performative stages of physical skill development. At the very least, observing children on a school playground can enhance curriculum design by broadening the scope and elaborating the sequence of physical education curricula, thus fulfilling a promise made by early advocates of ‘movement education’ (cf. British Ministry of Education, 1952). The playground, as well as being a landscape for learning, is also a pedagogical environment. To appreciate this fact one needs to soften the notion of pedagogy to acknowledge that observing children engaged in playground activity is already an intervention of educational importance. Certainly one can try, as certain playground researchers have done, to observe without interfering or otherwise influencing the events in view (e.g., Slukin, 1987; 143

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Zerner, 1977), although such attempts ‘to become invisible’ are, as Opie (1994) admits, next to impossible. Teacher observation, however, is appreciably more influential. Thoughtful intervention is based upon trying to understand what the experience holds for a particular child in one’s view (Silvers, 1983), not according to what is thought appropriate behavior for children in general, nor according to some school rule that might be laid upon that child’s experience; which is not to deny the importance of behavioral norms and school rules. In fact, Paley (1992) provides a wonderful example of how rules pertaining to children’s play can evolve out of a concern for the quality of children’s interactions. But in recasting pedagogy as an attunement to the course of a child’s activity, we can begin to appreciate that a teacher’s action can be as subtle as a supportive look in the child’s direction. A softer notion of pedagogy applies when one observes children involved in group decision-making and problem-solving where rules have been formulated, agreed and acted upon without the need, in most cases, for adult direction. When problems do arise it is also refreshing to see that children can engage in conflict resolution on their own without needing ‘second-step’ conflict management skills or ‘peer mediation’ protocols. Such initiative shows that, in place of teacher-imposed order, we can consider the merits of letting children work through their own difficulties. Didacticism is further undermined in the teacher’s effort to support, encourage and guide an observed movement inclination toward affirmative, individual expression. The inclination may be expressed as simply as a child taking the teacher’s hand and requesting to be allowed a turn on some playground apparatus. Standing with the child may be all that is necessary for the moment, although one can well imagine the child also wanting some encouragement and support for her or his efforts. The pedagogical point is that, even at this minimal level of teacher intervention, it is the child who first shows the inclination towards activity, with the adult responding to make that inclination possible. Observing children on the playground thus helps to define pedagogy more broadly than as either ‘teaching’ or ‘instructing’ children. Pedagogy designates ‘a relationship of practical action between an adult and a young person who is on the way to adulthood’ (van Manen, 1991, p. 31). It refers in very practical ways to the relation established to a child through observing his or her movements, listening closely to what the child says, and interpreting the significance of what one understands to be that child’s experience (Smith, 1991b, 1992a). As theory, pedagogy is not so speculative that it loses touch with particular children, but rather is observed, ‘built up and formulated from the concrete situation of adult and child related to each other in an existential communication and encounter’ (Nel, 1973, p. 204). Or, citing van Manen again: ‘Pedagogy is found not in observational categories, but like love or friendship in the experience of its presence—that is, in concrete, real life situations’ (van Manen, 1991, p. 31). This notion of pedagogy can be traced back some eighty years through the writings of such German and Dutch pedagogues as Beekman, Bollnow, Flitner, Langeveld, Levering, Litt, 144

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Nohl, Spranger and Strasser. It is also articulated in the North American philosophical writings of Denton, Greene, D.Smith, Troutner and Vandenberg. What the present chapter contributes to this body of knowledge is an understanding of how the pedagogics of child-watching can be developed. I refer, in particular, to the reflective dimension of pedagogy—to the kind of reflection, or thinking, that van Manen (1994, 1995) has shown is possible in practice. My aim is to describe how this reflectivity, or thoughtfulness, can be cultivated as a pedagogical practice through such a simple task as observing children on a school playground.

An Observational Task The particular observational task upon which this chapter is based involved a small community school in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Situated in a neighbourhood of varied ethnic groupings, this school has gained a reputation for its acceptance of a diverse student population, particularly the behaviorally disturbed children whom the district has directed there. Coming into this school at the start of the day one gets a sense of it being a closely knit community. Parents drop their children off, but a number of them linger on the school grounds, seemingly unhurried by the business of the day and content to see their children merge into the activity of their school day. Some other adults can usually be seen out on the playground interacting informally with the children. There is the special education assistant, the childcare worker, and a classroom teacher with shared responsibility for the ‘problem’ children this school has inherited. There are also a number of other classroom teachers who tend to forsake the staffroom, their classrooms and the corridors of the school building to be out on the playground with the children. Here, unencumbered by the duties of playground supervision which have been given over to other adults, they are free to attend to what the children want to show and tell them. Upon entering the school grounds on a brilliant Fall morning we, too, were drawn into interactions with the children. They regarded us, not as strangers to be wary of, but rather as adults who came to see them and maybe even to work and play with them. We, twenty-eight student-teachers and three faculty advisers, visited this school for a day with the express purpose of giving an experiential backdrop to the curricular and instructional issues we would be dealing with in subsequent weeks. Although all the student-teachers had already spent time in schools as a precondition of their acceptance into the teacher education program, this was to be the first ‘hands-on’ experience of their year-long professional development program. The day was to be spent in the classrooms of the fourteen teachers and the approximately two hundred children, sitting, observing, mingling, interacting, and following the children from one activity to the next and from the classroom to the playground. It was on the playground, however, that a specific task was required of the student-teachers. They were asked to observe 145

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the children at play and to record in anecdotal form any interesting incident that took place. This incident did not have to be critical, momentous, or dramatic; it needed only to catch the student-teachers’ attention. No predetermined observational format was given other than the student teachers being asked to describe the incident as experientially as possible, recording wherever possible words that were exchanged along with the nonverbal behaviors that constituted the playground interaction in question. Later on the student-teachers wrote up their observations in short narrative form. The task was conceived with practical, pedagogic purposes in mind. In general, it was expected that the student-teachers would attend to interpersonal dynamics that are not so bounded by teacher instruction. On the playground they could observe children interacting with one another in ways that fall outside the prescribed, planned, teacher-led school curriculum. Here the student-teachers could encounter children more freely than in someone else’s classroom and, in the space of only a day, gain an understanding of interactions between children that are generally more difficult to discern in the less childlike atmosphere of the classroom. The main purpose of the task, however, was to operationalize the idea that child-watching is foundational to good pedagogic practice (cf. van Manen, 1979)—that a ‘teacher is a childwatcher…who keeps in view the total existence of the developing children’ (van Manen, 1986, p. 18), and that any teacher intervention is a consequence of first watching what the child is up to, assessing the nature of his or her experience, and then deciding on some course of action that seems to be in that child’s best developmental interests. For the student-teachers, watching children they barely knew over such a short period of time would seem to fall well short of knowing what to do in a practical, pedagogical sense; however, it was expected that in the more practical context of playground activity, aided by the student-teachers’ greater familiarity with, and level of interest in, what generally happens there, they would demonstrate a facility for pedagogic watchfulness. Having the student-teachers write up and then share their observations with their classmates provided an individual record and a collective portrayal of pedagogic watchfulness. It also provided rich data for a quasiphenomenological analysis of the pedagogic reflectivity of child-watching. In fact, within the student-teachers’ writings can be discerned three reflective orders of child-watching. First, there are accounts that indicate some parameters of playground activity, including considerations of the types of activity, and some preliminary distinctions drawn between the activities of boys and girls and older and younger children. These accounts set the stage for encountering children on the playground and coming to terms with what they experience in their playground activity. Getting inside the experience and knowing what the activity is like for the children constitutes a second reflective order of childwatching. The observer encounters a play world through memories of playing the activity in question or an activity like it. Next, we will see how the experiences of particular children are addressed and the extent to which their 146

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experiences are thought to impinge upon events beyond the playground. This third reflective order of child-watching will show an initial interest in children whose ‘problems’ are noticeable on the playground and a subsequent interest in the less noticeable concerns of children in general. An illustrated discussion of these three reflective orders of child-watching, using selections from the student-teachers’ writings, will comprise the bulk of this chapter. My aim is to exemplify how the reflectivity of pedagogic watchfulness leads to a kind of teaching competence which requires neither empirical detachment nor experiential immersion (cf. van Manen, 1979, p. 14). One needs to know something about the activity at hand for the actions of children to be of interest, and one needs to get involved in that activity in order that children’s experiences can be appreciated. But we shall see that there can also come a realization that playground activity provides a glimpse of the direction in which a particular child’s development is headed. Playground events can be viewed in light of a much larger picture of the child’s difficulties, concerns, frustrations and failures, as well as his or her satisfactions and achievements. Such observation of playground activities and events therefore enables us to think about the embodied reflectivity of pedagogic responsiveness. For we shall see that the three reflective orders of child-watching point to a manner of being with children that is bodily yet consciously mindful of the child’s experience and of what the child is capable of achieving.

Playground Activities The playground observations provide a preliminary view of the kinds of activities in which children engage. At first glance one sees timeless activities played by successive generations of children. Karen, one of the student teachers, saw children playing a chasing game and ‘asked a young girl who was standing at a safe corner about the game. She didn’t know who started it or why it was played in this location, it just always was. She hadn’t realized that tag has passed from generation to generation’. Similarly with current skipping and clapping games, along with their accompanying rhymes, one sees and hears activities that have a most familiar ring to them (cf. Boxall, 1990). By the same token, there are those activities that appear to be unique to this particular playground. Another student Shelley, became involved in an ‘archeological dig’ around a large, gnarled and slowly rotting tree stump ‘where leaves quickly became tools to clean off the site, and pieces of garbage became rare finds. Glass became eye balls, sticks became bones, bark became pieces of dinosaur skin, and feathers became teradactyl moltings’. Nevertheless, one could liken this activity to sandlot play and regard it simply as an example of a type of activity much played by children in general. In fact, all the activities observed on this playground, from spontaneous chasing games to formalized hockey games, from bodily manoeuvres on climbing apparatus to physical actions on school fixtures, from shouts and cries and playground banter to the taunts and provocations of daring activity, fall well 147

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within the margins of existing surveys and collections of the various kinds of playground activity. One need only look to Douglas (1931/1969), Eifermann (1971), Hewes (1990), Kirchner (1991), Knapp and Knapp (1976), Lindsay and Falmer (1981), Lindsay (1984), Milberg (1976), Newell (1883/1963), Opie and Opie (1969,1985), Parrott (1972), Sutton-Smith (1972), and Turner (1969) for a much more comprehensive account of what could take place on this playground. What the student teachers’ observations do provide, however, is some idea of the activities that children are presently taking up. More tellingly, because the activities to which the student teachers are drawn are presumably those most familiar to them, it should come as little surprise to learn that the range of activities accounted for is quite narrow. The same activity is mentioned in different accounts as are certain forms of interaction between the children. From the point of view of the detached observer (not the passer-by, but the ethnographer, anthropologist, or child folklorist), this neglect of the content of playground activity is a potential deficiency in the student-teachers’ outlook. From the point of view of the pedagogue or educator, however, the important content is the experience and what that experience means to the child and to the adult who is responsible for that child’s growth and maturity. Hence, a focus on common, familiar playground activities should allow for greater access to that experiential content with which the educator is primarily concerned. Similarly, some playground researchers, like Bleeker and Mulderij (1978), Davies (1982), Fine (1987), Opie (1994), Silvers (1976, 1983), and Slukin (1981), have also looked beyond the activities themselves to question the nature of children’s experiences. The pedagogic importance of this experiential connection to children’s playground activity becomes apparent when attempts are made to deny it and to make an observation into a generalized, empirical fact. We see this particularly in claims made about the interactions of boys and girls and of younger and older children.

Boys and Girls Certainly there are some differences that exist between the preferred playground activities of boys and girls. Jennie noted that, during a game of line tag amongst a group of boys, three girls tried to join in: ‘Although they were made part of the game, somehow they still remained separate.’ She also noticed that, whereas there were two ball hockey games going on with about forty boys involved, a number of the girls were playing tag in groups of two to four. Others were playing patticake and similar clapping games in pairs or threes. Jeannie ‘wondered why the boys were largely confrontational, competitive and challenge-oriented in playing such large group games as shinny hockey and line tag, while the girls seemed far less boisterous, more cooperative, and intimate, playing games like patticake and small group tag.’ In fact, her observation is consistent with playground studies that have shown boys like to play in larger groups than girls 148

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(Lever, 1976) and that boys’ games are ‘traditionally aggressive and competitive’ while girls’ games are ‘passive and accommodating’ (Finnan, 1982, p. 369). According to Sutton-Smith (1990), boys gravitate to larger spaces where they can engage in games and sports that have ‘well-defined outcomes’ with ‘clear winners and losers’, and where their activities often exhibit ‘conflict’, ‘active interference with each other’, and ‘more playfighting’, while girls tend toward ‘smaller spaces’ and smaller sized groups where they engage in activity that is characterized by much less direct competition (p. 4). Still, Betty wonders why such games are played exclusively by boys and whether girls who would like to play are excluded. She remembers from her own childhood that ‘girls simply did not play hockey in the schoolyard. I am not certain why that was the case for we often played street hockey in our neighborhoods’. Because girls do play similar games to boys outside of school, and because amongst preschool children gender differences in playground behavior are not apparent (Pellegrini, 1987, p. 4), it would seem that factors directly associated with the schooling experience play a dominant role in determining the playground activity preferences of boys and girls. Different behavioral expectations of boys and girls, on the part of teachers, may well be the most significant factor influencing boys’ activity preferences, their exclusion of girls from their games, and their relegation of girls to marginal spaces on the playground (cf. Evans, 1989, p. 28–31). But recognizing certain distinctions between the activities of boys and girls, and acknowledging the exclusion of girls from boys’ games, we still need to be careful how far we generalize and decide to intervene on the basis of such generalizations. Liss (1983) and Pellegrini and Smith (1993) caution against ‘gender-related bias’ in observations of children at play, where what is observed fits preconceived notions of the kinds of interaction one would expect to see. Looking with open eyes at playground activity, and even at vigorous, competitive activity involving large groups of children, we may find, as Karen did, that ‘there was no segregation of children in this game. “Boy germs” or “girl germs” were not apparent. The game was played by both sexes without any outside influence’. When looking closely at the activity of the children themselves we may even see models of the kind of boy-girl interactions that we would like to encourage. Distinctions between the play activities of boys and girls are real enough, but so too is the observational evidence of boys and girls playing together. Without minimizing the concern for sex discrimination and, indeed, at the risk of ignoring the very complex dynamics of children’s ‘gender play’ (cf. Thorne, 1993), I suggest that pedagogic intervention is best guided by observing (and preserving) that manner of inclusivity which children exhibit on their own and to which some encouragement can be given. An overriding interest in the play preferences of particular groups of children, like a consuming interest in the various kinds of playground activity that occur over time, tends to detract from the particular experiences of children engaged in these activities, and it ignores those interactions that are not so categorically distinguishable. 149

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Older and Younger Children Such is also the case when observing the playground activities of children of different ages. One can focus too exclusively on the obvious differences that exist between older and younger children in terms of their activity preferences. Thomas noted that younger children were dominant on the climbing frame ‘while the older children were engaged in more organized games on the side playing field’. His observation is quite reasonable for, generally speaking, ‘games dominated by physical activity decrease and strategic games increase across the elementary school years’, although ‘the opposite is true for girls’ (Pellegrini and Smith, 1993, p. 58; also, Blatchford, 1989, p. 26). This distinction would tend to relegate children of different ages to different parts of the playground, and yet older children do enjoy the activities one generally associated with the younger ones, as the following observation attests. Watching the three of them, two girls and a boy, I thought they appeared to be too big to be spending their lunch break on this part of the playground. Almost all of the other children here were between five and eight, while these three were around nine or ten years of age. They had taken over the tire swing and were concentrating on making it swing dangerously higher and higher. With heads flung back and laughing loudly, oblivious to any other children who might wish to join them, they continued to swing back and forth. (Carol) By attending to instances of this kind of interaction one is not simply finding exceptions to the rule but, instead, providing examples that indicate the potential of multi-aged playground activity. One wonders if age is such a factor after all in children’s activity preferences. If left to their own devices, older children may well be more inclusive of the younger ones. Indeed, beyond the influence of agesegregated classrooms as one of the major ‘school-based determinants of playground practice’ (Young, 1985), children of different ages play well together. Even within the confines of the school day one can find instances of older children choosing to play with younger ones. Antonio observed one of the largest boys in Grade 7 giving the Grade 3 students ‘helicopter rides’. This activity required holding on to the younger ones’ hands and spinning them around so that they could fly through the air, much like the propeller of a helicopter. ‘But as the activity continued, the older boy soon became aware of my presence and of the fact that no other Grade 7 student was playing with the younger children. “Leave me alone!” he yelled playfully as he began to walk in my direction. “I’m too old to be playing with you!”’ This boy, observed by Antonio, may have chosen to play with the younger children for a variety of reasons, not least of which may be his exclusion from the activities of his peers. But his obvious enjoyment of the interaction it affords overshadows those possible reasons. Initially, until he became self-conscious of his involvement, his experience was synergistically connected to that of the younger children. By attending to the nature of this experience one can see how 150

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restrictive it can be to think of playground activity largely in terms of what is appropriate for different ages of children.

Children’s Playground Experiences The point of the above remarks on the student-teachers’ accounts of sex-related and age-related playground activity is to suggest that we need to get beyond surface distinctions in order to get in touch with the nature of children’s playground experiences. Ruth reiterated this point in a slightly different way by showing that an initial conceptualization of children’s playground activity is seriously challenged as one gets in touch with the experiences of the participants. She observed a child whirling his arms around and repeatedly chasing after and bumping into another child. These two children, who differed in age, sex and ethnicity, appeared initially to be fighting. But watching them more closely, it seemed that the boy with the flailing arms was interested only in gaining the attention of the other child. He did not hit the girl aggressively. She giggled and cried, ‘I hate this, I hate this,’ yet she ran away slowly enough to ensure her easy recapture. Ruth mused: ‘At first I was quite concerned about the situation. I thought the child doing the chasing was mistreating the other child. If I had acted on my impulse to squelch this roughhouse play, both children would have viewed their own actions differently. Perhaps they would have seen their differences as something threatening or that having a very physical game is wrong. At the very least, these children would have missed out on an enjoyable pastime.’ The children’s chase and catch game is an instance of the ‘rough-and-tumble’ play that often occurs on playgrounds and that is generally distinguishable from outright aggressive acts (Pellegrini, 1989). In fact, it has been claimed that roughand-tumble play ‘may serve as a social-skills training function’ with respect to children learning how to negotiate and redefine situations they encounter—a function that clearly distinguishes it from outright aggressive action (Pellegrini, 1990). To the passer-by, however, initial impressions may not be sufficient to distinguish between this ‘rough-and-tumble’ play and real fighting. One needs to pay much closer attention to the pattern and flow of the activity in order to discern the qualitative difference. Finnan (1982) claims that one needs to read the signals the children give that they are only play-fighting. For a child ‘it’s easy, you can tell by their face!’ Yet the questions can be asked: What makes such signals recognizable? How does one come face to face with children on the playground and be drawn to a deeper understanding of their playground experiences?

Encountering a Playworld It would seem that remembrances are triggered when stepping onto the playground and that specific memories come to the fore and are helpful in 151

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enabling us to understand the nature of children’s playground experiences. ‘In such moments of remembering…[one moves] from the external vantage points of an observer, an adult authority, or “at least” an adult trying to understand kids’ interactions in an open and lateral way, to feeling more deeply inside their worlds’ (Thorne, 1993, p. 25). Pam, for instance, sees herself stepping back into the ‘world of the playground—a magical place where nothing is artificial and yet so much seems unreal. So many events occur simultaneously. The air is filled with an energy that is contagious for those who participate and draining for those who do not. For a moment, at least, I revel in the special feeling of being outside, inhaling the fresh scent of the playground’. Listening to the children’s sounds, seeing their movements, one remembers one’s own childhood. Indeed, ‘the sounds of laughter, the screams of victory, and the heavy pounding of feet’ brought back for Karen ‘memories of similar games and pastimes during my early school years’. The intersection of autobiographical memory and present experience is not merely a nostalgic moment, a reminiscence or even a reverie. Potentially it allows the observer to appreciate what the children’s experience might hold. It enables one to recognize the significance of their playground activity. For Sarah this meant contrasting the observed activity with one she remembered. Twelve years ago I meandered down the beach with my best friend. Each of us had a bucket in our hands and a dream in our hearts. We were collecting shells, imagining the wonderful things we could do with them, and the money and fame that would come our way. Today, five young boys sat in the shade of a tree and I approached them, wondering what could possibly have so quietly preoccupied them. ‘We’re collecting these helicopter leaves and breaking off the seeds. We’re gonna sell them!’ they jubilantly exclaimed. I asked the boys who would buy the seeds, and was bombarded with answers. ‘Anyone who wants to grow new trees.’ ‘My nextdoor neighbor will buy them.’ ‘Hey, do you want to buy some?’ ‘No,’ I replied, ‘why would I buy them when I could go to the park and pick up my own for free?’ ‘Could you?’ a boy with huge brown eyes asked in a puzzled voice. ‘That would be stealing.’ ‘Then aren’t you stealing?’ I questioned. ‘No, we’re just using them, then we’re gonna sell them’, he answered innocently. Interesting, I thought. ‘What kind of tree is this?’ I inquired. ‘A helicopter tree,’ answered a tiny boy with a mop of blond hair. ‘Oh, I thought it was a Maple or something.’ 152

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‘No, it’s a helicopter tree. Look, you can see,’ he said in a very matterof-fact tone while pointing up toward the sky. Gradually the boys’ attention turned to rock climbing and discussions of hockey cards. I thought the seeds were forgotten forever. But when the bell rang to signal the end of the lunch period there was a mad scramble to collect enough leaves to cover the seeds before the boys ran into the school. I had forgotten the importance of burying one’s treasures. Sarah’s observation triggered similar memories of collecting things. It reminded her of her own experiences and of the salient features of those experiences. Yet much of what she observed also extends beyond the margins of her memory. The children showed her a ‘helicopter tree’ which she had only recognized as a ‘Maple or something’. In some imaginative sense, the children had fashioned this tree as their own. It was something of value to them; so it made sense for the children to object to her ‘stealing’ the seeds to their tree. Her observation of these children shows that while memory provides access to the present, it also falls short of the present experience of the particular children who are being observed. The seeming dissonance created by the children’s responses pique Sarah’s interest in the meaning the children attach to their activity. She continued to interact with the children and play along with them. In the process she, too, came to appreciate the ‘treasures’ the children had collected. Sarah remembered her past as a means of becoming more mindful of the present experiences of ‘five young boys’ on the playground (cf. Smith, 1991c).

Actively Remembering Reminiscence and nostalgia can hamper the remembering that enables one to identify with the experiences of children whom one now observes. As a passerby one may find the children’s activity prompts a reverie of childhood or a daydream of what it was like. As a parent, coach, playground supervisor, or teacher strolling through the playground, one may simply recognize those features of an activity that one knows about from long experience. But as an educator, one tries to actively remember the good of this particular activity for these particular children. Elsewhere I have written of ‘physically remembering childhood’ as a pedagogic virtue that is prompted by one’s immersion in the present situation. One’s remembrances are, in this case, not simply recollections or reveries, but movements and gestures that tend towards a thoughtful, mindful, memoric disposition towards the child’s present activity (Smith, 1992b). Tony provided an example of this kind of remembering in his observation. He wrote himself into the activity as if it were a childhood remembrance; and in so doing, he raised questions about the potential significance of this playground experience for at least one of the children. 153

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‘Let’s play corner tag!’ yelled Tony. ‘Not “it”!’ ‘Not “it”!’ echoed the boys. ‘Put your feet in,’ demanded Tony as a group of boys ran gleefully towards him. ‘Girl scout, girl scout, you’re out,’ repeated Tony until only one boy remained. ‘Jeremy is “it”,’ they all yelled. Jeremy looked up from his shoe to see and hear ten smiling, excited boys standing on their safety squares, hollering ‘Come and get me Jeremy!’ After quickly adjusting to the disappointment of being ‘it’, Jeremy raised his head and darted towards the blacktop where the others were standing. What quickness, what speed, what agility, what fervor. Jeremy jumped, lunged, and grunted as he reached for even a piece of one of his peers, only to find himself out of breath, unraveled and unsuccessful. Jeremy now had his head lowered and lip out as he panted and complained about not being able to tag anyone. He quickly lost all focus and started thinking about how much he hates always being ‘it’. The bell rang and the children scampered off to class. Jeremy slouched at his desk and wondered why he had to be ‘it’ and what it meant to be an ‘it’ all the time. Tony’s thoughts about Jeremy were not simply the result of wondering what the child’s experience might be. Nor were they achieved simply as a result of watching the event. Though it might have been useful to talk to Jeremy and to invite comment from his playmates, Tony’s sympathy for this child occurred more immediately through shared, situated, actively engaging, experience. The child’s emotional state was readily apparent in the embodied expressivity of his playground motions. Playing with Jeremy, even in the figurative manner of Tony’s description, provided a relational, interactional, physical understanding, not just of the here-and-now event, but also of the connectedness of this experience to the ongoing life of the child. The question is posed: ‘What might it mean to be an “it” all the time?’ This reflective question arises, in the first instance, as a perceptual divergence or differentiation in the experience of being with the child on the playground. It arises out of actively remembering what might be good for this child and serves to put Jeremy on notice as someone to watch out for in the future.

Noticing Particular Children Memory affords access to the child’s experience, however it is the felt presence of real children that provides a context for one’s remembrances. The following observational account provides a good example. Here Natalie described a situation that is reminiscent of common childhood events, yet the point of the 154

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description is to question what the experience holds for a particular child who, it seems, has not had such an experience before. He watched quietly from amongst the crowd of cheering boys. He was obviously much younger than the boys around him and was regarding the goings on with what seemed to be apprehension and possibly a good measure of fearfulness. When the others glanced in his direction he forced a small smile, but seemed to back farther away. I wondered why he did not leave as he seemed so uncomfortable. I thought that perhaps joining this crowd and their activity was challenging for him. Finally one of the boys broke his silence and said, ‘It’s your turn, that is, if you’re not too chicken!’ ‘I’m not’, replied the younger boy. ‘Grab on, then.’ He stepped anxiously toward the older boy and into the circle of onlookers. The older boy caught hold of him and I could hear a faint gasp as the ‘torture’ began. There were arms and legs everywhere. Everyone seemed to be screaming or shouting, however I heard nothing from the ‘torture victim’. Finally the ordeal appeared to be over. The ‘helicopter swing’ ride ended to the crowd’s disappointment. When he touched the ground the young boy fought to find his steps and mumbled: ‘Gee…uh…that was good.’ But his facial expression told a different story. Natalie’s observation and the memories caught up in the present encounter allow her to sympathize with the child. She describes a common event and, relating to the child’s experience, puts herself in a position to question the meaning of that event for the child. Natalie positions herself to do something about this child’s experience, even if it means deciding to leave him alone.

‘Problem’ Children This approach to children on the playground helps us understand and work with those children who seem to create problems for others. The aggressive, bullying child, for instance, can be handled with a firm hand and through specific intervention strategies (cf. Smith and Thompson, 1991), however this child also stands in need of an approach that is mindful of what he or she is trying to express through inappropriate and unfortunate means. Peter is one such child whose domineering, aggressive behavior creates a problem for other children. Shaun first observes this child with only one hand trying to climb the bars of the jungle gym. Peter would try over and over again to climb like the other children but he always fell off the bars. Each time Peter fell he would pull another child down with him. As well, he continually insulted the other children on the bars. 155

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In the classroom Peter continued his aggressive behavior, at one point ripping a magazine from the hands of a girl who was using it for her art project. He also used his scissors to cut the hair of another boy. Both times the children did not confront Peter regarding his actions. Instead they ignored him as much as possible. Throughout the entire morning Peter walked around with the sleeve of his sweater pulled over his left hand. It seemed as though he was trying to hide his disability from the new people in the classroom. Outside the classroom at lunch time he engaged in many of the boys’ games, but his involvement tended to be short-lived. Upon entering an established group, the need to be recognized resulted in a conflict between him and the other children, and eventually in the dissolution of the group. Undeterred, Peter moved about the playground in search of other activities. Does Peter assert himself to disrupt the game? Or does he assert himself in order to be accepted into the game and because he knows of no other way of being admitted? Perhaps his sense of physical disability explains much of his assertive and aggressive behavior. And yet, that explanation sounds too simple and fails to account for the nature of Peter’s experience. As a ‘problem child’ it suffices, but as a child whose experiences need not only to be countered but encountered, a much closer observation is required. But what of other children who present less of a problem to us than Peter. Indeed, ‘The more problems of an obvious kind raised by some children, the easier it is not to see the problems faced by timid and sensitive children on the playground’ (Blatchford, 1989, p. 28). Accordingly, we can contrast the problems of Peter, the rejected child, with the problems of the neglected child, which is to say, a child who is not a problem case but whose difficulties are no less important for that. Such a child is a 7-year-old Chinese boy who caught Jennifer’s attention not by what he was doing but by what he was not doing. While the others played and read aloud, David kept quite still. He sat back and observed his classmates. Although he seemed anxious to join in with the children, he remained apart. His behavior in the classroom closely paralleled his behavior on the playground where he watched with wide eyes while the other children played around him. He seemed desperate to be involved in their activities. He lingered on the periphery of the playground and watched the children climbing, swinging, laughing and singing. Occasionally he leaped up on the monkey bars, perhaps hoping that someone would notice him, but no one did. It would be true to say that David has to learn the lore and language of the playground, which includes mastery of the tactics of being included in the 156

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games and activities that are played there. Yet such a statement would seem to blame him for his difficulties and inadvertently serve to maintain the status quo of the playground. David, like many other children on the playground, needs to be noticed and his difficulties alleviated.

Individual Children at Play All children on the playground call forth a response from us to some degree. This is because, as well as the Peters and Davids who experience particular playground difficulties, other children’s playground activity affords us a view of their physical accomplishments, their enjoyments, concerns and apprehensions, and of the quality of their interactions with other children of different ages, sexes and socio-cultural backgrounds. Attending to individual children at play not only enables us to catch hold of the immediate significance of their activity, it also provides us with a tangibly expressive image of their physical, emotional and social development. In other words, we see the child on the playground in gestural relief and that view enables us to understand belter what might be done for that child both on the playground and beyond. For instance, Laurie-Anne observes Mandy as a shy, retiring child in the classroom, yet the nature of her shyness is evident later on when she is observed on the single tire swing on the playground. Here Mandy is content to swing back and forth by herself, not looking for companionship or even initiating any conversation with those around her. Eventually she is joined by Jenny, an exuberant and loud tire-swinging ‘professional’ who jumps on uninvited, and from a standing position, gets the tire swinging to dangerous heights. The girls swing dangerously close to the side support boards which one suspects could easily hit their backs with a hard, dull thud. Afraid, because she is accustomed to swinging slowly, Mandy pushes her toes more securely into the tire as she grips the chains with all her power. She even tucks her head down, but keeps her back straight so that it doesn’t get hit by the boards. Meanwhile, Jenny maintains her dauntless stance and keeps the tire swinging by pumping with her legs. She watches the other children standing around the swing. She laughs, shrieks and howls with pleasure. She talks to others. Jenny’s vivaciousness attracts a third swinger named Janey. Like Mandy, Janey also curls up and hangs on with white knuckles as Jenny takes the swing to its limits. Then Jenny spies a close friend and slows the swing down in order to talk to her. Mandy and Janey begin to feel more comfortable because they can sense that Janey is in control. They all giggle. Mandy finally begins to relax. Feeling braver than before, she holds her head more erect as she enjoys the feeling of the wind in her hair and the warm sunlight on her face. Mandy smiles. 157

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She is brought back to earth the instant a group of children complain that they never get a chance to swing. Mandy quickly jumps down and runs away from the swing. As she runs, however, she looks back to see if the other two girls have also relinquished their places. They haven’t. Mandy runs on. Mandy’s timidity on the playground swing is more than just a behavior she exhibits there; her fearful, contracted gestures reveal something of who Mandy is as a child who does not relate terribly well to other children and who seems to live in her own little world for a good part of the time. What is interesting about this observation, however, is that it shows how Mandy might be otherwise. Jenny begins to draw Mandy out of her isolation, with Janey supplying the necessary ingredient of a slightly less timid child whose mere presence on the swing gives Mandy confidence in what Jenny is up to. This incident is not particularly noteworthy except insofar as it highlights the meaning a simple playground activity may hold for a particular child. It shows that even simple playground incidents can have a profound effect on an individual child’s physical, emotional and social maturity. On the playground we can catch a glimpse of who Mandy might learn to be.

Pedagogic Responsiveness These attempts to understand children’s playground experiences imply potential, pedagogic influence. By observing children from within their midst, one is well positioned to influence the course of their activity and the quality of their experiences. One can observe, in the first instance, the kinds of activities that boys and girls, both young and old, like to play. And one can observe the manner of children’s playground activity and the functions that such activity serves. But beyond this cursory observation, it is also possible to get inside the activity, remembering what it was like, in order to understand what the activity means for this or that child. Through the familiarity of children’s playground activity an attempt can be made to adopt the perspective of the child within one’s purview. And like Fischer (1989) and Smith (1987, 1989, 1990, 1991a), consideration can be given to the experiential qualities of a child’s playground interactions in light of the direction of that child’s maturity. These orders of reflectivity bring the adult figuratively ‘in touch’ with the child. They show that it is pedagogically impossible to observe children closely and understand their experiences outside our own—outside the relation established with this or that child (van Manen, 1988, p. 439). One cannot merely adopt the child’s perspective, although certainly it is necessary to attend closely to what children say both literally and pre-linguistically in the expressivity of their movements. The recognition of the child’s perspective comes out of the gestural sympathy, empathy and memorability that his or her activity evokes. A surprising comment, an intriguing or worrisome behaviour, an unfamiliar game, 158

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or even unanticipated patterns of play—these divergences in perceptual consciousness create a pedagogic intentionality that becomes mindful of the child’s unique situatedness. It is thus that the student-teachers establish a relation to the children they observe by appreciating their activities and by noticing the expressions and movements of particular children. This relation becomes a pedagogically responsive one when they are positioned not just to connect what is seen to what they know of the child in other settings, but when this reflectivity is displayed as a gesture of helpfulness on their part. Pedagogic responsiveness is a particularly watchful manner of being with children. One’s close proximity to the child creates a differentiation of experience, which is not simply that difference of perspective as would be the case with the disinterested observer or person passing by, but a felt, perceived, resonating difference that potentially makes a difference in the child’s life. There comes an awareness, through coming close to the child, that our experiences can never fully overlap. One holds back superficial judgments about what the child is doing, one avoids prejudgments about the nature of the child’s experience, preferring a maximal closeness that recognizes the child’s uniqueness at the heart of personal engagement. It is the very moment that one comes close to the child that he or she is recognizable as an individual who resists full comprehension. The child establishes his or her own expressive space and stands in need of a response that serves to enlarge it. Such responsiveness is intimated in the sympathy that the student-teachers felt towards the children they observed. Theirs is a potential responsiveness which, beyond the three reflective orders of child-watching, indicates what is essentially involved in educating children.

References BLATCHFORD, P. (1989) Playtime in the Primary School: Problems and Improvements, Windsor, UK, NFER-Nelson. BLEEKER, H. and MULDERIJ, K. (1978) Kinderen Buiten Spel [The Play of Children Out-Of-Doors], Amsterdam, Boom, Meppel. BRITISH COLUMBIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (1991) Framework for Primary Program Review, Victoria, BC, Government Printers. BRITISH MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (1952) Moving and Growing, London, Her Majesty’s Government Printing Office. BOXALL, M. (1990) The Vancouver Sun, July 7, E8. DAVIES, B. (1982) Life in the Classroom and Playground: The Accounts of Primary School Children, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. DOUGLAS, N. (1931/1969) London Street Games, London, Chatto and Windus. EIFERMANN, R.R. (1971) Determinants of Children’s Games Styles, Jerusalem, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. EVANS, J. (1989) Children at Play: Life in the School Playground, Geelong, Deakin University Press. FINE, G.A. (1987) With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. FINE, G.A. (1988) ‘Good children and dirty play’, Play and Culture, 1, 1, pp. 43–56. FINNAN, C.R. (1982) ‘The ethnography of children’s spontaneous play’, in SPINDLER,

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Stephen J.Smith G. (ed.) Doing the Ethnography of Schooling, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. 355–81. FISCHER, C.N. (1989) ‘The child’s world of play and pain’, Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 7, pp. 106–14. HEWES, J. (1990) ‘Games of Canada’, unpublished manuscript, University of Alberta. KIRCHNER, G. (1991) Children’s Games from Around the World, Dubuque, William C. Brown. KNAPP, M. and KNAPP, H. (1976) One Potato, Two Potato…: The Secret Education of American Children, New York, Norton. LEVER, J. (1976) ‘Sex differences in the games children play’, Social Problems, 23, pp. 478–87. LINDSAY, P.L. (1984) ‘The physical characteristics of playground games in public schools in Edmonton’, CAMPER Journal, 51, 2, pp. 8–11. LINDSAY, P.L. and PALMER, D. (1981) Playground Characteristics of Brisbane Primary School Children, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service. Liss, M. (1983) ‘Learning gender-related skills through play’, in Liss, M. (ed.) Social and Cognitive Skills, New York, Academic Press, pp. 147–66. MILBERG, A. (1976) Street Games, New York, Dell. NEL, B.F. (1973) ‘The phenomenological approach to pedagogy’,Joumal of Phenomenological Psychology, 3, 2, pp. 201–15. NEWELL, W.W. (1883/1963) Games and Songs of American Children, New York, Dover. OPIE, I. (1994) The People in the Playground, Oxford, Oxford University Press. OPIE, I. and OPIE, P. (1969) Children’s Games in Street and Playground, Oxford, Clarendon Press. OPIE, I. and OPIE, P. (1985) The Singing Game, Oxford, Oxford University Press. PALEY, V.G. (1992) You Can’t Say You Can’t Play, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. PARROTT, S. (1972) ‘Games children play: Ethnography of a second-grade recess’, in SPRADLEY, J.P. (ed.) The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in a Complex Society, Chicago, SRA, pp. 207–19. Pellegrini, A.D. (1987) ‘Children on playgrounds: A review of “what’s out there’”, Children’s Environment Quarterly, 4, 4, pp. 2–7. PELLEGRINI, A.D. (1989) ‘Children’s rough-and-tumble play’, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 4, pp. 245–60. PELLEGRINI, A,D. (1990) ‘Elementary school children’s playground behavior: Implications for children’s social-cognitive development’, Children’s Environment Quarterly, 7, 2, pp. 8–16. PELLEGRINI, A.D. and SMITH, P.K. (1993) ‘School recess: Implications for education and development’, Review of Educational Research, 63, 1, pp. 51–67. SILVERS, R.J. (1976) ‘Discovering children’s culture’, Interchange, 6, 4, pp. 47–54. SILVERS, R.J. (1983) ‘On the other side of silence’, Human Studies, 6, pp. 91–108. SLUKIN, A. (1981) Growing Up in the Playground, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. SLUKIN, A. (1987) ‘The culture of the primary school playground’, in POLLARD, A. (ed.) Children and Their Primary Schools: A New Perspective, London, Falmer Press, pp. 150–64. SMITH, P.K. and THOMPSON, D. (1991) Practical Approaches to Bullying, London, David Fulton. SMITH, S.J. (1987) ‘Seeing a risk’, Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 5, 1, pp. 63–74. SMITH, S.J. (1989) ‘Challenges of the playground’, Journal of Learning About Learning, 1, 2, pp. 37–55. SMITH, S.J. (1990) ‘The riskiness of the playground’, Journal of Educational Thought, August, pp. 71–87.

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Observing Children on a School Playground SMITH, S.J. (1991a) ‘Physical development from the playground up’, Prime Areas, pp. 54–58. SMITH, S.J. (1991b) ‘Where is the child in physical education research?’, Quest, 43, 1, pp. 37–54. SMITH, S.J. (1991c) ‘Remembrances of childhood as a source of pedagogical understanding’, Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 9, pp. 158–71. SMITH, S.J. (1992a) ‘Studying the lifeworld of physical education: A phenomenological orientation’, in SPARKES, A.C. (ed.) Research in Physical Education and Sport: Exploring Alternative Visions, London, Falmer Press, pp. 61–89. SMITH, S.J. (1992b) ‘Physically remembering childhood’, Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 10, pp. 85–106. SUTTON-SMITH, B. (1972) The Folkgames of Children, Austin, University of Texas Press. SUTTON-SMITH, B. (1987) ‘School play: A commentary’, in BLOCK, J.H. and KING, N.R. (eds) School Play: A Source Book, New York, Garland, pp. 277–90. SUTTON-SMITH, B. (1990) ‘School playground as festival’, Children’s Environment Quarterly, 7, 2, pp. 3–7. THORNE, B. (1993) Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press. TURNER, I. (1969) Cinderella Dressed in Yella, Melbourne, Heinemann Educational. VAN MANEN, M. (1979) ‘The phenomenology of pedagogic observation’, Canadian Journal of Education, 4, 1, pp. 5–16. VAN MANEN, M. (1986) The Tone of Teaching, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Scholastic Press. VAN MANEN, M. (1988) ‘The relation between research and pedagogy’, in PINAR, W.P. (ed.) Contemporary Curriculum Discourses, Scottsdale, Arizona, Garsuch Scarisbrick, pp. 437–52. VAN MANEN, M. (1991) The Tact of Teaching: The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness, New York, State University of New York Press. VAN MANEN, M. (1994) ‘Pedagogy, virtue, and narrative identity in teaching’, Curriculum Inquiry, 24, 2, pp. 135–70. VAN MANEN, M. (1995) ‘On the epistemology of reflective practice’, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 1, 1, pp. 33–50. YOUNG, J.C. (1985) ‘The cultural significance of (male) children’s playground activities’, The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 31, 2, pp. 125–38. ZERNER, C.J. (1977) ‘The street hearth of play’, Landscape, 22, 1, pp. 19–30.

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In Search of Authenticity: Researching Young Children’s Perspectives Paul Connolly

Introduction The reaction that I have had to my own work on racism and young children to date (see, for instance, Connolly, 1995, 1997) has not been too dissimilar to that which Laing (1978) reported in relation to his research. It has been a reaction that, for some, began with shock and disbelief and then led onto questions suggesting that I may have somehow unwittingly ‘put words into the mouths’ of the 5- and 6-year-old children that I had been studying and that I had subconsciously encouraged them to talk and behave in a certain way. Moreover, regardless of what the children had actually said or done, there emerged questions as to whether I could interpret the data in the way that I did: surely, it was put to me, the young children are saying and doing certain things simply because they know it is ‘naughty’ and want to attract the attention of others rather than because they actually understand the meaning and significance of their actions? What these reactions illustrate is the continued influence of traditional socialization and developmental models of childhood. It unfortunately remains the case that, for many people, children of the ages 5 and 6 are believed to be located quite firmly in Piaget’s ‘pre-operational stage’. As such they are assumed to be egocentric, unable to attend to more than one idea at a time and lacking the ability to think beyond their immediate experience to form more abstract concepts. From this point of view, young children certainly would not be seen as having the ability to develop relatively sophisticated concepts about ‘race’ and weave these together with ideas on gender, age and sexuality as my own research has attempted to show. The only explanation for their expressed beliefs and actions was, therefore, that I had encouraged them to think and behave in that way and/or was reading far more into the data than would be reasonably expected. What we find at the heart of these concerns then is the notion of authenticity. How can we gain the ‘true’, authentic voice of young children? Which methods are most appropriate? and, By what criteria can we judge the claims made about data collected on young children? These are the issues that 162

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I will attempt to address in this chapter. While the focus of my discussion will be on research on racism and young children, the themes and arguments that are to be addressed are far more universal. I want to begin with a critique of two very different methodological approaches to the study of young children’s beliefs about ‘race’. The first represents the classical and predominant approach in this area and is characterized by largely structured, psychologically based attitudinal tests. The second, as found in the recent study by Holmes (1995), is still a relatively innovative approach to the study of young children’s racial attitudes and is broadly ethnographic. What I want to show is that, regardless of the methods used, it is the researcher’s own value base and assumptions about children and childhood that remain the most important factor in shaping the way that data on young children are collected, analysed and written up. In the light of this, I will argue that no research account of young children’s perspectives can ever claim to be the true and definitive account. Rather, they are all inevitably products of the researcher’s own values and assumptions and the influences they have brought to bear through their role in the research process. Moreover, if we begin from the assumption that young children are socially competent then we will need to recognize that they will inevitably come to adapt and alter their behaviour from one context to the next. In this sense I want to argue that we need to accept that there is no one, authentic voice in relation to young children; only a multiplicity of authentic voices. Not only will children offer different voices to different people but those voices will also be documented and re-articulated through the eyes of the researcher. I will conclude the chapter by exploring the implications of this in relation to my own research on racism and young children (Connolly, 1997). What I will argue is that researchers’ accounts of young children’s perspectives need to appreciate both the influence they, themselves, bring to bear on the research process as well as remain sensitive to the social competence of young children. In other words, there is a need for researchers to be critically reflexive (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983). Rather than appealing to a simple form of relativism, I want to show that such an approach not only helps researchers develop more grounded claims about their research findings but also effectively yields a wealth of information that would otherwise be lost about the social competencies of young children.

Researching Racism and Young Children I want to begin then with a critical discussion of the extant literature on racism and young children. As will be seen, it is an area that has attracted much research attention over the years and has been largely concerned with exploring the degree to which young children have a perception of, and think in terms of, ‘race’. My concern here is not with the findings of the research per se but with the ways in which researchers have approached the study of young 163

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children’s perspectives. In this sense, as stated in the introduction, the themes I want to draw attention to are largely indicative of those found in many other areas of social inquiry relating to young children. For much of this century, research in America and Britain on young children’s racial attitudes has been developed within the methodological frame set by the pioneering studies of Lasker (1929), Moreno (1934), Horowitz (1936), Blake and Dennis (1943) and Clark and Clark (1947). Typically, such research has evolved around one of two strands. The first has been represented by a range of psychological tests that present young children with a series of photographs of black or white children or of differently coloured dolls and then asks them to indicate which child or doll they would like to play with. Their choice is then recorded and used to measure their level of racial prejudice.1 The other main strand to research on racism and young children has been the use of sociometric tests where children would typically be asked to nominate their best three friends and conclusions would then be drawn from the friendship patterns that emerge.2 For both of these strands there has been a noticeable neglect of young children’s own social experiences. In the absence of reflexive accounts within this body of research we can only tentatively suggest reasons for this neglect. One possible factor could be the dominance of Piaget’s theories of child development. Presumably, if it is believed that young children are egocentric, unable to attend to more than one idea at a time and lacking the cognitive ability to think beyond the particularistic and form more general concepts, then it would make little sense to engage the children directly in conversation and probe their understanding of racism as it is a concept that they simply cannot grasp. Furthermore, because of their egocentricity, then it is presumably also pointless to discuss with them how their prejudicial behaviour may hurt other children as, again, they are simply unable to think about other children’s perspectives. The only option, as the plethora of studies cited above demonstrate, is to devise a number of simple, stimulus-response style tests and/or single-answer questions and to observe and document their reactions. I would suggest that this belief about the social and cognitive (liabilities of young children has therefore played a significant role in the objectification of young children in social research. This can be seen in relation to the study of children’s perspectives where, when younger children are not ignored altogether, the research methods employed are usually highly structured and/ or dominated by observation. In other words, young children have rarely been given the space to express themselves; to identify and articulate their own experiences and concerns. Within the study of racism and young children, this is an approach that has not just been dominant in psychology but also within the more sociological, ethnographic accounts of ‘race’ and primary schooling (see Connolly, 1996). While there are now a growing number of extremely important studies of racism and children in primary schools these are either dominated by a focus on children at the top end of the age ranges (see Carrington and Short, 1989; Troyna and Hatcher, 1992) and/or reliant upon 164

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observations when shifting the focus to younger children (see Wright, 1992; Grant, 1992; Epstein, 1993). Moreover, this is a trend not confined to the study of ‘race’ and young children. Within social research more generally, with a few recent notable exceptions (see Pollard with Filer, 1996, Pollard and Filer, forthcoming; Filer with Pollard, forthcoming; Connolly, 1997), implicitly at least, there appears to be a weariness among researchers to directly engage young children. As before, it is a weariness which, at least in part, derives from the concerns expressed by King (1978) in his now seminal and highly influential study of infant (that is 5- and 6-year-old) children in three English schools. As he argued: How is it possible to understand the subjective meanings of very small children?…If teachers are unused to reflecting on their own actions young children seem to be almost incapable of doing so. However, it was possible to observe children’s behaviour in the classroom and to listen to their talk (and sometimes to talk with them), and to judge to what extent their behaviour and their talk were related to the actions of their teacher. It was also possible to infer something of a small child’s subjectivity by his or her emotional response to a situation. I assumed that a 6-year-old who cried was probably upset and one who laughed was happy, assumptions not always justified in relation to adults. (King, 1978, p. 8) For King, conversations and extended interactions with young children were thought not only to be pointless but also counter-productive in that they clouded and misdirected the researcher’s focus away from the ‘true’ meanings of the children’s behaviour that it was thought could only be uncovered through systematic observation. The logical consequence of this view, as adopted by King (1978), was therefore to avoid contact with the children at all costs. As he explains in his book, this typically involved: appearing to show no interest in what the children were doing; always standing up to avoid eye-contact with them; and, where possible, hiding in the ‘Wendy House’ to conduct observations to avoid interaction with the children altogether. Of course, I am not claiming here that these methods used by King were also employed by those conducting ethnographies of racism in primary schools as cited earlier. In many ways, King’s work is rather exceptional in that it is one of the only ethnographies of primary schooling to explicitly set out its underlying assumptions about young children. Because of the absence of any discussion in the other studies then we can only tentatively suggest reasons why they either chose not to focus on young children and/or relied on observations when they did study them. In this sense, King’s work almost provides an ideal type of the kind of assumptions that are, to varying degrees, all too often taken for granted in the design and execution of research on young children. 165

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Getting Inside Children’s Worlds? So far I have focused on how the taken-for-granted assumptions about young children’s social and cognitive (in)abilities have led to the formulation of particular methodologies in the study of racism and young children that are highly structured and are over-reliant upon observations. Implicit within this work, I would argue, is the assumption that these methods are the only ones able to uncover the authentic perspectives of young children; perspectives which, it is assumed, are by necessity egocentric, extremely centred and particularistic. Not surprisingly, this whole approach becomes self-fulfilling; simple questions necessarily produce simple answers. A child who is placed in a totally artificial environment and asked to choose between two dolls whose only difference is their colour will undoubtedly be forced to make her or his choice on the basis of colour. Because the child is then recorded as using ‘race’ as the sole criteria for making their choice, then their inability to think about more than one issue at a time is therefore confirmed. Moreover, in not giving the child space to reflect upon why they made that choice and to articulate, more broadly, their own experiences and concerns, then it is a method that can only help to reproduce a view of young children’s understandings of ‘race’ as being very basic, static and particularistic (see also Carrington and Short, 1989; Troyna and Hatcher, 1992; Connolly, 1996, 1997). In many ways, however, it is not the methods as such that are the central problem but the underlying values that lead to their selection. In this sense, particular methods in themselves are neutral; it is how they are selected and used that is important.3 What we have seen above is that the choice of largely structured, quantitative and/or observational methods tend to reflect the researchers’ own values and assumptions about young children. It is the researcher rather than the particular methods that should therefore be our primary concern. It is in this sense that the choice of more qualitative, ethnographic methods will not, in themselves, serve to overcome the core problems in relation to the study of young children highlighted above. It also requires a fundamental reassessment of the researcher’s own value base. This is a point that can be quite effectively illustrated by a brief discussion of the recently published ethnographic study of Holmes (1995) entitled: How Young Children Perceive Race. Holmes was equally critical of the earlier studies on racism and young children for what she saw as their failure to ‘account for the richness of human behaviour that occurs among individuals, the nonverbal communication, and the social categories that are relevant to the children’ (1995, p. 2). For Holmes, the salience of ‘race’ in young children’s lives can only be fully understood by entering and fully understanding their social world. As she explains, this, in turn, requires more qualitative, ethnographic methods where one can come to fully understand the children’s perspectives and ‘communicate racial and ethnic relationships through the eyes of a child’ (Holmes, 1995, p. 7). This is exactly what she set herself the target of doing in her own ethnographic study of kindergarten children in five American elementary schools. To achieve 166

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this Holmes made every effort to fully submerge herself in the children’s worlds by becoming ‘one of them’. As she explained: I asked explicitly that the teachers introduce me by my first name to the children. Mrs Baker made the following statement to her class: ‘This is a new student, Robyn, who will be with us every Friday. Make her feel welcome and help her learn the class rules.’ I took my seat, where a box of crayons with my name on it was placed. In these classes, the children addressed me freely by my first name from the moment I was introduced to them. I found this strategy effective because it seemed to attenuate the children’s notions of adult authority and to strengthen my position as one of their classmates. My authority was further weakened by the teachers who treated me like another student as much as possible…In fact, I was often spoken of in direct contrast to their teachers, presumably because my behavior was often atypical. One day I was playing with a toy that, unbeknownst to me, was not available for the children at playtime. Eric ran over from his playgroup to warn me, ‘Robyn, you’re not supposed to play with this. Hurry and put it back before the teacher sees you’. (Holmes, 1995, p. 11) However, while the methods Holmes used were quite innovative, the underlying assumptions she held about young children were not. As she argued: They [young children] are not yet capable of making the psychological distinctions, succumbing to peer pressure, or recognizing the importance of similar attitudes and mores as a basis for friendship—factors that presumably are responsible for the racial and gender prejudice observed in the later elementary grades. (Holmes, 1995, p. 107) As a result of these assumptions, the questions that Holmes asked the young children were largely simplistic and tended simply to confirm these overarching beliefs about the children’s abilities. The following conversation that Holmes (1995, p. 42) had with one young girl, for instance, was used to support the claim that children cannot yet cope with complex thought but rather think in rigid absolute terms about other people’s racial identities: Inv: Please tell me about white people. Tess: White people, uh, they’re like white. Some people are light white, and they have bumps on their freckles. And there are dark white people. You’re [the investigator] like dark white too. Similarly an African-American girl when asked to talk about brown people said: ‘We’re all brown people in my family. My daddy’s brown, my baby brother’s darker brown, and Mommy’s light brown. She’s lighter than me’ (Holmes, pp. 42–3). As with the more structured attitudinal tests referred to earlier, there is a 167

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strong sense in which these children have been set up to fail. Holmes has purposely encouraged them to talk and therefore make generalizations about ‘white’ and ‘brown’ people. It is not surprising that these children will then feel obliged to talk in this way only to then be accused of being cognitively unable to think beyond single categories. Moreover, even when the younger children were able to break through these simple questions and demonstrate a fairly sophisticated grasp of their social situation, this was just not recognized by Holmes (1995, p. 60). Take the following quote as an example: Terri:

Inv: Terri:

Some white people are mean. Because some white people sometimes, because some white people don’t like black people and they’re mean. The other day I was walking to school. I saw this little white girl and I said ‘Hi’ and then she said ‘Hi’ and I thought she liked me and she did ‘cause she played with me. One day, I was playing with this white girl and her mommy said I couldn’t play with her no more. She was mean. Are all white people mean? Not all, only some. You’re never mean, Robyn. You always play with us.

Holmes used this as an example of ‘young children’s inabilities to engage in deductive thinking’. As she went onto argue: ‘rather, these children concentrated on particular individuals and events when forming conceptions about groups of people’ (1995, p. 60). However, on reading the above conversation it is clear that Terri made every effort to avoid generalizing about all white people from her experiences of that other child’s mother. Indeed she even resisted Holmes’ own overt efforts to encourage her to generalize in her question asking whether ‘all white people are mean?’ A similar process is also evident in the following conversation Holmes had with Trish, an African-American girl. Here she was arguing that children did not see themselves primarily in terms of their skin colour and that, for these children, ‘being a color is equated with just being a person’ (p. 54). And yet, in the following, Trish clearly expresses a desire to be white (Holmes, 1995, p. 54): Trish: Inv: Trish:

I wish I was white. I wish I was like you. Why do you wish you were like me? ‘Cause I wanna be light, but I like white people and brown people.

Rather than listening to what Trish had said, Holmes (1995, p. 54) followed the quote by reinterpreting it in the following way: ‘The motivating factor in this case, I think, was the child’s desire to have a lighter brown skin, rather than be white.’ 168

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In Search of the Authentic Voice What distresses me when I read some works by sociologists is that people whose profession it is to objectivise the social world prove so rarely able to objectivise themselves and fail so often to realise that what their apparently scientific discourse talks about is not the object but their relation to the object—it expresses resentment, envy, social concupiscence, unconscious aspirations or fascinations, hatred, a whole range of unanalysed experiences of and feelings about the social world. (Pierre Bourdieu quoted in an interview with Wacquant, 1989, p. 33) What I have attempted to illustrate so far is the central influence that traditional socialization and developmental models of childhood have had in the study of racism and young children. The discussion of Holmes’ work is testament to the fact that it is not simply a question of choosing the right methods in seeking out the authentic voices of young children but is rather a matter of engaging with the underlying and pre-existing set of values and assumptions that researchers have about childhood and the influence that they may exert within the research process. This is a theme highlighted in the quote above and is one that I now want to take up for the remainder of this chapter. In line with Bourdieu, I want to argue that the products of research can never simply be detached from the researcher’s own value base and assumptions. In relation to the study of young children this means that there is no one, true ‘authentic voice’ to be identified and reported. As James (1995) has argued, the approach that the researcher takes to her or his study and the methods they employ, together with the influence that they exert throughout the research process, means that the children’s voices will always be expressed through the medium of the researcher. Moreover, young children are strategic agents. As will be seen below, they are active in the way they interact with and respond to their social world. As Filer (this volume) has demonstrated very effectively through her study of the classroom assessment of children’s language and speech, what children say and do is heavily dependent upon the particular context within which they are located at any one time. The important point from this is that what they say to one researcher may well be completely different to what they say to another. It is from this starting point that I will contend that while researchers cannot claim to have captured the authentic voice of young children, it would be equally wrong to dismiss their data as invalid. In this sense, I will argue that any account of children’s perspectives can only be authenticated through the incorporation of an understanding and analysis of the role that the researcher has played in its production. What this requires, then, is for researchers to be critically reflexive (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983); to be aware of their own assumptions and of their role within the research setting and how both inevitably come to impinge on the data collected. There is a need therefore, as Bourdieu (1977, 1990) has maintained, for social researchers to ‘take two steps back’ from the research process. The first step represents the traditional action of researchers placing 169

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critical distance between themselves and that being studied. The second step involves researchers, in effect, stepping back from and objectifying themselves and their role within the research process. For the remainder of this chapter I want to demonstrate one possible way that this can be done through a discussion of my own research on racism and young children in an English primary school (see Connolly, 1997).

Methods in the Study of Racism and Young Children As stated earlier, the choice of specific methods is never neutral but reflects the particular value-base and assumptions that a researcher holds in relation to a specific area of enquiry. I would suggest that the traditional socialization and developmental models of childhood, as discussed earlier, logically leads onto the choice of more basic, stimulus-response style observational methods. However, if we are to move beyond and challenge these traditional views of children and childhood then we need to reassess which methods are more appropriate to help unravel the complex, contradictory and context-specific nature of children’s perspectives. In relation to the salience of ‘race’ in young children’s lives and the search for young children’s perspectives more generally, this requires the adoption of a broadly qualitative, ethnographic approach (Mac an Ghaill, 1989; Troyna and Hatcher, 1992; Connolly, 1996). The use of detailed observation, together with indepth conversations and interviews with children can help the researcher develop an understanding of the changing significance of racism in the lives of young children and how and in what contexts they tend to appropriate, rework and reproduce discourses on ‘race’. It is through such methods that we can, more generally, begin to unravel what Maguire (1994, this volume) refers to as the ‘nested contexts’ which complexly articulate and impinge upon and influence the child’s experience of their social world. However, as we have seen with Holmes’ (1995) study, ethnographic methods in themselves will not act to highlight the complexities of young children’s racialized beliefs and identities. What we need to do is actively to engage the young children; offer them the space to reflect upon and articulate their own experiences and concerns. To this end, my own ethnographic study of three Reception/Year 1 infant classes in an English multi-ethnic, innercity primary school, made much use of small group interviews with the 5-and 6-year-old children. During the year that I spent at the school I conducted seventy-three group interviews with the children. These were typically in groups of three and chosen for interview in terms of friendship choices with one child being able to nominate others to accompany them for interview. Because of the length of time spent in the school, each child was interviewed at least three times enabling them to become quite familiar with the interview setting and allowing a good rapport to be developed between myself and the children. It was because of the relations of power evident between adults and young children that I decided to opt for group interviews. The group interview provided 170

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a setting in which children not only felt more comfortable in the protective environment offered by their peers but it also facilitated discussion between the children as each would remind and encourage the others to talk about particular topics and events. It is particularly this process, in essentially democratizing the discussion and leaving it largely to the children to set the terms of the debate, that lay at the heart of my reasons for opting for group interviews. It was against this background that my role was essentially one of being a facilitator; asking very general questions about what the children like, what they were doing in the playground and who they played with, as a way of initiating a discussion. Almost without exception, once a question had been asked the children would take control of the discussion and draw it off onto a number of different tangents. An example of the types of discussions and arguments that can result between the children is illustrated in the following transcript taken from an interview with three 6-year-old boys.4 It comes at the tail-end of a discussion in which Paul (black) and Daniel (white) were teasing Stephen about having Annette as his girlfriend: Paul: Stephen: Paul: Stephen: [ ... ] Daniel: Stephen: Daniel: Paul: [ ... ] Stephen: Daniel: Stephen: Daniel: Stephen: Daniel: Stephen: Daniel: Stephen: Daniel:

Annette does love you! Annette does go out with you! I bet! Is that why…Alright then, if Annette goes out with me then Nazia goes out with Daniel! You have two girlfriends—Nazia, Kelly [mixed-parentage] and her, Annette. And I know, and I know you go out with Rupal, Rakhee and [saying last name slowly and pulling face] Neelam! You’ve got a Paki5 girlfriend! Who? That one there with that dot! [on another poster] [laughs]

You go out with Neelam! And so do you! You go out with all the girls in our class! You go out with all the Pakis! [laughs] I said you go out with everyone in the whole world mate! So do you [laughs]! How can you say I do when I’ve already said you do! You do! You do! You go out with all of the Pakis, I go out with all the whites [laughs] Stephen: You go out with all of the Pakis! Because I, do I look like a Paki though—you do! You go the Mosque mate where all the Paki’s go! [general laughs] 171

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The argument itself developed out of a more long-standing conflict between Paul and Daniel on the one hand and Stephen and his friend, Jordan on the other, over girlfriends. It was a conflict that could be observed in the playground and which played itself out verbally in interviews. The distinctly sexualized nature of the pursuing arguments (see Connolly, 1995, 1997) and the way that they were couched in discourses that emphasized the boys’ ownership and control of girls could only have been uncovered and understood through the medium of the interview. In this sense the above quote also alludes to the interrelationship between a researcher’s own set of values and assumptions and the methods they employ. Thus a researcher who, for example, held quite traditional views about young children’s social (in)abilities and of childhood innocence, may well have opted for a largely observational approach in their study of these young children. Her or his observations of the children’s games of kiss-chase could then have been reinterpreted, from a distance, as simply ‘innocent’ games of tick. As a result, the researcher would not come across the way that the children constructed these games through particular discourses on gender and sexuality and thus her or his perceptions of young children would remain unchallenged. What is already evident from the above extract is that the choice of more qualitative methods and the decision directly to engage the children essentially offers them the space in which to demonstrate their relatively sophisticated knowledge and social skills and uncovers a plethora of data that would otherwise never have been uncovered. It illustrates the social competence of these 5- and 6-year-old children and their ability to draw upon and combine a number of complex discourses on ‘race’ and sexuality. It demonstrates quite clearly that these children do not simply think in uni-dimensional terms. This is also evident in the following transcript taken from another interview with these boys. Here, the four boys are discussing the games of football they play in the playground and are trying to justify why they let Prajay, a South Asian boy from their class, play football with them but not other South Asian children. The transcript is interesting as it not only illustrates the boys’ ability to think about and develop abstract racial concepts (in this case ‘Pakis’) but also how they can more than adequately make a distinction between the particularistic (i.e., playing with Prajay) and the more abstract (i.e., ‘Pakis’). PC: Paul: PC: Daniel: PC: Daniel: Paul: Daniel: 172

So I’m just trying to figure out who plays [football]—so Prajay plays does he? Yeah. He’s one of your’s/ /Yeah/ /What about, er, Ajay and Malde? [both in a parallel Reception/ Year 1class]/ Urrr no! Nah! They’re rubbish!

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Jordan: PC: Daniel: Stephen: PC: Stephen:

PC: Paul: Stephen: PC: Stephen: PC: Stephen: PC: Daniel: Stephen: PC: Stephen: Jordan: PC: Daniel: PC: Stephen: PC: Paul: Stephen: PC: Stephen: Jordan: PC: Stephen: Daniel: Stephen:

They’re always playing crap games! Why are they rubbish though Daniel? Because they’re Paaa-kis!/ No, no, no! Because they can’t run fast! They can’t run fast? Yeah, and say we’ve got the ball and we just, we just burn it and they’re, they’re, still near their, near our bloody goal and we and we’ve got the goal. Why can’t they run fast? Because they’re small! [laughs] No! Stephen, you tell us why can’t they run fast then? Cos, cos they’re Pakis and Pakis can’t run fast! But they’re the same as everybody else aren’t they? No! Why? Why aren’t they the same as everybody else? Don’t know! Cos… Well they are aren’t they? [shouting, frustratedly] Cos they’re slow and everything! An’ they want to be on your side cos you’re fast ain’t it Stephen? […] Would you let Ajay and people play if they wanted to? No! No? Why not? I wouldn’t let slow people play! But you let Prajay play—is he slow? No! He’s quite fast! Yeah but he’s Indian! Yeah, so, he ain’t got a dot on his head! His mum has! Yeah but Ajay hasn’t got a dot on his head! Yes he has! No he hasn’t! He’s got a black one so there!

Adult Researchers and Young Children While the above two extracts illustrate how particular methods are able to draw attention to the competence with which young children are able to appropriate, re-work and reproduce a variety of relatively complex discourses they do still leave unaddressed the question of authenticity. From the foregoing discussion, it should now be apparent that any assessment of the data’s authenticity needs to move beyond simplistic questions of its 173

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representativeness or how ‘uncontaminated’ it has been by the research process. In accepting that young children are socially competent then we also need to accept that there is not one single, true or representative voice to be identified. Children will, inevitably, adapt their behaviour from one social context to the next. Similarly, as I have argued earlier, all research is, by its very nature, ‘contaminated’ by the particular values and assumptions held by the researcher. For researchers to lay claim to authenticity in the perspectives they offer they therefore need to have taken the two steps back from the research process as advocated by Bourdieu earlier. In effect they need to place themselves within the research frame and critically examine their own role in the collection and analysis of their data. In taking my own research as an example, it draws attention to two fundamental issues that need to be properly written into the research account: (i) how my own values and assumptions have influenced and shaped my approach to the study of children and the kind of research questions I have asked; (ii) and how my presence within the research setting and my relationship with the children has influenced what they have said and done. I will look briefly at each of these in turn.

Values and Assumptions about Children and Childhood As regards the former, we can already begin to identify how my assumptions about the social competence of children and my critique of traditional models of childhood have come to influence my methodological approach. In essence I have decided to approach the study of young children as I would any other socially defined group. I have therefore resisted the use of highly structured attitudinal tests and an over-reliance upon observation in the study of children and have, instead, opted to engage them directly through a broadly ethnographic approach and the foregrounding of largely unstructured group interviews with the children within this. With this as my starting point, my main concern has been actively to resist the temptation to make prior assumptions about the children’s cognitive abilities and their levels of understanding of particular social issues. Rather I have let the children speak for themselves and have assumed, unless proven differently, that they have an adequate understanding of the meaning and social significance of the words they use and the behaviour they adopt. Of course it is precisely this approach that lies behind the reaction to my work that I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter. Surely, it has been put to me, there is a level of naiveté on my part simply to believe that children actually understand all that they are saying? They may use words like ‘sex’ but, at the ages of five and six, they will have little appreciation of its actual meaning. My main concern with arguments such as these is that why should this only be a concern in relation to the study of young children? Surely adults have also used words and referred to particular events and social issues 174

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without really understanding them. It is therefore simply the sign of a competent researcher that they do not just take the words of their respondents as the ‘truth’ but actively seek to corroborate what they say through further questioning and, where possible, the use of other data sources. This is precisely what I did in my interview with two 6-year-old boys called Stephen and Jordan, for example, when they mentioned the word ‘sex’: PC:

I was just wondering what you’ve been playing in the playground recently? Jordan: We’re playing races, kiss-chase. PC: Kiss-chase? Who with? Stephen: Kissy-cat! PC: Kissy-cat? Jordan: Yeah, when you catch somebody then you kiss them on the lips! PC: Who’ve you played that with? Stephen: Our girlfriends! […] And you have to kiss ‘em and sex ‘em! Jordan: Ahhh! No! PC: And sex them? What does that mean? Stephen: Arhh—I’m not saying that! PC: You can tell me if you want to. Stephen: No way! Jordan: Do you want me to tell him? PC: Yeah you tell me what it means Jordan! Stephen: I know—up and down! Jordan: No! no! It means shagging and things! PC: It means shagging? What do you mean by ‘up and down’ Stephen? Jordan and Stephen: [loud laughter] Jordan: Stick in your fanny! Stephen: Snogging! PC: Stick in your fanny you said? Stephen: Yeah he just said! Jordan: He’s well dirty! Stephen: Not like you are! While it may be accepted that the above transcript demonstrates that these particular children do actually have some understanding of the meaning of ‘sex’, it could still be argued that this proves very little as it is only one example and is therefore not representative of the majority of children. This, however, is nothing more than a truism. Indeed, as argued earlier, in accepting that children are socially competent then I am assuming that they will offer a multiplicity of voices and perspectives with respect to shifting locations in differing social contexts; rendering it extremely difficult to make any claims to representability. It is here that we need to be more clear about the aims of the research and the particular claims that are being made of it. 175

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In relation to my own work I chose a broadly ethnographic approach because I am primarily interested in causality: Why do certain children think and behave in the way that they do? What are the particular social processes and practices underlying this? These are questions that can only be reached through a more detailed, qualitative focus. If I had wanted to make broader generalizations I would have used standard questionnaires and more quantitative methods with a much larger sample. However, while allowing me to generalize, such methods would have been able to tell me very little about why a certain child chose to behave in a particular way or why a certain group of children have adopted a specific sub-culture. As before, these are issues, then, that represent more general methodological concerns and therefore should not be seen as specific to the study of children but should lie at the heart of all social research (see Sayer, 1992). Whether the children’s perspectives we are offering count as ‘authentic’ therefore depends upon the general methodological assessment of whether the particular claims can be made given the data offered. It is this that ultimately provides a safeguard in relation to my own work where I have approached the study of young children from the belief that they are socially competent and are not simply constrained to particular cognitive and social stages of development. While it may well be argued that my own value-base has created a tendency to read into the children’s words more than I should, this line of argument can only be substantiated by identifying particular weaknesses in my data and/or in the claims I have made of it. I am obviously not arguing that there are no weaknesses in my own work or that my own assumptions about young children may not have led me at times to draw conclusions that are not fully substantiated by the data. Rather I am arguing that any critique of my own work, and indeed of any other’s, needs to be proven and methodologically grounded rather than based upon an uncritical acceptance of a contrary set of values and assumptions. This was certainly how I developed my critique of Holmes’ (1995) work earlier through an engagement with her data.

Relations within the Field This need to assess the ‘authenticity’ of a particular piece of research through a focus on the data and the claims made of it leads us onto the second issue that I would like briefly to address here and that is the assessment of how the researcher’s actual presence and their relationship with the children comes to influence and shape what the children say and do. In relation to my own work, having begun with the assumption that young children are socially competent, then it is obviously important to bear in mind how their behaviour may be at least partially a reflection of how they have come to view me. This can be illustrated in the following incident that happened during my fieldwork. At this time I was sat at a table with Paul and some other boys helping them with their work in one of the Reception/Year 1 infant classes. The incident began with Daniel, who approached the table rather excitedly and sat down: 176

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Daniel:

PC: Daniel:

Annette: Paul: Annette: Paul: Daniel: Paul: Annette: Daniel: PC: Daniel: PC: Daniel: Paul: Daniel: Annette:

Miss! Miss! Miss! [referring to PC] me and Annette we broke off Stephanie’s peg! [in the cloakroom]. When we’re upstairs [i.e., for an interview] we’ll tell you! What peg? Annette saw it wobbling and Annette broke it off! [Annette walks over to the table and remains standing]. Annette, didn’t me and you break off that peg? [nods and smiles before calmly putting her work on the table] and me! [shakes head] Yeah I did didn’t I Daniel? [no response] Come and sit here Annette [pulling back the chair next to him for her to sit on]. [walks over and sits next to Paul] [to Paul and Annette] Are you two going to have sex? [ … ] He pinches your bum! Who pinches your bum? Paul! You’ve just said they’re going to have sex—who do you mean? Yeah them two are going to have sex! [pointing to Paul and Annette] No! Them two! [pointing to Annette and another boy sat at the table] No! Her and him [pointing to Annette and then PC] are going to have sex! Nnoooo!

In relation to the above incident, we can neither claim that it is representative of all children (appealing in some sense to a universalistic notion of childhood) nor can we claim that this is representative of the type of interaction that generally occurs between Paul, Daniel and Annette. What we can claim, however, is that these children do have a certain understanding of issues relating to gender and sexuality and that they are active in the way that they attempt to construct and reconstruct their social worlds and their relations within it. Moreover, in the way that Daniel was able to transform the conversation from one that positioned Annette as ‘one of the boys’ to one that sexualized her, it also shows how young children have the potential to be able to think beyond one issue at a time. However, the incident occurred in front of and was recorded by myself. In this sense two contextual factors need to be taken into account in a reading and analysis of the data. Firstly, it obviously reflects my own concerns in relation to children. The incident, and those preceding it, have been reported and emphasized precisely because they reflect my overarching interest in racism and how it is expressed through young children’s gendered identities. 177

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Thus researchers can never simply offer a true and definitive account of children’s lives. By trying to condense their data into a research paper, or even a book, a significant amount of influence is brought to bear in terms of what is deemed relevant. Any research report therefore, by necessity, fundamentally reflects the researcher’s own interests and concerns. The account of children’s perspectives that I have offered in my own work then cannot simply be claimed to be the definitive account but only a partial and necessarily incomplete aspect of that. Secondly, it is clear from the above quote that I was not simply a ‘fly on the wall’ but was very much part of the interaction. The way that I was drawn into the conversation not only tells us about the influence that I brought to bear by simply being present but it also offers some tentative clues as to how the young children may have come to see me. This latter point is of importance as it helps us to contextualize and make sense of their particular behaviour. From the above incident, it is clear from the way that Daniel teased Annette by associating her with me that my status as a male was significant for the children. In certain ways, it could possibly be argued that, being an adult male, I had come to represent the quintessential notion of masculinity for the children. In this sense, Daniel’s comment that Annette has sex with me represents the most poignant and ultimate tease about Annette and boyfriends. Similarly, my status as an adult white male in the other two transcripts quoted earlier can possibly help us to make sense of the boys’ use of racialized and sexualized themes in their arguments. In this sense, it could be argued that they were not simply displaying their knowledge of these themes as a form of cultural capital between themselves but they were also, significantly, doing this in front of me. In some ways I could be seen as the referee to the ensuing arguments who had been given the role of judging and comparing each boy’s contributions. In this sense, while their arguments were principally between themselves, it could also possibly be argued that they were working by what they felt would appeal to me, as an adult white male. As a result, I cannot therefore simply claim that if I were not present then the argument would still have taken on the particularly sexualized and racialized nature that it did. A further, related point is that we need to be aware of the possibility that many of these incidents were not simply illustrative of struggles between the children but were also illustrations of struggles between the young children and I. In this sense, it could be argued that they are located in particular relations of power with me; defined through dominant discourses on childhood which detail my authority over them and, in turn, proscribe what behaviour is appropriate for them in my presence. The introduction of specifically ‘adult’ themes such as sexuality and racism, which are considered as ‘taboo’ for children as young as these, could possibly be seen as a way of undermining my authority as an adult (see also Walkerdine, 1981). The way that Daniel purposely referred to me as ‘Miss’ is the last incident and the way he associated me with Annette could all possibly be interpreted as examples of the children’s struggles to resist and subvert their positioning as ‘children’. 178

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Of course this latter analysis of the young children’s hidden intentions is far more provisional and potentially problematic. I obviously do not have the data to fully support these claims and, it could be argued, they simply represent how my own assumptions about the social competence of young children has come to shape and distort my reading of particular events. It is for this very reason that the claims I have made in relation to this particular incident were far more tentative and couched in terms like ‘it could be argued’ and littered with words such as ‘possibly’. In many ways it would be very difficult for me to gain further data in this area to either support or refute my tentative reading of the incident. It would require very directive questioning of the young children for which I could then be accused of ‘putting words into their mouths’. As such, in relation to incidents such as these, we can only assess the ‘authenticity’ of the readings I make via the notion of plausibility. In other words we need to ask ourselves is there another equally plausible or even more compelling explanation for why Daniel chose to call me ‘Miss’ and later tease Annette that she was having sex with me particularly? In the absence of a more plausible explanation all we can do is provisionally accept the one that I have offered; that it was a way of Daniel challenging and subverting my power over him.

Conclusions In this chapter I have argued that all research on children will inevitably become imbued with the particular values and assumptions that a researcher carries with them about children and childhood. The more structured, psychologically based attitudinal tests show just how centrally assumptions about young children can help to influence and shape the particular methodologies employed. Moreover, the more recent ethnographic work of Holmes (1995) also stands as testament to the fact that it is not the actual methods themselves but the underlying values that shape their selection and usage that remain the most important factor. What we have seen is just how prevalent the traditional socialization and developmental models of childhood are within the social sciences. Ultimately, what I have tried to show is that an elaborate self-fulfilling prophecy exists where the assumptions held about children are more often than not simply reconfirmed through the way that particular methods are employed and/or the way that data are collected and interpreted. It is from this starting point that the chapter has attempted a reappraisal of the notion of the ‘authentic voice’ in relation to social research and young children. What I have argued is that there is no one, true and definitive ‘authentic voice’ of young children. The ‘voices’ offered through research will inevitably reflect the researcher’s own interests and concerns as well as their assumptions about children and childhood. Moreover, once young children are seen as active and strategic social agents then the ‘voices’ that they offer must be seen as a product of the particular context within which they have been articulated. In this sense, there can only ever be ‘authentic voices’ with 179

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young children actively modifying and adapting their words and actions from one social context to the next. In making this argument, however, I have tried to be careful not to slip into some form of nihilistic relativism where all data are considered to be ‘contaminated’ and therefore invalid. Rather, I have attempted to show that claims to authenticity require a critical reflexivity where researchers effectively take the two steps back from their work that Bourdieu suggested so that they can assess what relationship they have with the research and what role they have played in the collection and analysis of the data. In this it requires an analysis of the way that a researcher’s own values and assumptions have influenced and shaped their approach to the study of children and the kind of research questions they have asked and how their presence within the research setting and relationship with the children has influenced what the children have said and done. As I have attempted to show in relation to my own work, the adoption of a more critically reflexive approach actually enables the researcher to open up new lines of enquiry in relation to their own relationship with the researched and thus collect and analyse what would otherwise be a neglected and yet important source of data.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Karen Winter and Ann Filer, Andrew Pollard and Dennis Thiessen for their comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

Key to Transcripts / Indicates interruption in speech. […] Indicates extracts edited out of transcript for sake of clarity. [text] Indicates descriptive text added to clarify/highlight the nature of the discussion and/or interaction. … Indicates a natural pause in speech.

Notes 1

2 3

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See, for instance: Razran (1950); Pushkin (1967); Brown and Johnson (1971); Milner (1975, 1983); Madge (1976); Davey (1983); Pushkin and Norburn (1983). For a critical overview of this area see Aboud (1988), Carrington and Short (1989) and Troyna and Hatcher (1992). See, for instance, Moreno (1934): Rowley (1968); Kawwa (1968); Durojaiye (1969, 1970); Jelinek and Brittan (1975); Braha and Rutter (1980); Davey (1983). For a critique of this approach see Denscombe, Szulc, Patrick and Wood (1986). This is a similar point to that made in relation to feminist research in response to the claim that certain methods (largely quantitative) are more ‘masculine’ than others

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(see, for instance, Riddell, 1989; Skeggs, 1992; Harding, 1987). A key to the transcripts is included at the end of the paper. ‘Paki’ is a derogatory term, derived from the word Pakistani, commonly used by the children to refer to all those of South Asian origin. As will be seen in the following transcripts, South Asian children were generally referred to as ‘Indians’ by other children and staff in the school when they were not wishing to be derogatory.

References ABOUD, F. (1988) Children and Prejudice, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. BLAKE, R. and DENNIS, W. (1943) ‘The development of stereotypes concerning the Negro’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38, pp. 525–31. BOURDIEU, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. BOURDIEU, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice, Cambridge, Polity Press. BRAHA, V. and RUTTER, D.R. (1980) ‘Friendship choice in a mixed-race primary school’, Educational Studies, 6, 3, pp. 217–23 BROWN, G. and JOHNSON, S. (1971) The attribution of behavioural connotations to shaded and white figures by Caucasian children’, British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 10, pp. 306–12. CARRINGTON, B. and SHORT, G. (1989) ‘Race’ and the Primary School: Theory into Practice, Windsor, NFER-NELSON. CARRINGTON, B. and SHORT, G. (1992) ‘Researching “race” in the “all-white” primary school: The ethics of curriculum development’, Ethics, Ethnicity and Education, London, Kogan Page Limited. CLARK, K. and CLARK, M. (1947) ‘Racial identification and preference in Negro children, in NEWCOMB, T.M. and HARTLEY, E.L. (eds) Reading in Social Psychology, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. CONNOLLY, P. (1995) ‘Boys will be boys? Racism, sexuality and the construction of masculine identities amongst infant boys’, in HOLLAND, J. and BLAIR, M. (eds) Debates and Issues in Feminist Research and Pedagogy, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters. CONNOLLY, P. (in press) ‘Seen but never heard: Rethinking approaches to the study of racism and young children’, Discourse, 17, 3CONNOLLY, P. (1997) Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children: Social Relations in a Multi-Ethnic, Inner-City Primary School, Buckingham, Open University Press. DAVEY, A. (1983) Learning to be Prejudiced, London, Edward Arnold. DENSCOMBE, M., SZULC, H., PATRICK, C. and WOOD, A. (1986) ‘Ethnicity and friendship: The contrast between sociometric research and fieldwork observation in primary school classrooms’, British Educational Research Journal, 12, 3, pp. 221– 35. DUROJAIYE, M. (1969) ‘Race relations among junior school children’, Educational Research, 11, pp. 226–28. DUROJAIYE, M. (1970) ‘Patterns of friendship in an ethnically-mixed junior school’, Race, 12, pp. 189–200. EPSTEIN, D. (1993) Changing Classroom Cultures: Anti-Racism, Politics and Schools, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books. FILER, A. with POLLARD, A. (1997) The Social World of Pupil Assessment, London, Cassell. GILLBORN, D. (1990) ‘Race’, Ethnicity and Education, London, Unwin Hyman. GRANT, L. (1992) ‘Race and the schooling of young girls’, in WRIGLEY J. (ed) Education and Gender Equality, London, Falmer Press.

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Paul Connolly HAMMERSLEY, M. and ATKINSON, P. (1983) Ethnography: Principles in Practice, London, Tavistock. HARDING, S. (ed.) (1987) Feminism and Methodology: Social Science Issues, Buckingham, Open University Press. HOLMES, R. (1995) How Young Children Perceive Race, London, Sage. HOROWITZ, E.L. (1936) ‘Development of attitudes towards Negroes’, in PROSHANSKY H. and SEIDENBERG B. (eds) Basic Studies in Social Psychology, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. JAMES, A. (1995) ‘Methodologies of competence for a competent methodology?’ Unpublished paper presented to ‘Children and Social Competence’ Conference, University of Surrey, July. JELINEK, M. and BRITTAN, E. (1975) ‘Multiracial education: (1) Inter-ethnic friendship patterns’, Educational Research, 18, 1, pp. 44–53 KAWWA, T. (1968) ‘Three sociometric studies of ethnic relations in London schools’, Race, 10, pp. 173–80. KING, R. (1978) All Things Bright and Beautiful: A Sociological Study of Infants’ Classrooms, Chichester, John Wiley and Sons. LAING, R.D. (1978) Conversations with Children, London, Penguin. LASKER, B. (1929) Race Attitudes in Children, New York, Greenwood Press. MAC AN GHAILL, M. (1989) ‘Beyond the white norm: The use of qualitative methods in the study of black youths’ schooling in England’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2, 3, pp. 175–89. MADGE, N. (1976) ‘Context and the expressed ethnic preferences of infant school children’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 14, 4, pp. 337–44. MAGUIRE, M.H. (1994) ‘Cultural stances of two Quebec bilingual children informing storytelling’, Comparative Education Review, 38, 1, pp. 115–44. MILNER, D. (1975) Children and Race, Harmondsworth, Penguin. MILNER, D. (1983) Children and Race: Ten Years On, London, Ward Lock Educational. MORENO, J.L. (1934) Who Shall Survive? New York, Beacon House. POLLARD, A. (1985) The Social World of the Primary School, London, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. POLLARD, A. with FILER, A. (1996) The Social World of Children’s Learning, London, Cassell. POLLARD, A. and FILER, A. (1997) The Social World of Pupil Careers, London, Cassell. PUSHKIN, I. (1967) ‘A study of ethnic choice in the play of young children in three London districts’, unpublished thesis, University of London. PUSHKIN, I. and NORBURN, V. (1983) ‘Ethnic preferences in young children and in their adolescence in three London districts’, Human Relations, 36, pp. 309–44. RAZRAN, G. (1950) ‘Ethnic dislikes and stereotypes: A laboratory study’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 45, pp. 7–27. RIDDELL, S. (1989) ‘Exploiting the exploited? The ethics of feminist educational research’, in BURGESS, R.G. (ed.) The Ethics of Educational Research, London, Falmer Press. ROWLEY, K. (1968) ‘Social relations between British and immigrant children’, Educational Research, 10, pp. 145–8. SAYER, A. (1992) Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, London, Routiedge. SKEGGS, B. (1992) ‘The constraints of neutrality: ERA and feminist research’, unpublished paper presented to ESRC Seminar Series: ‘Methodological and ethical issues associated with research into the 1988 Educational Reform Act’, University of Warwick. TROYNA, B. and CARRINGTON, B. (1989) ‘Whose side are we on? ethical dilemmas in research on “race” and education’, in BURGESS, R.G. (ed.) The Ethics of Educational Research, London, Falmer Press.

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Knowing about, Acting on Behalf of, and Working with Primary Pupils’ Perspectives: Three Levels of Engagement with Research Dennis Thiessen

Looking carefully at the lives of students in and out of school could, among other things, highlight the profound differences among the manifest or intended curriculum of policy statements, the taught curriculum of teacher practices, and the curriculum as students experience it when it becomes part of their own perspectives. (Schubert and Lopez, 1994, p. 5817) While considerable research has occurred in the designed (policy) and practiced (teacher) curriculum and in the extent to which curriculum policy and practice mutually shape and set the reform agenda for one another (Elmore and Sykes, 1992; Doyle, 1992), comparatively less is known about the curriculum experienced by pupils and the relationship of these experiences to what policymakers intend or teachers enact. The studies in this volume provide detailed and up close accounts of the lives and careers of primary pupils, with a particular focus on how they navigate through, make sense of, and create new paths for the changing landscape of curriculum policy and practice. Pupils construe and construct a curriculum world that, at times, is at odds with the priorities stated in documents and outlined in plans governing what teachers require them to do. Their perspectives offer another vantage point from which to view the tensions among the intended, taught, and experienced curriculum. But what can teachers and policy-makers learn from research that elaborates the unique and particular perspectives primary pupils form in and about their curriculum experiences? This chapter examines three levels of engagement with research: Level One: Knowing about Primary Pupils’ Perspectives In this first level of engagement, the focus is on what can be learned from those who have studied the perspectives of primary pupils. These lessons can expand the understanding of what their perspectives include; suggest additional approaches to how their perspectives are accessed, interpreted, and portrayed; and raise questions about the relationships between the 184

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curriculum that primary pupils experience and the curriculum that teachers practice and policy-makers prescribe. Level Two: Acting on Behalf of Primary Pupils’ Perspectives The second level of engagement concentrates on how to represent and advocate the perspectives of primary pupils. These lessons can extend the pursuit of coming to know primary pupils’ perspectives; probe further into the forces that influence how they make sense of their curriculum world; and add their views to the many considerations affecting decisions about curriculum policy and practice. Level Three: Working with Primary Pupils’ Perspectives The third level of engagement emphasizes approaches for including primary pupils in the determination of their ongoing curriculum experiences. These lessons can elaborate the place of their perspectives in the taught and intended curriculum; examine the manner in which their views interact with how the curriculum changes; and reveal the salience of their voices in the policy-making and reform process. Though the engagement with research in levels two and three incorporates the insights of level one, it is less bound by the particular claims or arguments of the researchers. The potential of the latter two levels relies more on the capacity of readers to see new possibilities for understanding and engaging with primary pupils’ perspectives, a kind of creative application first provoked by what studies like those reported in this book reveal. Before I turn to these three levels of engagement, it is important to outline how teachers and policy-makers work through their understanding of, involvement with, and adaptations to research.

Engagement with Research Engagement with research has two extremes. One position argues fidelity, that is teachers and policy-makers should faithfully embrace and apply what researchers expose or prove. The other position proposes discovery, where teachers and policy-makers examine, extract, and adapt those findings which have some meaning to their professional circumstances. At the fidelity end, engagement is a matter of compliance and at the discovery end, a matter of generation. Both extremes obviously are over-simplifications yet do find their way into how some use or abuse research. Variously seen as a problem of knowledge utilization, dissemination, or diffusion, still not much is known about how research does, can, or should interact with policy and practice. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to develop these three levels of engagement into a theory of learning from research, this section does provide some elements for understanding how teachers and policy-makers can make sense of and explore 185

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further levels of what studies of primary pupils’ perspectives reveal and can stimulate. For most consumers of research, engagement begins with reading the text of the published report of the study. Like all readers, teachers and policy-makers bring their own histories to such readings and consequently have perspectives that serve as reference points for understanding and critiquing accounts from primary pupils about their experienced curriculum. As they interact with the text, then, teachers and policy-makers may confirm what they already know or intuitively recognize, may re-orient what they believe matters most, or may even consider changes in practice. Not all forms of engagement are directly dependent on textual renderings. Initially, teachers and policy-makers rely on what researchers observe and conclude. Many authors attempt to guide readers by locating their studies within a contemporary concern (e.g., policy debate), an issue of practice (e.g., teaching and assessment), or a conceptual debate (e.g., competing notions of pupil learning); by providing sufficient detail and elaboration for readers to recognize some relationships between the studies and their professional experiences; and by pointing to changes curriculum practitioners should consider in light of the research findings. Such passages enable teachers and policy-makers to make some judgments about the transferability of what the studies represent. What can also happen is that studies trigger an analogous or alternative insight, one that may be at some distance from the framework used by the authors to portray their research. In this latter instance, the educative value of the studies is their catalytic impact in stimulating new ideas and actions. The extent to which teachers and policy-makers learn both from and as a result of such studies follows from their interrelated engagement with three questions: (1) So what? (2) For what? (3) Now what? So what? requires teacher and policy-makers to search for a connection between what the studies describe and their own experiences. Do the studies confirm, add to, adapt, or challenge some aspect of their curriculum world? Do they illuminate, persuade, or provoke something of personal relevance? Do they raise questions of value—Is it right to act on their findings? Do they have insights that should receive priority? Are the recommendations feasible to consider or apply? (Eraut, 1984, p. 62). The studies have to be more than an interesting read, a novel revelation, or a probing case. To stimulate engagement, they have to touch a cord, to point to something that matters to the lives of teachers and policy-makers. The question of for what? arises once the so what? connection is made. Teachers and policy-makers have to define how the studies matter. Do the studies inform and possibly transform how they normally work? If so, are these ideas worth embracing, issues worth exploring, or practices worth trying? Are the implied or stated changes within their current and anticipated capacities? Is it possible to adapt the elements in the studies to their circumstances? What are the consequences of incorporating the key concepts from the studies into how policies are made or how curriculum is taught? Here teachers and policy-makers 186

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are creatively analysing where a further involvement with the studies may make a difference to how they see and engage in their respective curriculum responsibilities. Now what? follows from knowing that, and how, the studies matter. This question focuses on the ways teachers and policy-makers plan to act on the lessons identified in, derived from, or sparked by the studies. Such actions typically compel a change in practice. What change needs to be made? How can the change be made? How will they know that their application of the change is effective and an improvement on what they did before? What is gained in response to this question is akin to an action research endeavor where teachers and policymakers inquire into the value of practices adopted and adapted from research in the experienced curriculum. It becomes a part of how they change what they believe is right to do. With little or no opportunity for teachers and policy-makers to interact with those who have studied the perspectives of primary pupils, engagement with research often depends more on the translating, transposing, and transforming capacities of the readers. They engage in a so what?—for what?—now what? process in which they determine how to locate themselves within the text so they can immerse themselves in its ruminations and revelations and, if desired, create a personal sequel to the story within. The process is cyclic and can involve at least three levels of engagement, the first of which is based on the lessons from the studies.1

Level One: Knowing about Primary Pupils’ Perspectives At this first level, teachers and policy-makers concentrate on what can be learned from what the researchers have found. The studies provide snapshots of the curriculum in the classroom and elsewhere framed through what and how researchers illuminate the scene and the views primary pupils have about their experiences. These two perspectives, those of the researchers and those of the primary pupils, can teach the readers through direct instruction and by example. Potentially the lessons include a greater importance attributed to the perspectives of primary pupils, a more thorough appreciation of the dimensions of their perspectives, and a better sense of how to examine and present their understanding of the experienced curriculum. These cases reconfirm the importance of studying the experienced curriculum and highlight the unique and noteworthy views primary pupils hold about these experiences. The following conclusions are where teachers and policy-makers can begin their level one engagement: • •

Primary pupils are knowledgeable about their curriculum worlds. Through their perspectives, primary pupils provide a varied and complex portrayal of the experienced curriculum. 187

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The experienced curriculum as conveyed through the perspectives of primary pupils is often different from the taught or mandated curriculum.

Once there is agreement on these core points, teachers and policy-makers can then examine the more specific insights researchers offer. Two areas are particularly important, the variations in the context, form and social setting that primary pupils’ perspectives include and the complexities of accessing, interpreting, and portraying defensible renditions of their views.

Content, Form, and Social Setting Primary pupils’ perspectives can span a wide range of curricular, social and organizational areas, appear in different forms, and occupy a distinct place in the social and temporal realities of the curriculum. Research into the perspectives of primary pupils focuses our attention on, among other things: What to teach—relevance of the formal curriculum to their interests, aspirations, and lives. How to vary learning—within and across subject matter or grade level, in different settings, and in a range of structures or organizational conditions. What is learned—through different modes, according to particular criteria or benchmarks, and for which purposes. How to behave—making rules or forming routines, building norms and traditions, and responding to disruptions or misbehaviors. How to develop—better classrooms, programmes, structures, or schools. They not only can recount stories about these areas but also can account for how and why they happened. They not only can describe their constructs about language but also can prescribe how language learning and teaching should be approached. They not only can discuss their peer culture but also can critique their classroom and school culture. The scope of primary pupils’ perspectives offers a rich platform for understanding the content of their experienced curriculum. In form, primary pupils frame and present their perspectives in different orientations and styles. For example, they can vary the manner in which they relate their views to particular actions—reacting to approaches designed by their teachers; interacting to negotiate a preferred use of time, or, in anticipation of an event for which they feel some opportunity and authority to shape; being proactive in stating their preferences. Spaulding (this volume) describes just such a range of orientations in a Grade 2 classroom, with some pupils waiting to see what their teacher does before deciding to comply or resist, some pupils bargaining for more time on a desirable activity, or some pupils arguing for an alternative assignment before a routinely scheduled task actually takes place. Primary pupils can alter their modulation, changing the tone and insistence 188

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(e.g., from can to must) of their views to emphasize the significance of the experience. This modulation is not necessarily conveyed verbally. Nicholls and Thorkildsen (this volume) portray the gestural, iconic, and enactive cues that exposed ‘Quiet Bird’s’ dramatic but unstated disconnection from his curriculum world. Primary pupils can also shift the degree of expressivity, declaring with some level of emotional weight the personal relevance of how the curriculum affects their daily circumstances. Jeffrey and Woods (this volume) note how pupils appreciate and respond to teachers who get to know them, attend to their need to laugh, cry, or get angry, or boost their confidence. The form of primary pupils’ perspectives signals an investment, a complexity, and a direction in what matters in their curriculum lives. Their perspectives are also located in particular social settings which vary by time, context, and relationship. Primary pupils can adjust their viewpoints throughout the day, from one year to the next, or in anticipation of how their experiences will change in the future (Richardson, 1995). The curriculum is not confined to the formal context of subjects, assignments, and classroom obligations, but can travel to such locales as the halls, the playground, the community, or the home. (See Smith and his analysis of the pedagogical possibilities of the playground; and Nicholls and Thorkildsen or Maguire for their respective accounts of the intersection of home and school—this volume.) And, in terms of relationships, their perspectives can encompass individual or collective stories, can involve peers, teachers, or parents, or can embrace quite different roles and images for themselves (such as knowledge worker, information processor, problem solver, meaning maker, inventor, collaborator, activist). Though bounded by biography, geography, and interpersonal condition, their perspectives nonetheless have a somewhat permeable and dynamic quality especially as the time, place, and circumstance of their curriculum lives change. Together the content, form and social setting of their perspectives offer an invaluable window to the experienced curriculum and a reference point for relating these experiences to the intended and taught curriculum. Accessing, interpreting and portraying these dimensions however, are not without their difficulties.

Access, Interpretation, and Portrayal As researchers discover that primary pupils are capable of understanding more aspects of the manifest and implicit curriculum than previously recognized (Erickson and Shultz, 1992), they do so by re-examining and redefining the approaches typically used to study their perspectives. Each study strengthens the belief that young children have the competency, status, maturity, or language to represent their views. Consequently, researchers continue to adapt their strategies of access by. 189

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•

•

• • •

Using a variety of methods over a longer period of time (Pollard with Filer, 1996; Pollard and Filer, forthcoming; Filer with Pollard, forthcoming); Broadening the field of observations from the classroom and school to the playground, home, or community (Maguire; Nicholls and Thorkildsen; Smith, this volume); Relying on less structured and more conversational interview techniques with both individuals and groups (Connolly, this volume); Exploring the expressive strengths of young children—non-verbal communication, drawings, and stories (James, Jencks and Prout, 1997); Where necessary, providing more opportunity and training in speaking about their curriculum experiences (Jeffrey and Woods; Parker-Rees, this volume).

As yet, primary pupils do not have much involvement in the interpretation and portrayal of their curriculum perspectives. (For an exception, see Pollard, 1985, where he used an investigative club of 10- and 11-year-old pupils to make sense of their peer culture.) Despite their authority in and authorship of their own perspectives, primary pupils pass over the responsibility for analysing and disseminating their views to those who are older, taller, more experienced as pupils and in schools, and more expert at the conduct and reporting of research. The unstated ‘trade’ for this access is the obligation researchers accept to strive for defensible accounts of primary pupils’ perspectives, their own perspectives, and their perspectives of primary pupils’ perspectives. The challenge is to avoid the last two perspectives overwhelming or supplanting the first, something that is difficult to do without a critically reflexive stance by researchers (for a discussion of this issue, see Connolly, this volume). In the sense-making process of interpreting perspectives, researchers prolong their efforts at making the familiar world of primary pupils strange by recursive strategies that continuously interrogate the extent to which prevailing theories, guiding frameworks, or earlier hunches stand up to subsequent rounds of data collecting. When it comes time to developing a text, researchers piece together vignettes from fieldnotes, edited clips from selected conversations, and excerpts from other sources (e.g., drawings, journals) in order to ensure that the featured pupils are both seen and heard. Primary pupils’ perspectives must co-exist alongside those of the researchers. Only then have the researchers fulfilled their end of the ‘trade’.

Informing Policy and Teaching Whether researchers are giving the voices of pupils ‘social breath so they can be rendered more audible…[or are] differently tuning the voices to make them better understood’ (Schratz, 1993, p. 180), the cumulative impact of studies like those reported in this book is a more informed representation of how pupils 190

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participate in and make sense of their curriculum experiences. None of the studies can purport to speak for all or even most primary pupils, yet they nonetheless suggest the possibility that some of the assumptions driving recent policy decisions or underlining current teaching practices do not always reflect how primary pupils live and learn. Some of these inconsistencies have been noted in earlier chapters. For example, Filer argues that the National Curriculum and its assessment procedures are based on a model of language different from how primary pupils utilize language in such curriculum moments as the news session. Maguire looks at the bilingual world of three Muslim girls and discovers a negotiated terrain that varies from how some second language teachers approach language acquisition. And Spaulding challenges conventional explanations about misbehavior by demonstrating the micropolitical stance behind some primary pupils’ acts. Elaborating the experienced curriculum then does not simply fill a void but raises questions about the congruency between what primary pupils understand and what teachers pursue and policy-makers intend. If studies about primary pupils’ perspectives have comparable importance (so what?) to other factors influencing the decisions teachers and policy-makers make (for what?), then their informed choices could very well lead to significant changes in how curriculum is governed and enacted (now what?).

Level Two: Acting on Behalf of Pupils’ Perspectives The quality of level one engagement is based on two conditions: (1) the capacity of researchers to provide, through an elaboration of primary pupils’ perspectives, a more thorough explication of their experienced curriculum, and (2) the willingness of teachers and policy-makers to take up pertinent lessons from these studies in ways that meaningfully inform their decisions. In this situation, learning directly follows from the realization that research of this kind produces a different and more informed script of the curriculum lives of primary pupils. Level one then centers on knowing about perspectives of primary pupils and incorporating this more informed base into any deliberations affecting the curriculum. Level two engagement begins with the products of level one but develops in a direction that goes beyond the texts of what most studies explicitly address. It enters into a different zone of representation, one that calls on teachers and policy-makers to stand up for, or even advocate on behalf of, the perspectives primary pupils express and exhibit. The potential of level two engagement for teachers and policy-makers is related to the capacity to be representatives of primary pupils’ perspectives and defenders of their right to be individually and collectively heard—to have their voices respected, their preferences considered, their critiques engaged, and their choices matter. Underlying this belief in their right to be represented is an image of primary pupils that recognizes that they are socially competent, have considerable personal and contextual variability in 191

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their perspectives, and possess a relatively developed grasp of ‘otherness’ within their own realm of experience. Many curriculum researchers and practitioners argue that their actions—the conduct of research, the formulation of policy, or the application of particular teaching strategies—emerge from and are driven by what is in the best interests of primary pupils. Furthermore, they claim, as a result of level one engagement, that they take seriously the perspectives of primary pupils especially when considering the relationships among the experienced, taught, and intended curriculum. Yet for teachers and policy-makers to make more informed plans and decisions as a result of a better understanding of how primary pupils construe some aspects of their daily experiences is not the same as empathizing with the ways primary pupils might see things, or speaking as if casting a proxy vote on their behalf. To act as agents of primary pupils requires both a knowledge of their curriculum world and a commitment to seriously taking up their perspectives and representing what they are interested in. Effective representatives need to have an indepth knowledge of primary pupils, their lives and careers, their identities as learners, their habits of mind and heart, and their coping strategies in order to anticipate and stand in for their curriculum perspectives. A number of studies supply snapshots of certain points of view of primary pupils but fall short of the narrative richness representatives need to fulfill their role. For teachers, unless such research includes primary pupils within their midst, the findings though informative are insufficient for the kind of empathetic decisions about teaching they have to make. Policy-makers outside of schools are not as concerned about particular populations of primary pupils but even here would need research that allows them to appreciate the intricate web among pupils, perspectives, and curriculum experiences so they can represent the primary pupils’ world in the debates about policy. In both cases, teachers and policy-makers benefit from studies that bring them closer to the primary pupils whose lives they want to support and perspectives they want to take to the decision-making table. Engagement in level two involves speaking both about and for primary pupils. It includes some level of identification with the primary pupils whose perspectives teachers and policy-makers are to represent (so what?), a more integrated yet differentiated sense of how their perspectives interact with their curriculum experiences (for what?), and a routine of seeking and representing their perspectives in deliberations about curriculum policies and practices (now what?).

Level Three: Working with Primary Pupils’ Perspectives If their perspectives are significant enough to inform decisions about teaching and policy (level one) and sufficiently relevant in understanding the experienced curriculum to deserve representation and even advocacy by teachers and policy-makers (level two), why not take it a step further and work 192

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with their views directly (level three)? The challenge of level three is determining how to involve primary pupils in the construction and enactment of their curriculum experiences. In recent years, secondary pupils have participated in school councils, sitebased management initiatives, teacher development strategies, curriculum change projects, school improvement endeavors, and learning commissions2 (Begin and Caplan, 1994; Boomer, 1982; Glickman, 1993; Hull, 1985; Rudduck, Wallace, and Chaplain, 1995; Thiessen, 1992). Their voices find their way to different spaces, sometimes as cross-checks to decisions already made, sometimes as sources of data or benchmarks of progress, sometimes as reference points at strategic junctures in a change process, and sometimes as one of many stakeholders, each with a relatively equal say in matters affecting the course of curriculum events. Despite its more child-centered history, primary schools have not created as many places for pupils to have their perspectives influence their experienced curriculum. Their voices and choices only appear in certain situations. For example, in more discovery-oriented classrooms, primary pupils often have considerable latitude to shape how they engage with the tasks, resources, or structures set before them. But given the scope of their perspectives (see earlier section: ‘Content, Form, and Social Setting’), much more seems possible. Earlier chapters suggest that some primary pupils have well-developed perspectives about the implicit curriculum especially in such areas as preferred classroom climates, the distribution of power and influence, social justice, and the consequences of various forms of classroom participation. In the manifest curriculum, they demonstrate their perspectives through the way they respond to assigned tasks, avoid some subject matter, support certain instructional approaches, and vary their engagement with different resources. Changes in either the implicit or manifest curriculum alter the routines primary pupils have come to expect, prompting some to resist and others to embrace these breaks from the usual pattern of doing things. Each of these occasions is an opportunity for asking pupils to expand on their perspectives of the moment, to struggle with making what often is implicit explicit, to reconstruct the scene, to query what has just transpired, to identify what stands out, or to propose an alternative for next time. Such exchanges may appear as nothing more than a pause, an interlude, a blip on the screen. Yet, over a year, they can build portfolios of pupils’ perspectives, establish a norm of perspective sharing, and become a forum for mutual influence and support. In such a primary classroom, teachers and pupils can both learn to work with each other’s perspectives and in the process, discover how to interrelate the taught and experienced curriculum. David, the ‘Quiet Bird’ (See Nicholls and Thorkildsen, this volume), fortunately was in a classroom where his teacher, in concert with his parents and researcher, suspended conventional and regulatory practice; listened’ to the perspectives embedded in his art, play, and resistant acts; and invented a context for him to find an acceptable and personally relevant path through the demands of classroom life. Here the teacher took the time to locate and work with the pupil’s perspective so that the expectations of what needed to be taught became 193

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both possible for and accessible to David. In the course of unlocking David’s perspective, the teacher embraced a different perspective from her own, one that brought her closer to his experiences and, as a result, redefined her part in his learning. The case of ‘Quiet Bird’, then, both demonstrates the potential of working with primary pupils’ perspectives and is an example of a teacher engaged with research at this third level. Working with primary pupils’ perspectives happens on the job in the ongoing actions and interactions teachers have with their pupils. Policy-makers at the district, regional and national levels do not usually have this opportunity embedded in the terms of their employment. While it is possible and desirable for policy-makers to spend time in classrooms (and some do), it is unlikely that many can learn to work as closely with primary pupils’ perspectives as teachers. Yet without some degree of interaction between policy-makers and pupils, the intended curriculum can be in tension with or disconnected from the experienced (and taught) curriculum. One option is for policy-makers to at least know about what it means to work with pupils’ perspectives through periodic visits to classrooms where teachers and pupils are engaged in this process or through studies that document such cases (as with ‘Quiet Bird’ above). Another option is to create a more inclusive notion of policy making. Traditionally, policies are determined centrally and passed on for implementation to those in the schools. Local variations are expected, modifications are permitted, but the essential elements of what the policies intend are meant to be taught and experienced. Those beyond the central policy-makers are cast in the role of policy-takers. Yet policy is made at many levels especially in an era of increasing school-based decision making. A classroom where teachers are exploring new ways of working with primary pupils’ perspectives is a place where policy is in the making. In this reconceptualization, classrooms and schools are as much a source of policy as are other levels of governance. The challenge is then how to influentially link the level of policy making that is directly working with primary pupils’ perspectives with those levels that are responsible for coordinating and defining policies for school districts, regions, or the nation. Level three engagement includes knowing about, speaking for, and working with primary pupils. It evolves from a recognition that primary pupils’ perspectives inform and are informed by the taught and intended curriculum (so what?), an understanding of the interaction and impact of their views with what the curriculum emphasizes and how it changes (for what?), and an exploration of how to include their perspectives in the development, integration, and reform of curriculum policy, practice, and experience (now what?).

From the Experienced to the Taught and Intended Curriculum This chapter began with Schubert and Lopez’s assertion that there are ‘profound differences’ among the manifest or intended, taught, and experienced curriculum. 194

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In studying the primary pupils’ perspectives of their experienced curriculum, the authors in this volume confirm that these ‘profound differences’ do exist. Primary pupils often do frame their views of their curriculum world through constructs that appear to be at some distance from what policy-makers mandate or teachers practice. Furthermore, primary pupils’ perspectives are sufficiently diverse in content, form, and social setting, and sufficiently complex to access, interpret, and portray, that they merit serious attention and engagement. But how far does this engagement extend? At a minimum (level one), a more enlightened image of primary pupils’ view of their curriculum world can influence some of the decisions made about classroom practice and policy reform. If primary pupils are acknowledged as more than holders of perspectives which may, among many other factors, affect the direction and character of their curriculum experiences, then a different form of engagement is possible. In level two, pupils become one of the key curriculum protagonists whose voices need to be heard. Teachers and policymakers from their more privileged posts can act as pupil representatives in forums where resolving the differences among the intended, taught, and experienced curriculum depends on having the relevant perspectives compared. Though not at the table, their surrogate presence affords primary pupils some expression of their interests and priorities. When it is no longer enough to rely on this representation by others, primary pupils can be both seen and heard. In level three, teachers bring policy making into the classroom, seeking out primary pupils’ perspectives as a matter of habit and inviting their participation in the negotiation and construction of their curriculum world. By working with primary pupils’ perspectives, teachers and policy-makers discover how best to interconnect the intended, taught, and experienced curriculum.

Notes 1

2

For this chapter, I only address some of the general lessons. For more specific reference points for each level of engagement, teachers and policy-makers would have to return to each study in search of connections which most resonate with their circumstances and responsibilities. In Ontario, Canada, a 17-year-old secondary school student was appointed as one of five commissioners for the Royal Commission on Learning. The Commission presented a four volume report outlining a vision and action plan to guide Ontario’s reform of elementary and secondary education.

References BÉGIN, M. and CAPLAN, G. (1994) For the Love of Learning. Report of the Royal Commission on Learning, Four Volumes, Toronto, Queen’s Printer for Ontario. BOOMER, G. (1982) Negotiating the Curriculum: A Teacher-Student Partnership, Sydney, Ashton Scholastic.

195

Dennis Thiessen DOYLE, W. (1992) ‘Curriculum and pedagogy’, in JACKSON, P.W. (ed.) Handbook of Research on Curriculum, New York, MacMillan, pp. 486–516. ELMORE, R. and SYKES, G. (1992) ‘Curriculum policy’, in JACKSON, P.W. (ed.) Handbook of Research on Curriculum, New York, MacMillan, pp. 185–215. ERAUT, M. (1984) ‘Institution-based curriculum evaluation’, in SKILBECK, M. (ed.) Evalu-ating the Curriculum in the Eighties, London, Hodder and Stoughton, pp. 38– 63. ERICKSON, F. and SHULTZ, J. (1992) ‘Students’ experience of the curriculum’ in JACKSON, P.W. (ed.) Handbook of Research on Curriculum, New York, MacMillan, pp. 465–85. FILER, A. with POLLARD A. (forthcoming) The Social World of Pupil Assessment, London, Cassell. GLICKMAN, C. (1993) Renewing America’s Schools: A Guide for School-Based Action, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Inc. Publications. HULL, C. (1985) ‘Pupils as teacher educators’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 15, 1, pp. 1–8. JAMES, A., JENCKS, C. and PROUT, A. (1997) Theorising Childhood, Cambridge, Polity Press. POLLARD, A. (1985) The Social World of the Primary School, London, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. POLLARD, A. with FILER, A. (1996) The Social World of Children’s Learning, London, Cassell. POLLARD, A. and FILER, A. (forthcoming) The Social World of Pupil Careers, London, Cassell. RICHARDSON, L. (1995) ‘Narrative and sociology’, in VAN MAANEN, J. (ed.) Representation in Ethnography, London, Sage Publications, pp. 198–221. RUDDUCK, J., WALLACE, G. and CHAPLAIN, R. (1995) ‘School improvement: What can pupils tell us?’, outline paper presented at the SESI Symposium, ECER Conference, University of Bath, England. SCHRATZ, M. (ed.) (1993) Qualitative Voices in Educational Research, London, Falmer Press. SCHUBERT, W. and LOPEZ, A. (1994) ‘Students’ curriculum experiences’, in HUSÉN, T. and POSTLETHWAITE, T. (eds) The International Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd Edition, New York, Permagon. THIESSEN, D. (1992) ‘Classroom-based teacher development’, in HARGREAVES, A. and FULLAN, M. (eds) Understanding Teacher Development, London, Cassell.

196

Notes on Contributors

Ann Bates teaches at Laura Sprague Elementary School. She collaborated with John Nicholls on the ‘Improving Learning through Home/School Collaboration’. Paul Connolly is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Ulster. His research interests lie in the area of young children and social identities. He is author of: Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children and (with Barry Troyna) Researching ‘Race’ in Educational Settings. Ann Filer is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, and a former primary teacher. Her research interests include pupil and peer group perspectives, pedagogy and the sociology of assessment. She is co-director of two ESRC funded ethnographies, tracking the careers of pupils through their primary and secondary schools. She is co-author (with Andrew Pollard) of The Social World of Pupil Careers. Bob Jeffrey is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Sociology and Social Studies at the Open University, UK and a former primary teacher. His research interests include education management, pedagogy and pupil perspectives and he is working on an ESRC funded project on the effects of OFSTED inspections on teachers’ work. He is co-author (with Peter Woods) of Teachable Moments: The An of Teaching in Primary Schools. Mary H.Maguire is Associate Professor in the Department of Education in Second Languages in the Faculty of Education at McGill University. She teaches courses in literacy in multilingual settings and Qualitative and Ethnographic research methods. A former secondary school English teacher, she focuses her research on bilingual children’s biliteracy and learning in multilingual and mulicultural contexts. She was principal investigator for a study of the school success and biliteracy development of minority language elementary children in different bilingual programs in Montreal and Ottawa. John G.Nicholls was Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Drs Thorkildsen and Nicholls have both published articles in numerous research journals and together edited Reasons for Learning: Expanding the Conversation on Student-Teacher Collaboration. Rod Parker-Rees has worked as a nursery and reception class teacher and was seconded for two years to the National Primary Centre (South West). In 1993 197

Notes on Contributors

he joined the Rolle School of Education, University of Plymouth. His main interests include primary design and technology, early childhood studies and exploring the role of children’s talk in learning. Andrew Pollard is Professor of Education at Bristol University, and a former primary teacher. He is co-director of the Primary Curriculum and Experience project (PACE) and of two longitudinal ethnographies of learning, identity and pupil careers through primary and secondary schools. His interests also include reflective processes in professional development. He is the author (with Ann Filer) of The Social World of Children’s Learning. Stephen J.Smith is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. His areas of academic specialization are physical education, pedagogical studies and human science research methods. His ongoing interest pertains to qualities of adult—child interaction in informal physical activity settings. He has contributed to numerous publications including Sparkes, A.C. (ed.) Research in Physical Education and Sport: Exploring Alternative Visions (Falmer Press). Angela Spaulding is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership in the College of Education, West Texas A&M University. She is an ethnographer with interests focusing on leadership and group dynamics, the micropolitics of life in schools and communications structures. Among her publications is, ‘The Political Role’, in Mclntyre, D.J. and O’Hear, M.J. (eds) Reflective Roles of the Classroom Teacher. Dennis Thiessen is a Professor at the Ontario Institute for studies in Education of the University of Toronto. His research interests include teacher development, teacher and student perspectives on schooling and curriculum change. Forthcoming volumes include (he is co-editor with Nina Bascia and Ivor Goodson) Making a Difference about Difference: The Lives and Careers of Racial Minority Immigrant Teachers. Theresa A.Thorkildsen is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on student critiques of educational practices and the ways in which those critiques affect students moral growth and motivation to achieve. Peter Woods is Professor of Education at the Open University, and a former teacher. His main research interest is in school ethnography. He has researched ‘creative teaching in primary schools’ from which several publications followed, as well as the effects of OFSTED inspections on primary teachers’ work. Recent publications include a book on qualitative methodology, Researching the Art of Teaching. 198

Index

Abbott, D. 32 ability 17, 128, 138 Aboud, F. 180 access to language options 82, 84, 86, 93, 95 to pupil perspectives 189–90 action on pupils’ perspectives 9, 185, 191–2 action research 187 active remembering 151–4 affection as a strategy 112–16 age 150–1, 162 aggression 149, 155–6 Alexander, R.J. 31 alienation/disengagement 3, 5, 6, 124, 127–8, 189 America 3, 101–20, 122–39, 164, 166–8 Arabic language 55, 65 Aries, P. 2 Armstrong, M. 16 art 60, 136 illustration 128, 134 Ashton-Warner, S. 125 assemblies 45 assessment 6, 35–6, 81–97, 191 assumptions about children 2, 7–8, 162–81, 191 Atkinson, P. 163, 169 Attainment Targets (UK National Curriculum) 35–6, 83, 96 authentic activity 32 authenticity of research 162–81 authority, adult 129, 167, 178 avoidance strategies 105–12, 118

Ball, S. 101 Bates, A. 122–39 Begin, M. 193 behaviour 188 antagonistic 6, 101–20, 191 deviant 94, 131 disruptive 63–4, 75 disturbed 145, 154–7 linguistic 83 behaviour adaptation 8, 163, 169, 174, 175, 180 Bennett, S.N. 35 biliteracy 9, 51–79 Bill 101 (Canada) 52 Bines, H. 4 Blake, R. 164 Blase, J. 101–2, 117 Blatchford, P. 150, 156 Bleeker, H. 148 books 53, 123–4, 128–31, 134 Boomer, G. 193 boredom 87–8, 89, 90, 92, 110, 124 Bourdieu, P. 169, 174, 180 boys 63–4, 69, 93–4, 113–16, 148–51 Braha, V. 180 Brazil 4 Bridges, D. 32 Britain 15–31, 35–47, 81–96, 164, 170–9 Brittan, E. 180 Broadfoot, P. 32 Brown, G. 180 Bruner, J.S. 43, 46, 52 Bryan, T. 139 buddy system 56, 129–30 team work 21–2

Bakhtin, M.M. 51, 53, 62, 78

Campbell, R.J. 32 Canada 51–79, 145–59 199

Index

Caplan, G. 193 career possibilities, children’s 61, 66–7, 72, 78 Carrington, B. 164, 166, 180 Chador, wearing the 60, 71, 77 challenge 120 change 187 change agents 138 Chaplain, R. 193 Cheshire, J. 93 child development 47, 147, 157, 176 tradional models 1, 7, 162, 164, 169, 170, 179 child-watching 143–59 children assumptions about 2, 7–8, 162–81, 191 behaviour adaptation 8, 163, 169, 174, 175, 180 rights 2–3, 191 as strategic agents 169, 179 see also competencies; pupils choices/options in language 82–97 Chomsky, N. 83, 97 Clark, K. 164 Clark, M. 164 classroom(s) 35, 104 atmospheres 17, 29 environment 103, 117 Clayden, E. 32 cognitive abilities 164, 166, 174 meta-cognition 16, 31 Cohen, P. 82 Coles, G. 139 comedy 89–91, 92, 94, 95 common knowledge 15, 46 common/ordinary news events 86–96 communication(s) 57, 96 in learning process 6, 34–47 communication, non-verbal 106, 109, 130, 135, 190 interactions between pupils 106, 109, 125, 146, 166 communicative competence 81, 83–4, 97 communities 10, 52, 53, 56, 65 competence communicative 81, 83–4, 97 teaching 147 competencies, children’s 7 social 8, 163, 173–6, 179, 191

200

social abilities/skills 151, 164, 166, 172 competition 3, 102, 137, 148–9 concentration 30, 44 confidence, pupils’ 18–19, 120 self-confidence 57, 60, 73, 75 conflict 63–4, 102, 172 resolution 25, 144 strategies 118–19, 120 Connolly, P. 8, 162–81 consumers, pupils as 3 contexts 169, 175, 189 and language 93, 96 nested/multiple 49, 53–7, 170 socio-cultural 7, 10, 56, 78 socio-economic 8, 88, 92, 93, 95, 96 control pupils 102, 130, 172 teachers 41, 82 conversation(s) 51–5, 59–60, 70–1, 75–6, 190 conversational learning 46 co-operation 102, 148 co-operative strategies 108–9, 118–19, 120 coping strategies 5, 192 creative teaching 6, 15–32 critical evaluations 8, 26–31 critical observations 25–6 critical view of pupil perspectives 4 Croll, P. 32 cultural positioning 54, 69 cultural rituals 125 cultures community 52–79 peer 5, 6, 82–97, 190 school 5, 32 curriculum delivery 3, 5, 11, 13, 43 curriculum policy and practice: difference between 4–5, 34–47, 184–5, 187–95 curriculum reform 3, 184, 185 Cusick, C. 4 Dadds, M. 16 Davey, A. 180 Davies, B. 4, 148 Deci, E.L. 129 Dennis, W. 164 Denscombe, M. 180

Index

Desforges, C. 32 designing 24, 38–9 deviant behaviour 94, 131 deviant comedy 89, 90–1, 92, 94 Dewey, J. 127, 131 dialogue 51, 53 differentiation 5, 96 disability 4, 155–6 discipline 63–4 disengagement from the curriculum 3, 5, 6, 124, 127–8, 189 distantiation 159 doing 37, 84, 91 Douglas, N. 148 Doyle, W. 184 drama 69 school productions 18, 20–1, 25, 27, 30 drop-outs 4 Dunne, E. 35 Durojaiye, M. 180 Education Reform Act (1988) (UK) 3 see also National Curriculum educational reform 1, 3, 184, 185 Edwards, C. 2 Edwards, D. 15, 35, 43, 46 egocentricity, children’s 162, 164 Eifermann, R.R. 148 Elbaz, F. 16 elementary schools 5 Elmore, R. 184 emotions, pupils’ 10, 16, 31, 104, 165 teacher support 17–18, 154, 189 England 15–31, 35–47, 81–96, 170–9 see also National Curriculum English language, learning 54, 65, 71, 75, 76 environment, classroom 103, 117 Epstein, D. 165 equality 115–16, 136–7 Eraut, M. 186 Erickson, F. 1, 5, 189 ethnic groups 17, 53, 145 minority language groups 6, 9, 51–79 ethnographic approaches to research 82 on race 163, 166, 170, 174, 176, 179 echos, school 59, 137, 138 Evans, J. 149 exclusion/inclusion 155–8

expectations, teachers’ 96, 149 experienced curriculum 4, 184, 187– 8, 191, 192, 194–5 Eyres, W. 4 failing pupils 4 failure, fear of 120 fairness 114–16, 137–8 families 44, 56–78, 90–1 Farrar, E. 4 feminist research 180–1 Filer, A. 1–11, 81–97, 165, 169, 190, 191 Fine, G.A. 148 Fine, M. 4 Finnan, C.R. 149, 151 Firth, J.R. 96 Fischer, C.N. 158 Fisher, R. 46 food and culture 70, 76–7 form of research enquiry 7–8, 188–9 Franklin, B. 2 French language 54, 62–4, 69, 71–2, 75, 76, 77 friendship 10, 64, 67–8, 83, 104–5, 167 groups 73, 88, 164, 170 Friere, P. 4 fun 73, 110, 124, 126, 138 indicator of involvement 19–20, 23, 27, 30, 31 functions of language 51–97 Gallimore, R. 43 Galton, M. 35 games, playground 147, 148–9, 172 see also play gender 4, 148–51, 162, 172, 177 language options 92, 93–4, 96 strategy options 112–16 girls 60–1, 69, 93–4, 112–16, 148–51 Glaser, B. 120 Glickman, C. 193 Granger, B. 4 Granger, L. 4 Grant, L. 165 Graves, B. 79 Griffith, J. 82 grounded theory 120, 163 group work 24, 144

201

Index

groups 69, 110 friendship 73, 88, 164, 170 guided reinvention 43 Halliday, M.A.K. 81, 92, 93, 95, 96 inter and intra-organism perspective 82, 84, 97 meaning potential 84, 85, 91 Hammersley, M. 163, 169 Harding, S. 181 Harri-Augstein, S. 34 Hatcher, R. 4, 164, 166, 170, 180 Hazzard, S.P. 136 headteachers 29, 32, 102–3, 116 Heath, S.B. 53 Hewes, J. 148 hidden/implicit curriculum 4, 5, 34, 189, 193 High/Scope pre-school programme 3 Himley, M. 52 history 27–8, 76 Hoffman, D.M. 59 Holmes, R. 163, 166–9, 170, 176, 179 Holt, J. 4 home learning 46, 54–5, 59–60, 69–70, 76 home-school liaison 5, 70, 122, 126–7, 139, 189 Horowitz, E.L. 164 Hull, C. 193 humour 17, 18 sense of 132–3 see also comedy Hymes, D.H. 81, 83, 84 identity, children’s 6, 10, 24–5, 31, 95, 125 cultural 52–79 imagination 15, 23, 53, 125, 137 immigration 52, 56–7 implicit/hidden curriculum 4, 5, 34, 189, 193 inclusion/exclusion 155–8 Indonesia 73–8 inner-city schools 16, 53, 170 inspection of schools 26, 29, 30 intended curriculum 4, 184, 185, 192, 194 inter-organism perspective of language 82, 84, 96–7 interest, engagement of 19–22, 31 intertextualiry 53

202

interviews 84–5, 122–39 group interviews 170–1, 174 see also conversations intra-organism perspective of language 82, 84, 97 involvement 19–21, 31, 41, 82, 190 Iran 55–73 James, A. 7, 169, 190 James, W. 122 Javanese language 75 Jeffrey, R. 6, 8, 15–32, 189, 190 Jelinek, M. 180 Jencks, C. 7 Jenkins, N. 93 Johnson, S. 180 Kawwa, T. 180 King, R. 165 Kirchner, G. 148 Kistner, J.A. 128 Knapp, H. 148 Knapp, M. 148 knowledge 15, 32, 46, 81–2 and language 83 of pupils’ perspectives 184–5, 187–91 subject 4, 5 teachers’ 13, 19, 36 Labov, W. 82 Laing, R.D. 162 language 51–3, 78–9 acquisition 54–78, 191 models of 81–97, 191 Lasker, B. 164 laughter 20–1, 90–1, 95, 107, 128 learning 4, 16, 41, 46, 134, 188 collaborative 21–2, 47 and home culture 51–79 from research 9, 185–7, 191 learning disabilities 122, 128, 129, 131, 132, 139 Lees, J.M. 82 Lever, J. 149 Lewis, J. 82 Licht, B.C. 128 Lincoln, Y. 10 Lindsay, P.L. 148 Lipman, M. 46 Liss, M. 149 listening 25, 81–97 Lopez, A. 3, 4, 184, 194

Index

lying 28, 29, 92, 93

Norbum, V. 180

Mac an Ghaill, M. 170

observation: research methodology 143–59, 165–6

Madge, N. 180 Maguire, M. 6, 8–9, 51–79, 170, 189, 190, 191 making 35, 37–43, 45 Malinowski, B. 96 mandated curriculum 188 manifest curriculum 5, 184, 189, 193, 194 market, educational 3 mathematics 19, 23, 60, 70, 71, 76, 105–6 meaning(s) 4, 10, 16, 34, 49 acts of 51–79, 81–97 meaning potential 84, 85, 91 media campaigns 3, 31 Mercer, N. 15, 35, 43, 46–7 metacognition 16, 31 micropolitics, school 6, 101–20, 191 Milberg, A. 148 Mills, C. 32 Milner, D. 180 Milroy, L. 57 minority language groups 6, 9, 51–79 model-making 35, 37–43, 45 models of language 81–2, 83–4, 96–7, 191 moral view of pupil perspectives 2 Moreno, J.L. 164, 180 Morrison, K. 15, 32 motivation 3, 41, 59, 124, 128–9 Mulderij, K. 148 multiculturalism 71 Murphy, P. 94 Muschamp, Y. 34 music 18, 21, 27, 30, 60 Muslim culture 6, 51–79 National Commission on Excellence in Education (USA) 3 National Curriculum (UK) 23, 31–2 National Curriculum in England and Wales 34, 35–6, 47, 81–97, 191 National Education Goals (USA) 3 negotiation 38, 43, 46, 64 Nel, B.F. 144 Newell, W.W. 148 news sessions 6, 81–97 Nicholls, J.G. 6, 9, 122–39, 189, 190, 193

observations, critical 25 OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education) (UK) 26, 29 Opie, I. 144, 148 Opie, P. 148 options/choices in language 82–97 Osborn, M. 32 ownership of curriculum knowledge 10, 13, 15, 19, 31 difficulties with 126–7, 131–2 of non-curricular content 81, 143 and sexualisation 172 Page, R. 4 Paley, V.G. 20, 144 Palmer, D. 148 parents home-school liaison 70, 126–7, 189 home teaching 54–5, 59–60, 69–70, 76 involvement in school 8, 103, 116, 145 Parker-Rees, R. 6, 8, 34–47, 190 Parrott, S. 148 participation in curriculum decisions 3, 131, 185, 193 Patrick, C. 180 pedagogic responsiveness 158–9 pedagogic watchfulness 146–7 pedagogy 31–2, 143–5 peer culture 5, 6, 82–97, 190 Pellegrini, A.D. 149, 150, 151 Pergande, K. 132 perseverance 41, 44 Persian language 54–5, 59, 62–3, 64, 65 Peshkin, A. 4 Petrie, H. 4 physical disability 4, 155–6 physical education 131–2, 143 play 40–1, 132, 147 playfighting 149, 151 playground 8, 143–59, 172, 189 equipment 24, 35–47 policy-makers 1, 4, 9, 184–95 politics and education 1, 3, 15–16 micropolitics 101–20

203

Index

Pollard, A. 1–11, 32, 41, 83, 93, 165, 190 poverty 93 power 4, 10, 11, 178–9, 193 pupils 6, 102, 117 teachers 29 pragmatic view of pupil perspectives 3 primary schools 5 progression, learning 143 Prout, A. 7 psychological tests 163, 164, 179 Pullin, D. 4 pupil perspectives, value of 1–11, 16, 184–95 pupils as rational agents 32 views of teachers 8, 16, 17–19, 22–5, 26–7, 28 see also children Pushkin, I. 180 qualitative research 4, 5, 166, 170, 176 quality 28, 30 question and answer sessions 81 questioning, repetitive 106–9 Quicke, J. 16, 32 race/racism 4, 25, 136–7, 162–81 rational analysis 26–9 Rawson, W. 32 Razran, G. 180 reading 107–12, 123–5, 126, 128–31, 138 reflection: children 165, 166, 170 reflectivity pedagogic practice 145–7, 158–9 reflexivity research methodology 7–8, 163, 169, 180, 190 relevance of creative teaching 15–32 of the curriculum 6, 10, 188 of research data 178 religious education 60, 70, 76 remembering, active 151–4 research as dialogue 51–79 engagement with 9, 184–95 methodology 7–9, 16–17, 57, 83, 143–59, 162–81 resourcefulness 23, 31 responsiveness pedagogic 158–9 to pupils’ emotions 17–18

204

Richardson, L. 189 Riddell, S. 181 rights, children’s 2–3, 191 Roaf, C. 4 Robins, C. 82 role assumption 69 role detachment 29–31 role playing 20–1, 31 romantic view of pupil perspectives 2 Romero, A. 51–79 Rose, J. 31 Rowley, K. 180 Royal Commission on Learning (Canada) 195 Rudduck, J. 193 rules 144, 188 Rutter, D.R. 180 Sayer, A. 176 school(s) arrival at 102–3, 145 cultures 5, 32 home liaison 5, 70, 122, 126–7, 139, 189 inner-city 16, 53, 170 as policy makers 194 primary/elementary 5 school councils 3, 193 Schratz, M. 190 Schubert, W. 3, 4, 184, 194 science 60, 70, 71, 76 National Curriculum 35–46 Sedlak, M. 4 sex/sexuality 162, 172, 175, 177 Short, G. 164, 166, 180 showing off 88, 92, 93 Shultz, J. 1, 5, 189 sibling relationships 44, 52, 89–90 Silvers, R.J. 144, 148 Skeggs, B. 181 Slukin, A. 144, 148 Smith, P.K. 149, 150, 155 Smith, S.J. 8, 143–59, 189, 190 social abilities/skills 151, 164, 166, 172 competencies 8, 163, 173–6, 179, 191 social class 4, 82, 103 social conscience 6, 125, 136–8 social differentiation 5, 96 social networks 56–7, 70 social structure/system 81, 91–2 socialization 5, 162, 169, 170, 179

Index

socio-cultural contexts 7, 10, 56, 78 socio-economic contexts 8, 88, 92, 93, 95, 96 sociometric tests 83, 164 space, children’s 24–5, 31, 149, 172 for expression 159, 164 for reflection 166, 170 Spaulding, A. 6, 8, 101–20, 188, 191 speaking 46, 81–97, 190 special education 4 special educational needs disturbed behaviour 145, 154–7 learning disabilities 122–39 special news events 86–96 sport, extra-curricular 87–8 standards 1, 3, 31 Stanley, J. 136 status, adult 178 status, children’s 2, 31 peer group 83, 85, 87, 88, 92, 93, 95 stereotypes 26 historical 27, 28 Strandberg, T.E. 82 strategic agents, children as 169, 179 strategies, micropolitical 105–20 Strauss, A. 120 Stubbs, M. 82, 97 student teachers 8, 145–59 success, possibility of 40–1, 120 support 102 peer group 88, 93 by teachers 18, 21, 22–3, 43 for teachers 32 Sutton-Smith, B. 148, 149 Sykes, G. 184 sympathy 154, 155, 159 Szulc, H. 180 tasks, curriculum 10, 130 and communication 34–47 taught curriculum 5, 184, 185, 188, 192, 194 teacher (dis)approval 90–1, 135–6 expectations 96, 149 knowledge 13, 19, 36 lore 4 skills 10 training/education 8, 47, 145–59 teachers

engagement with research 9, 184–95 and metacognition 16 as performers 17, 18–19 pupils views of 8, 16, 17–19, 22–5, 26–7, 28 teaching, creative 6, 15–32 testing:in science 35, 36, 37 tests used in research 163, 164, 168, 179 texts 96 research reports 186, 190, 191 of student lives 10 written 51–3, 58, 61–3, 65–9, 71–9, 134–6 Tharp, R.G. 43 Thiessen, D. 1–11, 129, 184–95 thinking 22, 36, 37, 40, 76 Thomas, A. 43, 46 Thomas, L. 34 Thompson, D. 155 Thorkildsen, T.A. 6, 9, 122–39, 189, 190, 193 Thorne, B. 4, 149, 152 ‘Three Wise Men’ report (1992) 31 time 59 and quality 22, 30 topic/project-based learning 5, 16, 125 transactional calibration 46 Troyna, B. 4, 164, 166, 170, 180 Turner, I. 148 ‘two steps back’: research process 169–70, 174, 180 understanding 4, 51–3 activities/tasks 34–47, 120, 127 teacher instructions 26–7, 105–6 United Kingdom 15–31, 35–47, 81–96, 170–9 United States of America 3, 101–20, 122–39, 164, 166–8 values 81 researchers’ 163, 166, 169–80 valuing, acts of 52 van Manen, M. 144, 145, 146, 147, 158 Vinovskis, M.A. 3 voice(s) of pupils 8, 127, 169–70, 179–80, 190

205

Index

influence of 185, 191, 193 writing 62, 136 Vygotsky, L.V. 53

Wacquant, L. 169 Walkerdine, V. 178 Wallace, G. 193 Webb, R. 16 Wegener, P. 96 Weis, L. 4 Wells, G. 43, 46 Wenham, P. 31 Wheeler, C. 4 Whiting, B. 2 whole-class activity 24–5, 82–97 Willis, P. 4 Winter, C. 32 Wood, A. 180 Wood, D.J. 82

206

Wood, H.A. 82 Woodhead, C. 15, 31 Woods, P. 6, 8, 15–32, 189, 190 work 19 group work 24, 144 workbooks 105–6 working with pupils’ perspectives 9, 185, 192–4 Wragg, T. 16 Wright, C. 165 Wringe, C.A. 2 written texts 51–3, 58, 61–3, 65–9, 71–9, 134–6 Young, J.C. 150 Zerner, C.J. 144 Zimiles, H. 32