What is the relationship between education, culture and social change? Beware of “socialization” as a theory and in practice. And “enculturation” is not that much more helpful in articulating what “progressive education” might mean in contemporary society. Bildung and paideia are interesting as specific cultural ideals of education but neither fully address the dilemmas of teaching and learning in a post-modern, democratic, consumer capitalist society. The most promising theoretical work is being done in social reproduction theory ( see some relevant references below *). What remains most important is that teachers, childcare workers (and parents) have a better understanding of their role in both reproducing the social order as it is and reconstructing it around a more promising future.
For this first Children in Culture of the new year of 2019 I want to outline five basic areas of “cultural work” that usher children into the communities and societies that nurture, educate and raise them up. Of course these five areas overlap, intersect and inform one another. Acknowledging these five areas of cultural work allows us as so-called “progressive educators” to take a stance and advocate for children in such a way as to prepare them for the world as it is, without robbing from them the ability to renew and reconstruct the world in more democratic, equitable and beautiful ways. At the end of this broadside I offer five corresponding “habitudes” ( following John Dewey’s neologism that combines “habits and attitudes) that schools, teachers, caretakers, elders can use to orient their work with children.
Here are the five basic areas of cultural work!
- Ethics, virtues, values education, what Augustine called the “ordo amoris” or the order of love, how each person, community, society learns a scale of values that establishes what is important, what one cares about, what is valued, what is desirable
- The relationship to the earth, the animals, plants, and elements, that is established with different forms of human life and the ways we understand our place in the natural world
- The modes of thinking, paradigms of truth, and criteria of judgment that define what is real, possible, and true.
- The forms of rhetoric, literacy, art, media and multiple“texts” with which people communicate with one another, represent the world, and legislate (perform) different relationships with one another and the world.
- The person’s relationship to one’s own body and sense of self in relationship to the bodies of other people, animals, plants and the materiality of the world.
Just by participating in the communities that we live in, we are inevitably engaged in this cultural work. As parents, childcare workers and teachers we participate in this cultural work in specifically pointed and important ways. Starting from where we are, right now, we can see the communities that we participate as both open and closed, just and unjust, violent and peaceful, ugly and beautiful, never absolutely anything, always variegated, full of possibilities, pitfalls, suffering and joy. No social theory can ever fully account for human creativity, anticipate un-figured possibilities of social resistance, and archive un-limned resources of social reconstruction. The future is unwritten. We make and remake our communities through our actions and the way we understand our actions in relation to others and the world.
The peculiar responsibility of the educator is to prepare the child, each child, every child, for the world as it is without robbing from them the ability to remake and renew this common, shared world. For this reason its essential to support children in this complex process, in this life long journey of learning, growing up, becoming an adult, becoming newly human. We do this by helping children move from the margin to the center of the cultural work outlined above. This involves situating each specific child in a dynamic, transformative relationship with each of these areas of cultural work. We should provide them with regular opportunities to learn about themselves, each other and the world as they become full participants in reconstructing and renewing communities they are a part of.
At the school where I work we wanted to articulate our beliefs about the capacity of every child to learn and grow in their own unique and wonderful ways. We wanted to give some “bones” to what we meant by “child-centered” education. We wanted to address the whole child in relation to culture and community rather than grab at a discombobulated raft of academic disciplines, abstract, fragmented standards and a de-historicized, decontextualized notion of child development. We wanted to come up with a coherent, comprehensive description of the kind of learning opportunities that should be available to every child. We wanted to come up with a sanguine sense of the kind of experience all children should have at our school. We conceptualized these core values of a child-centered, play-based, progressive education in the following way:
Every child will (the five habitudes) :
- Develop mindfulness, social-emotional intelligence, multi-cultural awareness and cultivate the ethical values of gratitude, generosity, patience, kindness, compassion, courage, peacefulness, and joyful appreciation
- Cultivate a sense of wonder, deep connection and intelligent care for the natural world
- Become critical and creative problem solvers through play, adventure and inquiry
- Use language, art, multi-media, multiple sign systems and the “100 languages of childhood” to express themselves, represent the world and communicate and learn from one another
- Develop confidence in a positive sense of themselves and their bodies as they learn to move through the world in different ways and navigate multiple challenges, places and spaces
We have found these five habitudes (competencies, dispositions) to be extremely helpful in designing curriculum and creating a school environment where all children can thrive and flourish. In whatever I am doing with the kids, whether it be self-contained, one off activities, a thematic learning experience, or long term inquiry/action projects, the focus should always be on the whole child, the whole child’s growth and development, in relationship to the community and the larger culture. In the coming months, I will show what this type of learning and teaching looks like in action, demonstrate its efficacy and value in designing curriculum and constituting memorable educational experiences for all children, and creating vibrant, progressive, transformative learning communities. I will attempt a critical genealogy of progressive education resources, perspectives and strategies in order to energize, mobilize and support progressive educators in their work. And I want to be a part of a movement of progressive, “happy” educators who work to improve the lives of students, empower families and make communities better places to live and raise children. Let’s get to work!
* The most promising work on education, culture and society is being in done in social reproduction theory in the wake of Gramsci, Althusser, Benjamin, Bourdieu, Fanon, Memmi, Spivak, Bhaba, Aronowitz, Giroux and others who consistently reimagine the possible role of transformative education in the reconstruction of society.
