When can children create a learner generated context (lgc)?  Discussion on this Topic

It always interests me when the first responses to a new idea are to test its limits and in learning the knee jerk response seems to be, as last week: “This sounds very democratic, but when could you allow children to run their own lgc?” This type of question makes me huffy^a, because it does two things:

1. Perpetuates a dominant view of children and childhood that sees children as somehow incomplete and incapable; and
2. Assumes that in the context of groups and communities there has to be a “somebody” to decide things about the activity and structures of the group, especially where children are concerned.

I would see one of my contributions to this lgc as being the questioning of both of the above and argue for a more optimistic view of what lgcs might be and setting out where we might look for ideas and stimulus. I’d like to start this page by referring to the emerging paradigm in studies of childhood known as the “constructivist approach” which emerges quite distinctly from the educational approach familiar in the design of Moodle. This approach can be summarised as having six key features: 

1. Childhood is understood as a social construction and childhood, as distinct from biological immaturity, is neither a natural nor universal feature of human groups, but becomes a specific structural and component of many societies;

2. Childhood is one variable of social analysis, never entirely divorced from other variables such as class, gender or ethnicity;

3. Children’s social relationships and cultures are seen worthy of study in their own right, independent of the perspective and concerns of adults;

4. Children must be seen as active in the construction and determination of their own social lives ¹, the lives of those around them and of the societies in which they live;

5. Ethnography is a favoured methodology for the study of childhood. It allows children a more direct voice and participation in the production of sociological data than is possible using other methods;

6. “Childhood is a phenomenon in relation to which the double hermeneutic of the social sciences is acutely present (see Giddens 1976), by proclaiming a new paradigm of childhood sociology is also to engage in and respond to the process of reconstructing childhood in society.”

Taken and slightly adapted from Prout and James 1997 p8 (It is useful to substitute the word learner and learning in the above, if only to overemphasise the point!)

What I get from this, is the need to stop worrying about the boundaries^b of lgcs, but to get on with looking at how children and other learners go about learning and working together. Working with adults the same negativity is apparent in those who are nervous of self-organising groups who fear autonomy, “unreasonable” demands, and who question the capacity of learners to generate their own contexts and content.

For those of you who would like a starting point in this area James A and Prout A (eds), 1997,“Constructing and reconstructing childhood", 2^nd Edition, Routledge Falmer:London is a good point to start as it provides an introduction to the thinking behind the paradigm, a history of conceptions of childhood and some interesting pieces of research and commentary. Solberg’s paper “Negotiating childhood: changing constructions of age for Norwegian children” is a good example of the approach and its critique of what is taken for granted. Other examples of this approach can be found in research around poverty and this view is quoted approvingly in recent studies for the Child Poverty Action Group by Glasgow University. I will add in these references over the next few days.

Unlike the National Curriculum with its foundations in the idea of developmental stages with its double barriers of age and attainment, I think we need to look at approaches that see learning as being about engagement and inclusion. I would look at Merleau-Ponty and his ideas of learning language through engagement with others “speaking subjects who want to understand and be understood” (1973 p101). After this, Drew’s readings of Habermas will be useful along with work on community and workers’ education. Peter and Jon’s work along with Ian Harford at the WEA would be great resources here.

If we take Rose’s current diagram, as she used it at OpenLearn, we could take the three key elements and use these to explore current learning contexts to see how far they meet our emerging ideas of an lgc. 

I hope this is enough to lead you into this discussion. Over the next week or so I hope to build a bibliography to support the discussion here. (It strikes me as ironic that we were asked the question about allowing children the autonomy of an lgc when the report was released last week about the dire consequences of cutting children off from outdoor explorations and having groups away from adults. Solberg, noted above, puts it beautifully “Looking at it from their own point of view, adults sadly describe a home with no adults present as “being empty”. Coming home with their friends, children are pleased to find it vacated.” James and Prout (1997) p143 Parallels  with classrooms?

¹  In education I fear we still have to win this argument with many “educationalists”, for all learners. 

Nigel Ecclesfield neecullompton@aol.com

Bibliography

James A and Prout A (eds), (1997): “Constructing and reconstructing childhood", 2^nd Edition, Routledge Falmer:London)

Solberg, Anne (1997), “Negotiating childhood: changing constructions of age for Norwegian children” in James and Prout (see above)

Gill, Tim (2007), "No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society", Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, London

Discussions:

a. Judy Robertson: on "When could you allow children to run their own lgc?"

a. Wilma Clark: on "When could you allow children to run their own lgc?"

b. Wilma Clark: on "... there is a need to stop worrying about boundaries"