Dr Noel Geoghegan Early Childhood Perspectives Postmodernism

1
Dr Noel GeogheganEarly Childhood
Perspectives(Postmodernism)

• child-centeredness, co-operation, collaboration,
  experience, stakeholder involvement,
  co-construction of knowledge, generative
  curriculum, problem-centered learning and
  creativity

2
Postmodernism

• Whitehead (1967) Any serious fundamental change
  in the intellectual outlook of human society must
  necessarily be followed by an educational
  revolution.

3
Century old roots

• Notions such as Platonic logicism, Cartesian
  rationalism and Calvinistic practices and beliefs
  dominate the current world view.
• debates over the origin of knowledge, either as a
  pre-existing external object or as an object
  created through experience from sense perceptions
  or experimentation.

4
Modernist roots

• Education also has a heritage rooted in the
  testing movement - to establish standards
• It is from these roots that the analytical
  scientific model became the paradigm for
  education in the modern era.

5
Hard sciences

• The "mathematical golden age" was a reflection of
  the reverence attached to the hard sciences such
  as physics and mathematics, for example, for
  their capacity to quantify and explain reality

6
Positivism under question

• the education community has begun to question the
  justification and validity of the scientific
  research paradigm with its enterprise for
  objective measurement in educational settings.
• learning develops out of an individual's
  activities which are socially and experientially
  based, local and specific in nature

7
Current-day pedagogy ordains that the teacher has
the authority

• The learner, to a large degree, loses control
• Prevailing Western views of education maintain a
  vice-like grip in relentlessly perpetuating its
  domination

8
the individual or mental process "in vacuo"

• psychology has for the last 100 years been
  quintessentially a psychology of the individual
  organism
• principles of separation, decontextualization and
  fragmentation continue to underpin learning
  experiences.

9
The times they are a-changin'

• Dewey (1922) encouraged fundamental classroom
  reform

10
New possibilities

• Modernist (or positivist) and postmodernist views
  are belief systems that are virtually opposite.
• Postmodernist views deny the existence of an
  objective reality

11

• Notions of postmodernism are reflected in the
  writings of Piaget, Vygotsky, Dewey, and Mead,
  and are based on the idea that knowledge is what
  a rational self-organizing being creates as part
  of an interacting system.
• The basic premise being that social conditions
  and individual minds and selves are fundamentally
  influenced each by the other

12
focusing on the classroom environment

• one is forced to recognize the connections
  between what a person does, feels, thinks, and
  believes the constraints and supports provided
  by other people and artifacts in that particular
  setting and cultural rules, norms and values

13
the creation of power of self-control

• Bruner (1966) increasingly recognized that most
  learning in most settings is a communal activity,
  a sharing of culture and Piaget (1973) emphasized
  the social aspects of teaching and learning as
  strictly necessary for the mental development
  that is called education.

14
Modern to postmodern changes

• M
• O
• D
• E
• R
• N
• POSTMODERN

15

• postmodern theoretical trajectories take as
  their entry point a rejection of the deeply
  ingrained assumptions of Enlightenment
  rationality, traditional Western epistemology, or
  any supposedly "secure" representation of reality
  that exists outside of discourse itself...

16
Postmodernism venerates language, rather than
thought

• Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein -
  demonstrated that language is inherently
  ambiguous and that the truths of reason, which
  must employ language, must thus be ambiguous as
  well. When language, rather than reason, is taken
  as the fundamental model of how the world works,
  an alternative set of themes moves into
  prominence

17
Elkind (1998)

• asserts that schools, if not teachers and/or
  pedagogy, are in the midst of a major
  transformation - independent of any conscious
  reform agenda - simply in response to changes in
  the society and in the family

18
Glickman (1985)

• the only alternative for a teacher in a complex
  environment who cannot adjust to multiple demands
  and is not being helped to acquire the abilities
  to think abstractly is to simplify and deaden the
  instructional environment.

19
(No Transcript)
20
children's freedom to interact with each other as
well as with the teacher

• child-centered domain
• learning as a socially interactive experience
• construction of knowledge would be viewed as a
  creative, inventive process

21
sharing ideas and negotiating as problem solvers

• During all lessons throughout the day children
  would be encouraged to discuss their concerns,
  insights, and resolutions in responsible
  problem-solving collaboration
• the problem-solving approach would aim to develop
  positive and responsible dispositions towards
  learning for the entire day with a focus on
  respectful appreciation of every person's
  capacity to contribute and participate

22
Elkind (1998)

• .suggests what we need most of is not more
  reform, but rather more recognition and support
  for what our education systems are already
  experiencing in a postmodern transformation.

23
Reggio Emilia

• The Reggio Emilia approach (from Italy)
• exemplifies postmodern principles of
• child-centeredness, co-operation,
  collaboration, hands-on experience, stakeholder
  involvement, co-construction of knowledge,
  generative curriculum, problem-centered learning
  and creativity