While educational researchers have commonly seen learning as an individual cognitive phenomenon of internalization of knowledge, more recent observers espousing a sociocultural perspective encourage us to see learning as increasing participation in a specific community (Lantolf, 2000: Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). I use this perspective in addressing ethnographic data collected from young learners enrolled in Grade 1 and Grade 2 classrooms in a Punjabi Sikh independent school. Rogoff, Mosier, Mistry and Göncü (1993) use the concept of "guided participation" to describe the "tacit and routine arrangements of children's activities and involvements" (p. 231) by American and Mayan caregivers of young children. I have found guided participation helpful in describing classroom interactions in the data of the present case and have been particularly interested in how teachers, but also students, guide the participation of others.
Stressing the importance of local analysis, Lave and Wenger (1991) and Varenne and McDermott (1997) point out that practices in specific communities vary with regard to newcomers' ease of access to expertise, to opportunities for rehearsal, to consequences for error in practice and so on. I have elsewhere examined such practices in classrooms of a mainstream public school (Toohey, 2000a) and explore the present case as illustrative of different sort of communities, with different persons, practices and different linguistic as well as other resources. In particular, here, I wish to examine how students' participation is guided in the two classrooms.
Since Vygotsky's (1978) discussion of the sociality of learning and development, many theorists have examined the nature of the relationships between learners and those who teach, guide or aid them in learning. Bruner (1978) offered the concept of "scaffolding" to describe the contribution of adults or more skilled partners, to children's learning. With respect to interactions between mothers and their young children, Bruner wrote:
In such instances mothers most often see their role as supporting the child in achieving an intended outcome, entering only to assist or reciprocate or 'scaffold' the action. (p. 12)
Many other researchers have subsequently used the notion of scaffolding to refer to the activity engaged in when a more experienced participant performs those portions of a task beyond the competence of a less experienced participant, so that the latter can focus on those parts of the task she can perform (Cazden, 1988; Palincsar, 1986; Scollon, 1976; Stone, 1998). Educators have debated the appropriateness of the metaphor to describe teaching and learning, with some arguing that it misleads in suggesting that children are passive recipients whose learning is shaped by adults (cf. Stone, 1998).
Rogoff (1990) and Rogoff, Mosier, Mistry & Göncü (1993) propose the notion of "guided participation" to emphasize both adults' contributions to children's learning and development, but also to recognize the activity of learners in participating in ongoing activity. Rogoff et al. (1993) point out that "children adapt their knowledge to new situations, structure problem-solving attempts and regulate their responsibility for managing the process" (Rogoff et al., p. 230). They examine the guided participation of toddlers and caregivers in two situations (Mayan families in Guatemala and American families in urban Utah), seeing similarities in general principles of guided participation, but also distinct differences between the two communities:
The skills that are valued, the means of communication (e.g. dyadic conversations between adults and children versus action communication with status differences between adults and children), and the extent to which children enter into adult activity versus adults share children's activity [are different in the two communities]. (p. 230)
The authors discuss the differences between the ways the two groups of adults and caregivers structure guidance on the basis of categories such as children's access to adult activities, relative amounts of verbal and non-verbal communication and adult-child status and locus of responsibility for learning. In summary, they note:
These two examples illustrate how middle-class U.S. parents may assume didactic and dyadic roles as they rely on their own efforts to motivate children to learn, in contrast with caregivers in cultures in which children have the responsibility to learn and are involved with many other social partners in the process. (p.248)
Here, I wish to examine examples of how guidance is offered and by which social partners in two classrooms to (mostly) the same group of children. In one classroom, guidance is provided by the teacher, but it is also provided by children to other children, often with teacher direction, or at least, approval. In the other, the adult takes most responsibility for guidance, with children most often occupying roles of the "guided", although in peer-managed activities, children do guide the participation of others . I argue that when guiding the participation of other students, students reproduce classroom dynamics and relations of power. Finally, I wish to explore implications these practices might have for learning and development in both cases.
The site and previous research
This report is part of a three year ethnographic project conducted in an independent Punjabi Sikh school, located on the grounds of a Sikh temple, in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The study followed the children in their classroom from kindergarten through grade 2. The students are all of Punjabi Sikh background, and in all their homes, Punjabi is spoken. The children come to school with diverse experiences with English. Some are real beginners and have had little or no experience with English; others, because of neighbourhood playmates, pre-school programs, older siblings, and/or parental familiarity with English, are more experienced users.
The children receive all classroom instruction in English, with the exception of daily half hour instruction in Sikh Studies (conducted in the temple at the beginning of the day) and another half hour of Punjabi language instruction. Four of the teachers in the school are Punjabi Sikh, including the Grade 1 teacher. The majority of other teachers on this school site (intermediate and secondary school students attend the school, but on another site) are monolingual English speakers, although there are two who speak other European languages. Many of the adults on the school site (teacher aides, as well as bus drivers, the custodian, the school secretary, the principal and others) speak Punjabi to one another and to the children. Because the school is located in a temple, and the classrooms are adjacent to the temple's langar (a communal eating area that serves meals and tea to community members all day long), there are many people in the vicinity of the school. The language of their conversations is usually Punjabi.
Julé-Lemke (1998) examined how aspects of the similarity in linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the children (and some of their teachers) might have effects on the development of intersubjectivity and community among participants. Toohey, Waterstone, and Julé (2000) examined specific interactional arrangements in the children's classroom communities that seemed to enable or constrain their participation in community activities. In Toohey (2000b), I described practices in the Grade 1 classroom that seem implicated in children's identity development, examining teacher and student interactions. My observations there were that in many classroom activities, the Grade 1 teacher provided possibilities for all students to see themselves as competent, powerful and likable. I further examined data from interactions involving only children and concluded that in some interactions children needed to struggle for and negotiate competent, powerful and likable identities for themselves. In particular, one student's struggle was clearly evident. This boy's efforts to position himself as dominant seemed, on preliminary analysis, a relatively rare event in this classroom, and such interactions in general seemed less frequent than those in mainstream public schools (Toohey, 2000b). The following re-examines some of the data from the Grade 1 classroom and examines as well data from the same children's Grade 2 classroom.
Methodology
The study was conducted using ethnographic methodology (Davis, 1995; Watson-Gegeo, 1988; 1992), and it consisted of weekly classroom observations over the kindergarten, Grade 1 and 2 years (September to June), as well as formal and informal teacher interviews conducted over the data collection process. A trained Punjabi teacher aide and I conducted observations in the kindergarten year. For Grades 1 and 2, Allyson Julé-Lemke, a graduate student research assistant, conducted the observations, taking field notes and audiotaping children as they went about their activities. In addition, Linda Hof, an experienced video ethnographer from the university, videotaped the children for two hours once a month, filming a range of instructional and non-instructional activities in which children were engaged. Samples of audiotapes were transcribed in collaboration with a trained research assistant. In addition, research assistants and I reviewed and partially transcribed video recordings.
Grade 1
The teacher of the Grade 1 children was an Indo-Canadian woman, a teacher in India, and a member of the temple in which the school was located. Mrs. Sran (the pseudonym given her in Julé-Lemke, 1998) was middle-aged and had grandchildren of about the age of her students. Because of her participation in the temple community, she had relationships with many of the children and their families outside school. Her knowledge of the children's parents, siblings, and other relatives historically as well as in the present, no doubt influenced her expectations and perceptions of children's possibilities and constraints.
Particularly salient in Mrs. Sran's classroom was the practice of "helping". Mrs. Sran helped children, but also, from the beginning of the year, students were encouraged to help one another with their school tasks and they did so often. In a audiotaped lesson in September, Mrs. Sran instructed the children: "You can help your neighbour please, if you have done it, you can help someone" (FN 09. 28. 1). In audiotaped parent-teacher interviews, Mrs. Sran commended several children to their parents, saying that that she or he (the students) "helped other children". I take examples here from one videotaped morning in the classroom that particularly well illustrates how helping in this classroom was enacted.
This morning consisted of several activities. Initially the children were working on phonics worksheets at their desks (arranged in "pods") and while they were doing this, Mrs. Sran worked with small reading groups on the floor at the side of the room. The children shared story books with partners and took turns reading aloud. Some children required assistance with their reading and both other children and the teacher provided this help, sometimes reading along in chorus with the reader, and sometimes supplying words or initial letter sounds,
In one of the groups, a male student, Navjeet had difficulty reading the passage and Mrs. Sran and the other children in the group helped him with initial and final sounds and often, just "gave" him the word he was struggling to read. Afterwards, Mrs. Sran told the children to return to their desks and complete their phonics worksheet. Navjeet announced that he could not complete the sheet.
Navjeet: I don't know how to do it.
Mrs. Sran: You don't know how to do that, and Tim will help you, OK, he will help you. Is it okay [that Tim will help]? (in a louder voice, calling) Tim, would you please help Navjeet how to do that work because he wasn't here, he was in India and he doesn't know how to do it.
Mrs. Sran turns away from boys and continues with the round robin reading, while Navjeet goes to the desk next to Tim. They are working on a worksheet for which beginning consonants are substituted on the stem A--I-L.
Tim: F-A-I-L. (Navjeet does nothing. Tim takes the pencil from him and writes, speaking as he does it) M-A-I-L.
After the round robin reading circles, Mrs. Sran told students that they should make a mathematics booklet. This entailed folding a blank sheet in half, writing "My Book About Six" on the "title page", and then drawing some "number sentences" about six. One of the boys at Tim and Navjeet's pod of tables asked Mrs. Sran for assistance in completing this.
Mrs. Sran at pod of tables with Navjeet and Tim. Sim asks for help from Mrs. Sran.
Mrs. S: (spelling) a, b, o, u, t (singsong intonation)
Sim gets his pencil from his desk.
Tim: [a, b, o, u, t (like Mrs. Sran's singsong)
Mrs. Sran: [and write the number, what is
Sim points to his sheet.
Mrs. Sran: How many?
Sim: **
Mrs. Sran: No, no, this is, there are six, but how many here? (pointing)
Sim: One.
Mrs. Sran: Write down the one. ( pointing) And plus.
Navjeet: [What are you supposed to
Mrs. Sran: [And how many are these? (speaking to Sim, she takes Navjeet's paper)
OK, what is this?
Navjeet: [How are you supposed to fold this?
Sim: [***
Mrs. Sran: OK, write the number (speaking to Sim, she is folding Navjeet's sheet for him)
OK, what is this? Is it...
Right, OK, six. That's how we go.
Sim does the next problem as she goes closer to Navjeet.
After Mrs. Sran had helped Navjeet do his title page, she was asked by some girls for assistance and she moved away to help them. Navjeet's problems with the Math booklet were not over, however. After he had completed his title page, he sat doing nothing, Tim, seated beside Navjeet, noticed he was having difficulty and began to help him without being so directed by Mrs. Sran:
Tim: Like, look! (he leans away from Navjeet and gets his own sheet from his desk)
Two boys on either side of Navjeet get up and lean over Navjeet's desk and sheet.
Tim: Like this, I drawed one and five here (he gestures to his sheet)
(Looking directly at Navjeet): And how did it become six?
Navjeet says nothing.
Tim: Cause you count like this: one, two, three, four, five, six. (He looks at Navjeet.)
Navjeet nods.
Tim: There, you know, you know how?
Other two boys sit down.
Navjeet: I don't. How are you supposed to do this?
Tim leans over him.
Tim: Draw one circle, one circle.
Navjeet: There?
Tim: Yeah. Do a T right there [to finish the word "About"]. Draw five circles now. Are they six? (pause 2 seconds) No, five. If you add this one. OK, then go like that, go like that?
Navjeet: Like this?
Tim: Yeah, now draw six. That's how you do it, OK? You got it now?
Navjeet: OK.
Tim: How can you make another way of six?
Navjeet: Where are we supposed to draw in there [inside the book]?
Tim: Same thing. Not this way same thing (he gestures to the circle drawing, on the front of Navjeet's book). How can you make another way of six? (pause) Two and four!
Navjeet: [How do you
Tim: [Look! (he shows on his fingers) Two! And four! (He counts out the fingers on both hands tapping on his face) One, two, three, four, five, six!
Navjeet: How do you do it? (looks at Tim's work)
Tim:: Two and four, six and none.
Tim leaves the table. Navjeet begins to work and then leans over and opens Tim's book to look. He then copies Tim's work in his booklet.
In this mathematics lesson, Tim provides help to Navjeet over about 10 minutes. His help appears skillful, adult-like and effective. His "How can you make another way of six?" is an almost exact replication of words Mrs. Sran had used to assist other children in the class. However, despite Tim's help, Navjeet continues to be very confused by the assignment and after Tim leaves the table, he examines Tim's book and begins to copy from it. Tim returns to his desk and sees Navjeet copying from his work. After a few minutes, Tim directs Navjeet: "OK, Navjeet, now get your journal and write about something, write about yesterday, OK?"
The girls in this classroom also helped one another with their school tasks during this lesson. Consider this example:
Five girls are sitting at a pod of desks working on their Mathematics books.
Amandeep: (looking at the book of Devi seated opposite to her) Not T, it's supposed to be (other voices join in) s-i-x.
Devi: I know (she chuckles), I'm getting mixed up in both of them. (She erases and corrects her work. Girls generally monitoring each other's work. Girl beside Devi obviously leaning over and copying what Devi has written down)
Amandeep: My brother*****
Devi: Your brother knows everything.
Amandeep: I know, he does. I keep on telling him
Pritam: My book about...
Devi: My book about Devi is six! (mixing up the words on the page)
(Girls laugh briefly) Now all these
pages.
(Girl beside Devi continuing to copy.)
In this conversation, the girls all monitored each other's activity and work closely, while at the same time completing their own work and having a conversation about matters unconnected with the school task--i.e. about Amandeep's brother. While the degrees of familiarity with English and with this school task varied widely among this group of girls, all the girls were able to complete their task, because "help" was accessible to them if they needed it, or because they were able to "help themselves" (by copying).
The "noise level" in this classroom was considerable as children commented on one another's work, chatted and moved from one desk "pod" to others to get ideas and help. Many of the children spoke a great deal and the floor seemed potentially open to any of them.
Grade 2
The teacher in the grade 2 classroom, Mrs. Baker, was Anglo-Canadian and had taught at the school for several years previously. She attended the Sikh studies classes with the children in the morning and was familiar with many of the school and temple practices, as well as with many of the families with children at the school. Her classroom was located in the main building of the school.
The class from which excerpts will be presented today occurred on one October morning. Activities during this morning included children meeting with Mrs. Baker on the floor for a singing exercise, preliminary to a Mathematics exercise that children needed to complete at their desks (arranged in horizontal lines across the width of the classroom, with spaces of about a meter between them). After this "seat work", children played with cards during their "Math Activities" time. After this, they met again with Mrs. Baker on the carpet to participate in a "recitation script" (cf. Gutierrez & Larson, 1994) concerning Thanksgiving. Finally, the children returned to their desks to complete a worksheet comprised of 6 sentence frames "Thank you for ________" superimposed on a picture of a turkey.
Practices in the Grade 2 classroom were not highly divergent from current practice in many Canadian classrooms, but they were somewhat different from practices in the children's Grade 1 class. Unlike in the Grade 1 classroom, Mrs. Baker did not encourage or direct children to "help" other children at any point observed throughout the year, and she actively discouraged individual children helping others with school tasks. She herself engaged in a great deal of guiding children's activities, but the children themselves did not take this role in official classroom activities. In the following excerpt from the transcription of the October morning's activities, Mrs. Baker tells the children to work on their worksheets individually, and helps a child complete his:
Children settled at their desks after the singing on the carpet. Mrs. Baker directs children to turn to page 75 and then do the exercise on that page.
Mrs. Baker: When you get to page 75, pick up your pencils, zip your zippers (accompanied by a zipping motion with fingers in front of her mouth) and away you go!
Children talking.
Mrs. Baker: Shhh!!!
Amanjit: How do you do this?
Mrs. Baker: Not ANOTHER one of those questions! (She holds her head in mock horror) No, no, no, no, no, no, no!
Child: What one?
Mrs. Baker: (whispers audibly and leans down toward child asking "What one?) Stupid ones!
Another Child: (amused) A silly one!
Mrs. Baker: They're stupid. (whispering loudly)
She goes to Amanjit' s desk.
In this case, even though Mrs. Baker had publicly defined Amanjit's question as "stupid", she quickly went to his desk and helped him complete three questions. The following is a description of that event:
Mrs. Baker at Amanjit's desk, behind him looking down.
Mrs. Baker: (pointing) Don't count the big number.
She takes Amanjit's fingers.
Show the little one on your fingers.
She takes his hand and presses his thumb down.
OK, start with 6 and (she presses his fingers down one by one, counting) seven, eight, nine, ten.
Amanjit writes 10 on his sheet.
Mrs. Baker: Good, excellent.
Mrs. Baker does the same with the next two questions. She leaves. He continues working, counting on his fingers.
Mrs. Baker offered assistance like this to several other children in the class, moving around and surveying as the children completed their work. Students' counting with their fingers was audible, but there was no audible conversation, except those involving Mrs. Baker and students. In a couple of cases, Mrs. Baker expressed displeasure with children's work as in:
Mrs. Baker approaches Baljit's desk, glances at her work.
Mrs. Baker: You're doing the wrong page, it says 75 (she gestures to the board), so I don't know what in the world you're doing here, but it's isn't 75.
Baljit glances over at her neighbour's book and turns the pages of her book.
and
Mrs. Baker goes to Navjeet's desk.
Mrs. Baker: (in high pitched voice) 41?
She makes a funny noise like Argh!!
Navjeet smiles and erases his work and another child, not identified, says: 41?! mockingly.
As children finished their Mathematics page, they started to move around the classroom to gather materials for "Math Activities". A girl who had gone to the back of the classroom to pick up playing cards was observed helping another girl student with her Math page. When Mrs. Baker saw this, she motioned to this girl to leave.
During the period of time entitled "Math Activities", three groups of children were videotaped. In each of the three groups, children guided other children's participation. In one interaction between two boys playing "War" with cards, one boy directed the other with respect to picking up and discarding cards. His "help" was reminiscent of Mrs. Baker's physical as well as verbal direction of Amanjit described above, with one boy taking the cards out of the other's hands and laying them on the carpet. A similar interaction between two girls playing cards was also noted. In the third taped episode in which two boys were playing Dominoes, a third boy joined the group and directed one of the players in laying down tiles. He grabbed the player's hand and directed it toward other locations, saying excitedly, "This is better!"
The penultimate activity of the morning was a 'discussion" between Mrs. Baker and the children on the carpet at the back of the room. Mrs. Baker began with, "You're getting a holiday on Monday, why?"
Mrs. Baker points to Balwant.
Balwant: It's Thanksgiving Day.
Mrs. Baker: It's Thanksgiving Day, what does that mean? It's Thanksgiving Day, what does that mean?
Children raise their hands. Mrs. Baker points to Sim.
Sim: You give people *****Thanksgiving.
Mrs. Baker: Not exactly, not exactly (sing song intonation)
Two boys raise their hands. She points to Parm.
Parm: That means love.
Mrs. Baker: It sure does, but more than that. Yes it does, Thanksgiving does mean love. But what else does it mean?
She points to Sukminder who has his hand up.
Sukminder: It means like you give stuff to other people?
Mrs. Baker: Not exactly, not exactly (shakes her head emphatically)
She points to another child.
Other child: You eat lots.
Mrs. Baker: Yes, you eat lots all day long, just like Squirt does all day long. Why?
This recitation went on similarly for about 5 minutes in total, after which Mrs. Larson told the story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving to the children. Like recitation sequences discussed by others (Gutierrez & Larson, 1994; Toohey, 2000; Wertsch, 1998), Mrs. Baker determined who spoke in the interaction and of what meanings might be expressed in it. Her "guidance" in this activity was tight, and children were informed of errors immediately after they had made them.
Throughout our observations, Mrs. Baker discouraged "calling out" when children produced answers to her questions chorally, which might be seen as another way of discouraging children from guiding the participation of other children. In this classroom, in those interactions in which she was involved, Mrs. Baker was the guide and children's attempts to guide others were discouraged.
Discussion
The data I present today concerns only two mornings in these two classrooms, and as Loewenberg Ball & Lampert (1999) point out, "any particular event is connected in multiple and complex ways to the events that preceded it" (p. 381), so that the complexities of classrooms and what is going on in them are formidably daunting. The data presented illustrate, however, what I believe to be typical practice in the two rooms. In the Grade 1 classroom, children were encouraged, even directed, by their teacher to help one another with school tasks, to guide one another. Children saw and heard their teacher help other children in a variety of ways--reading with them, telling them words, taking over aspects of the task and so on. The teacher's sensitivity to how children might feel about being "helped" was also evident. In the short excerpts we see here, children guide classmates in much the same way the teacher has guided them, using in some cases the exact words of her help. In the Grade 2 classroom the children were discouraged by their teacher from helping one another and in whole class interactions in which she was present, she was the legitimate expert. Children "helped" one another in peer-regulated activities, and the help they offered one another seemed reminiscent of the teacher's help.
I have elsewhere (Toohey, 2000a) discussed how many normalized school practices contribute to students seeing their classroom work as their private property and that copying written or verbal productions is illegitimate and a practice that can result in teacher censure. I also argue that these practices that establish children as individual owners of classroom work (written and verbal) interact with school identity practices, so that the ranking of children as more or less competent becomes easily apparent to all. In Mrs. Sran's class, where children received help from the teacher and from classmates, or when they were able to help themselves by copying, the relative competencies of children in completing school tasks were not as glaringly obvious as they might be in a classroom in which the only source of assistance (the teacher) is scarce. This is not to say that children did not know in the Grade 1 classroom which children finished tasks quickly and from which children it might be best to copy, but somehow, less fuss seemed to be made over such matters.
Children in both the classrooms were observed "helping" others. In Mrs. Sran's classroom, the example provided shows Tim helping Navjeet, using language he appears to have appropriated from his teacher. Navjeet asks for and benefits from Tim's help, and when he is unsure how to proceed, he copies Tim's work. In Mrs. Baker's classroom, children were rarely permitted to help one another, but in interactions (like free play), they helped in ways that might be seen as similar to their teacher's help. When Sukminder "helped" David with cards, he took cards from David's hands, laid them down and took unambiguously the position of someone more powerful. When X. "helped" Y with dominoes, the same pattern emerged--one child physically directed the other's actions, claiming at the same time "This [my way] is better!"
Rogoff et al. (1993) argue that
For middle-class U.S. children, the skills and patterns of social interaction practiced in school may relate closely to those necessary for eventual participation in the economic and political institutions of their society. (p. 233)
The practices in Mrs. Baker's classroom are not unusual or extraordinary in any way in Canadian classrooms in which I have observed, or in the literature describing North American classrooms generally (citations). Having children see the teacher as the legitimate guide to participation in the classroom was seen by Waller (1932) as a time-honoured schooling practice. Preparing children for the economic and political institutions of North American society may necessitate them learning that assistance comes from recognized authorities, that "help" is scarce, and that finishing first, or not requiring "help", is a valorized position. Whether or not teachers wish to support these arrangements is another question.
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