Language as a tool for thinking. As soon as Mercer brought up Vygotsky, I knew we were going to be friends. There is very little work that I do that is not grounded in Vygotsky's theories of language development. I love the quote, "We do not learn how to use language in the abstract, we learn to use it by joining in the intellectual life in particular--local or virtual--communities" (p. 14). I find in deaf education, that teachers often change their language based on the level of the students language. Generally speaking, this is good practice. We want to differentiate instruction and make sure that our instruction is within a child's ZPD. Unfortunately, I see far too many deaf educators use the limited language proficiency of our students as an excuse to minimize the discussion occurring in the classroom. When a teacher dominates classroom discourse and doesn't create opportunities for language use within the classroom community we are further "disabling" our students. It frustrates and motivates me at the same time.
Laying the foundations. I like the way this chapter expands our idea of context to include so much more than a physical environment. We talk a lot in deaf education about the need to build background knowledge. We may not realize it, but our reason for doing this is to assist students with the contextual knowledge necessary to make sense of the language they encounter on an every day basis. Context is what made leading professional development in Haiti so difficult. Because the participants and I had such different common knowledge very little could be left unsaid/implied and their were a great many misunderstandings along the way. While we were using (mostly!) signs that we thought each other understood to communicate or contextual foundations were far from similar. We had to work hard to make our message accessible to each other and build a common "frame of reference."
The Given and the New. "But the responsibility for making context does not rest only with a speaker or writer" (p. 47). This first quote sticks out to me, because it reminds me of how often I hear/see deaf educators place the blame for misunderstandings solely on the student. Last year I was watching video of one of our research classrooms and saw a misunderstanding occur between a student and teacher. I knew exactly what the student was trying tell his teacher. I also knew why she was misunderstanding him. I watched this occur over several lessons, wishing that the video wasn't several weeks old so that I could jump in and help these parties understand one another. (What can I say, the interpreter in me really likes to make sure that communication that is occurring is accessible to all.) Finally, on the 3rd day the teacher walks in and corrects the students "error" and moves on without discussing the topic further. When the topic came up in a professional development session months later, the teacher again maintained that what the student had said was "wrong." It wasn't wrong. She simply didn't have the contextual information necessary to understand his message. I understood exactly what the student was saying, because I had a shared contextual foundation with the student. Had the teacher understood the ideas that Mercer presents in this chapter, she likely would have approached the situation differently and used it as a learning opportunity for the student and his peers. I think teachers often use the techniques for building context that are discussed in this chapter, but I wonder what would happen if we taught our students to used these same techniques.
Persuasion, control, and argument. This chapter made me think a lot about how we teach writing to students. I have to be honest I loathe the "five-paragraph-essay". And I really don't like separating writing into: narrative, expository, and persuasive. What is that? When was the last time we went to the expository section of a Barnes & Noble to pick up our next read. Why do we teach that written communication (reading and writing) fits neatly into one of these categories. It doesn't. The communication moves detailed in this chapter are important to all forms of communication (not just an arbitrary category of persuasive writing). As I was reading about these moves, I couldn't help but think that they would be helpful idea to use when teaching writing. Incorporating these features into writing instruction, could make students more aware of the writer-reader relationship and help students understand that writing is simply a way to communicate.
Communities. Mercer did a great job of clearly and simply explaining communities of practice. This section was the most relevant to me because it really impacts me as a deaf educator. The concept of Deaf community is often difficult to explain to those who are not a part of this community. It's difficult for an outsider to understand that hearing status actually has little membership. There are deaf individuals who are not a member and hearing individuals who are. This is because membership is related to shared knowledge, actions, and identity--an identity that is strongly tied to the use of ASL and the acceptance of deafness as a culture, not as a disability. For me this is important because I am not deaf. In fact, most deaf educators are not. But Deafness is in some ways a social construct, my status as hearing does not automatically preclude me from participating in the Deaf community. I think it's important for us (especially those of us who are hearing) to understand how Deaf community impacts our job as educators. For those of us who teach reading and writing of English, this is especially critical. We have to be aware of the discourse of the Deaf community to be able to teach students to read and write. If we don't first allow them to apprentice us into the discourse of their culture, we can never expect our messages to be "heard".
Development through dialogue. I had already enjoyed this text, but Mercer sealed the deal when you brought Vygotsky back up and added in the ideas of Bruner and Wertsch. I really liked his ideas related to the IDZ (intermental development zone). What a great addition to the ZPD. I've thought these thoughts for a long time. But now he's given me language to talk about and further consider my beliefs about classroom discourse. I will be honest, the Talk Lessons weren't my favorite. I don't deny that they have the potential to lead to language and cognitive development, I just can't see myself supporting something that seems so decontextualized. I appreciate that research with this intervention can be used to further support principles of effective classroom discourse; however, I sincerely hope that this is intervention wouldn't be widely implemented. Instead, I think that we should learn from its success, and use these ideas to help teachers develop a posture that supports classroom discourse that allows students to learn language by using language and to learn from one another.
"Context is what made leading professional development in Haiti so difficult. Because the participants and I had such different common knowledge very little could be left unsaid/implied and their were a great many misunderstandings along the way. While we were using (mostly!) signs that we thought each other understood to communicate or contextual foundations were far from similar. We had to work hard to make our message accessible to each other and build a common "frame of reference." Such a great example of how what we can get done together through language depends in large part on a shared context, community, common ground, frame of reference, etc. Sometimes I think it takes literally going to a foreign culture to "get" this.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminds me of how the most fruitful areas for research and exploration is when things go wrong in our talk with others. When things go smoothly, it's hardly worth noting, but when things break down, it's a great "in" for analyzing what went wrong.
My mantra in this job is that "all writing is persuasive writing." All academic writing that is, and to some extent, all writing and all talk is seeking to DO something - and that often includes persuading others to see things as we do. This will be a very interesting avenue to explore this semester.
"But Deafness is in some ways a social construct, my status as hearing does not automatically preclude me from participating in the Deaf community." This is fascinating to me as a discourse analyst - and in fact this description of what the Deaf community IS and MEANS and DOES is closely aligned with discursive psychology's efforts to move the physical and the psychological out of the body and out of the mind and into our talk. You may be interested in reading some of Jessica Lester's discourse work around autism which is grounded in the field of disability studies (which challenge traditional notions of disability).