Thursday, February 12, 2015

A to Z: Cultural Perspectives in Education

Vaughan M. Blaney
Director
BSc(UNB,Canada), BEd(UNB,Canada), TEFLA(University of Cambridge), MEd(HKU, Hong Kong)

Book: "A to Z: Cultural Perspectives in Education"

A to Z: Cultural Perspectives in Education is excellent.  I should adopt it as a standard reader in my Cultural Perspective class at Harvard University.  The illustrations are beautifully drawn with s style of elegance.
-Professor Cheng Kai-ming,
Chair of Education, University of Hong KOng
Visiting Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education


The Letter 'B'...



Brown, white, yellow
All learning to cope 
Together, we make a rainbow of hope

But though we are different, all can agree that we:
  • once were babies
  • know the bitter taste of a lemon
  • enjoy the pretty song of a bird
  • brush our teeth
  • like reading books
  • have our view of what is beautiful
  • know the sound of the school bell
  • agree that the sky is blue
  • take care of our bodies
  • can print the letter B

...(another) approach to the nature of the mind (is) cultural-ism. It takes its inspiration from the evolutionary fact that mind could not exist save for culture.  For the evolution of the hominid mind is linked to the development of a way of life where 'reality' is represented by a symbolism shared by members of a cultural community in which a technical-social way of life is both organized and constructed in terms of that symbolism. This symbolic mode is not shared by a community, but conserved, elaborated, and passed on to succeeding generations who, by virtue of this transmission, continue to maintain the culture's identity and way of life ...

A system of education must help those growing up in a culture find an identity within that culture.  Without it they stumble in their effort after meaning.  It is only in the narrative mode that one can contrast an identity and find a place in one's culture. Schools must cultivate it, nurture it, cease taking it for granted.

Bruner, Jerome


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