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.Talk which conveyed onlyminimal information for example, Yes , No , Thanks , That s nice was not coded.Questions, offers and suggestions were also excludedfrom this particular analysis, although questions were later analysed 24 Learning at home: play, games, stories and lessonsseparately.A turn of talk which included a variety of information couldbe given more than one code.On average, 28 of the mothers 200 turns of talk per hour wereconcerned with control.The control issue that occurred most frequentlyin homes of both social classes was waste and damage: Don t spill it , Be careful not to break it , Mind where you put it and so on.The issueof manners such as correct table manners, or saying Please and Thank you arose almost as frequently.Much more of the mothers talk was concerned with giving infor-mation that was not to do with control.On average, 150 turns anhour contained information on some topic a vast amount for anychild to be receiving.This information covered a wide range of topics.All but two mothers gave information from at least twenty-two of thetwenty-seven categories of non-control information.The most fre-quently imparted category of information was concerned with thechild s play, and the second largest category with information aboutmembers of the family, family relationships, baby care and develop-ment and domestic matters.Information about colour, size and num-ber was also frequently given, as was general knowledge, includinginformation about history and science.This information was usuallygiven in very small snippets, and not in the form of lessons. Sciencemainly took the form of information about plants and animals.Forexample, Ruth was watching her mother weed when she saw some-thing unfamiliar:child: There s a dead onion.mother: No, they re not dead onions, they re bulbs.child: Are they dead?mother: No, they ll come up again this year.They store all thefood from the old leaves, they all rot down.It stores food, and thenext year it comes up again.Helen was watching a TV nature programme, when she saw somethingof interest:child: What s that, Mummy?mother: It s a chrysalis.After they ve been caterpillars, when it stime for them to start being butterflies, they make a sort of shellfor themselves and stay inside it for a while.They change intobutterflies: That one s just come out of his chrysalis. Learning at home: play, games, stories and lessons 25 Geography usually took the form of information about wheredifferent places were.This was often in relation to holiday plans, butsometimes, as in the conversation quoted on page 28, in relation to play. History was often prompted by pictures in a book:mother: And that s a knight.It s a man they called a knight, thatused to fight, with a sword.And what s all this he s got on hisbody? [No answer] He s got armour on, like that man in the film.In the rest of this chapter, and in the next chapter, we will considerin some detail the contexts in which this wide range of information wasconveyed to the children.It was immediately obvious that some teachingoccurred in recognizably educational contexts, of the kinds mothersare urged to use, such as play and stories.Other teaching, however,occurred incidentally in the course of simply living and chatting together.In this chapter we will discuss how teaching occurred in four types of educational context play, games, stories and lessons.Learning through playPlay is generally considered the educational context par excellence of thepreschool years.The value of learning through play was first put forwardby the German educationalist Friedrich Froebel (1782 1852).The kin-dergarten and nursery school movement which developed from hiswritings freed young children from the tyranny of sitting in rowschanting and writing their ABC.Much later, Piaget provided a psycho-logical justification for the doctrine, by arguing that the child s activeexploration of a wide variety of objects is an essential precursor of laterverbal and cognitive understanding.These ideas are now taken verymuch as axiomatic within the world of early childhood education.But by no means all parents are familiar with this developmentaltheory of play.Working-class parents in particular, and parents fromother cultures, may regard play simply as a way in which children amuseand occupy themselves.One of us (BT) found in an earlier study thatparents who take this view are often puzzled by, or even hostile to, thepriority given to play by nursery school teachers.1 Equally, professionalsworry that these parents, by not playing with their children, may denythem educational opportunities.In the present study we were able to see how much the mothers 26 Learning at home: play, games, stories and lessonsplayed with their children in the afternoon, and what the childrenseemed to be learning through this experience compared with what theyseemed to be learning from their mothers in other contexts.When weinterviewed the mothers after the recordings, we asked them for theirviews on play [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Talk which conveyed onlyminimal information for example, Yes , No , Thanks , That s nice was not coded.Questions, offers and suggestions were also excludedfrom this particular analysis, although questions were later analysed 24 Learning at home: play, games, stories and lessonsseparately.A turn of talk which included a variety of information couldbe given more than one code.On average, 28 of the mothers 200 turns of talk per hour wereconcerned with control.The control issue that occurred most frequentlyin homes of both social classes was waste and damage: Don t spill it , Be careful not to break it , Mind where you put it and so on.The issueof manners such as correct table manners, or saying Please and Thank you arose almost as frequently.Much more of the mothers talk was concerned with giving infor-mation that was not to do with control.On average, 150 turns anhour contained information on some topic a vast amount for anychild to be receiving.This information covered a wide range of topics.All but two mothers gave information from at least twenty-two of thetwenty-seven categories of non-control information.The most fre-quently imparted category of information was concerned with thechild s play, and the second largest category with information aboutmembers of the family, family relationships, baby care and develop-ment and domestic matters.Information about colour, size and num-ber was also frequently given, as was general knowledge, includinginformation about history and science.This information was usuallygiven in very small snippets, and not in the form of lessons. Sciencemainly took the form of information about plants and animals.Forexample, Ruth was watching her mother weed when she saw some-thing unfamiliar:child: There s a dead onion.mother: No, they re not dead onions, they re bulbs.child: Are they dead?mother: No, they ll come up again this year.They store all thefood from the old leaves, they all rot down.It stores food, and thenext year it comes up again.Helen was watching a TV nature programme, when she saw somethingof interest:child: What s that, Mummy?mother: It s a chrysalis.After they ve been caterpillars, when it stime for them to start being butterflies, they make a sort of shellfor themselves and stay inside it for a while.They change intobutterflies: That one s just come out of his chrysalis. Learning at home: play, games, stories and lessons 25 Geography usually took the form of information about wheredifferent places were.This was often in relation to holiday plans, butsometimes, as in the conversation quoted on page 28, in relation to play. History was often prompted by pictures in a book:mother: And that s a knight.It s a man they called a knight, thatused to fight, with a sword.And what s all this he s got on hisbody? [No answer] He s got armour on, like that man in the film.In the rest of this chapter, and in the next chapter, we will considerin some detail the contexts in which this wide range of information wasconveyed to the children.It was immediately obvious that some teachingoccurred in recognizably educational contexts, of the kinds mothersare urged to use, such as play and stories.Other teaching, however,occurred incidentally in the course of simply living and chatting together.In this chapter we will discuss how teaching occurred in four types of educational context play, games, stories and lessons.Learning through playPlay is generally considered the educational context par excellence of thepreschool years.The value of learning through play was first put forwardby the German educationalist Friedrich Froebel (1782 1852).The kin-dergarten and nursery school movement which developed from hiswritings freed young children from the tyranny of sitting in rowschanting and writing their ABC.Much later, Piaget provided a psycho-logical justification for the doctrine, by arguing that the child s activeexploration of a wide variety of objects is an essential precursor of laterverbal and cognitive understanding.These ideas are now taken verymuch as axiomatic within the world of early childhood education.But by no means all parents are familiar with this developmentaltheory of play.Working-class parents in particular, and parents fromother cultures, may regard play simply as a way in which children amuseand occupy themselves.One of us (BT) found in an earlier study thatparents who take this view are often puzzled by, or even hostile to, thepriority given to play by nursery school teachers.1 Equally, professionalsworry that these parents, by not playing with their children, may denythem educational opportunities.In the present study we were able to see how much the mothers 26 Learning at home: play, games, stories and lessonsplayed with their children in the afternoon, and what the childrenseemed to be learning through this experience compared with what theyseemed to be learning from their mothers in other contexts.When weinterviewed the mothers after the recordings, we asked them for theirviews on play [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]