Learning Without Lessons

Learning Without Lessons

"This work is designed to fill a rather large lacuna in the field of child development and education. A growing scholarly consensus challenges the universality of western-dominated research in psychology. All or most markers of the child's growth and development are now subject to re-examination through a cross-cultural lens. By the same token, the study of education has been similarly restricted as norms and theory are constructed almost exclusively from research in Euroamerican schools. This work aims to fill a substantial portion of this gap, in particular to document and analyze the myriad processes that come to play as indigenous children learn their culture-without schools or lessons. I will characterize the conglomeration of learning-rich events as instances of "pedagogy in culture." The construct has several connotations, but paramount is the idea that opportunities for learning occur naturally in the course of activities such as work, play, night-time campfire stories, etc., that are not primarily intended to educate"--

The Long Holidays, Or, Learning Without Lessons

Learning Without Lessons

"This work is designed to fill a rather large lacuna in the field of child development and education. A growing scholarly consensus challenges the universality of western-dominated research in psychology. All or most markers of the child's growth and development are now subject to re-examination through a cross-cultural lens. By the same token, the study of education has been similarly restricted as norms and theory are constructed almost exclusively from research in Euroamerican schools. This work aims to fill a substantial portion of this gap, in particular to document and analyze the myriad processes that come to play as indigenous children learn their culture-without schools or lessons. I will characterize the conglomeration of learning-rich events as instances of "pedagogy in culture." The construct has several connotations, but paramount is the idea that opportunities for learning occur naturally in the course of activities such as work, play, night-time campfire stories, etc., that are not primarily intended to educate"--