IiBplicatioDS / 1Θ2
An ethnographic approach would then start by having the trainees analyze
and question their own existing conceptions; it would proceed to
introduce them to Culturally-Compatible theories of education; the
trainees would verify and enrich the models through the systematic
observation of learning events in the out-of-school world of the
community to which the pupils belong; they would learn the skills
necessary to adapt and improve the recommended syllabus and methodology
on the basis of the 'ways of learning' of the students and the
constraints of the classroom; they would gradually build up their own
Culturally-Felevant pedagogy open to innovation <see Table 6.1).
Learning through the process of educating is thus a careful and
conscious blend of awareness, attitude, knowledge, and both
trainable and educable skills. (Larsen-Freeman,1983:269).
This approach applies equally well to both pre- and in-service training
of teachers, often exclusively school-centred (for a review of recent
studies on IlTSFT, see Crossley and Guthrie,1987).
The experience of the KEEP Project (see page 14) is relevant here not for
its results but for its methodology and its specific approach to
ethnography and education in research and teacher education. Some points
are summarized here:
1 Culture is used as a guide for selection, not as a model.
Educational practice should be compatible with the culture of the
children being educated and the teachers' conceptions. This does not mean
that classroom practice and principles should reproduce the local culture
at school or even be culturally-specific. This approach will inevitably
clash with general educational policies at macro level responding to the
needs of a developing country, and would increase the contradictions at
the micro level. One of the consequences would be, as it is often the
case, the reduction of culture to folklore: the characters in the
textb∞ks would have local faces and would sing local songs and cook
local food, and some grandparents would occasionally be welcome in the
classroom to tell stories praising the great past of the local people.