Pedagogy and culture Pedagogy and culture a theoretical approacha theoretical approach

Gunvor Løkken Queen Maud’s College Trondheim Norway

Theoretical basisTheoretical basis• Løvlie, L., Mortensen, K.P. & Nordenbo,

S.E. (2003). Educating humanity. Bildung in postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

• Løkken, G. (2006). The ”toddler” as a social construct i early childhood pedagogy. Key note presentation for the OMEP World Conference in Tromsø Aug.9.-11.

Pedagogy: by virtue of culturePedagogy: by virtue of culture• Pais (boy) agogos (to lead) • Ancient paideia • Neo-humanism - Bildung• Modernism – democracy• Post-modernism – hypertransformation• Pedagogy – cultural by nature

PaideiaPaideia• Upbringing and education in society• Carried out in the polis (public place)• Knowledge and insight through questions• Leading the child to and from school• Dialogues in addition to formal lessons

given at school

BildungBildung• Recapturing the ancient paideia• Public and private• ”The most general, animated and unstrained

interplay between the self and the world” (Humboldt, 1795/1960:236)

• Wechselwirkung (societal and existential)• History, art, literature, music and philosophy

DemocracyDemocracy• Political turn of Bildung in the 1960’s• Polar relations in pedagogy (Theodor Litt)• Polarities seen as simultaneously existing

and mutually interplaying (Child-pedagogue)

• preventing partiality and fanaticism, nurturing democracy

HypertransformationHypertransformation• Self-transformation in tandem with

societal transformation• Continuously remaking and rescribing our

lives – ”life-edification”• Hypertransformation – high speed • Cannot claim universal validity

Tecno-cultural Tecno-cultural BildungBildung”The younger generation intensely appear together on

the Internet, and they appear even more intensely together in blended situations where the mobile telephone is part of the running conversation between people who are physically together. .. The hypertransformation appears in the intensity of these dialogues, which are most “poetic” or creative just because they are unsettled and transitory. Nevertheless, what it all the way is about is the retrieving of oneself in relation to the other.”

(Løvlie, 2003, p.354, my translation and underlining.)

Toddler-cultural Toddler-cultural BildungBildung "running, one at a time, but without following each

other, the full length of the room from one definite point (murals, door, handrail or radiator) on one side of the room, over to the window on the opposite side. The children wait until all the players have reached the end point before beginning to run back, one at a time, to the starting point. At the beginning moment he begins running, each child allmost always loudly vocalizes 'ba-o-o' or just 'a-o-o'.... On several occasions, when the point of arrival is the door or radiator, the children bang their hands on it in turn as they get there" (Musatti and Panni 1981, p.20).

Techno- and toddlerculture comparedTechno- and toddlerculture compared• Intense appearance in (literally) running

conversations • Unsettled and transitory dialogues and

therefore ”poetic” and creative• Personal twist in similar activity• Retrieving oneself in relation to the others• Hypertransformation in proximal zones

Bildung and pedagogyBildung and pedagogy• Transformation in interplaying motion between

simultaneously existing polarities, of which the pedagogue may be one

• Continuous processes of dialogue outside as well as at school

• Human beings recognizing each other as similar and at the same time uniquely cultural

Bildung and pedagogy (cont.)Bildung and pedagogy (cont.)• Seeing and learning to know cultural

differences as well as similarities

• walking along with as part of children’s Bildungprocesses, be it the barnehage-toddler or the techno-cultural youngster, with group belonging to the travellers as well as indigenous people

ConclusionsConclusions• A pedagogical notion of our time must

include the view that the child of this time is actively contributing to the construction of him- or herself, as well as of the persons, objects, surroundings and cultures of the world in which he or she lives and with which he or she interacts.

conclusionsconclusions• The chosen milestones of the Bildung-

tradition in pedagogy point in the direction of the barnehage as a polis for young citizens to meet, to share a possible manifold of dialogues in adult-child-interaction, child-child-interaction and in interplay with disciplines like art, music, drama/theatre and literature.

conclusionsconclusions• This barnehage-polis also offers the

opportunity of practising democracy at a very young age, in interplay with the official mandate of the pedagogue

• This polis is much more than a place to be cared for while parents are at work, and much more than a pre-school preparation for learning to read, write and count.

conclusionsconclusions• The classical root of pedagogy is still vivid

and elastic, as well as extensible• When extended to hyper-transformations

of our time, I find the notion of pedagogy to be more vivacious than perhaps ever

• The pedagogue as the children’s guide on the road of life, as well as that of school