Talking Early Years: June O'Sullivan and Barbara Rogoff

But if it's just enforcing some kinds of academic exercises, I think that's a way of keeping kids from learning in many cases. And so especially in the early years, I think it's important for children and adults together to be involved in activities that have a meaning, have a purpose, have different ways of connecting, not just trying to treat kids in an assembly line that treats them as if they are all sort of basic same material, and then you just plug them into a machine. Hello and welcome to Talking Early Years, the podcast that puts the spotlight on the complex world of early childhood education. This is a world that impacts on everybody, children, parents, families, and the wider society, but it's still not understood well enough. So in this episode and indeed in every episode, I talk to inspiring guests about policies, practices, and ideas that shape our sector and in turn shape our society. (upbeat music) Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Talking Early Years with me, Junena Sullivan. And today I have a guest from Right Across the Pond, Professor Barbara Rogoff, who I'm particularly happy to have as a guest because I've loved her work for a long time now. And she's quotient regularly in my, in anything I write. So it's wonderful to be talking to the person herself. As is true of all Talking Early Years podcasts, I'm going to ask her to do her own introduction. And then we're going to get chatting about some of her work right across the whole piece from what I love, some of the work she did through the funds of learning, but also through the learning by observing a pitching and a lot more than which I'm sure Barbara will tell us a lot more about. So welcome Barbara, and thank you for giving up your time in warmer and much warmer place than we are. Thank you. I'm here in California and yes, it's beautiful here. We have seasons that are a little different than what you're experiencing over there. And we appreciate it. But you have some lovely political climate that we are envious of at this point. Yeah. So I'm a professor at UC Santa Cruz, University of California Santa Cruz. And I am in developmental psychology. My work has focused on sociocultural or cultural historical ways of thinking about how children learn. And especially how children learn in a variety of cultural communities. My research has mostly involved indigenous communities of the Americas and middle class European American communities in the United States. And I've been working in a Mayan community for many years, like 51, I'm lazy to say. And I've learned so much from the opportunity to see how children learn and how the communities organized in a way that allows children to be a part of things, to observe what people are doing around them, adults and other children, and to pitch in and help out. And that's basically what I refer to as Lope, learning by observing and pitching in to family and community endeavors. And that has been the product of trying to puzzle out how it is that children learn in a community where the kind of academic school-oriented teaching has not been something that has been common until recently. And so over my career, I've been trying to puzzle out what are, how do people help children learn if it's not by this academic kind of teaching? And Lope is the answer to that as far as I can tell, at this point. I think we'll need to explore Lope more for our listeners here in the UK. But the subject that you're kind of focusing on is really, I think, a really interesting one here, because we've kind of been, I don't know, squeezed by that whole neoliberal kind of approach to things. And I think it's narrow things down. I run a social enterprise, and so effectively, community engagement and what we call multi-generational community engagement is really quite powerful. But it is in an interesting space about how what is often known here as the home learning environment, this notion of the bridge between your setting and the home. But it's become quite a narrowed perspective, and there's often, I often feel, a kind of deficit kind of torn to it. Particularly, again, because we're a social enterprise, we work 75% of our settings are in areas of deprivation and poverty. And there is a kind of, no one would say it, obviously, but there is a kind of underlying sort of snobbishness about what have they got to offer. Whereas we take the view that every child comes with culture and capital, and it's for us to build on it and then to build and bridge it with the families and to kind of connect into a new way of doing things together. So I'll be really interested to talk a little bit more about that whole notion of how it kind of emerged in that sense of how you thought about that. And I think I remember reading somewhere, Barbara, in the design of the settings that you've got involved in, and how they connect with the families and make them feel comforted and welcomed in even how you set up things like references to the culture of them and the families, not in the sense of a poster with all the, all the, all the welcomes and different languages, but in a much deeper and richer way. So I think some of our listens be really interested in that. - Yeah, thank you. The way that I got interested in it was that as a graduate student, I had the chance to be in this Mayan town, about 8,000 people at the time. And I was observing how skilled the children were in many ways, but one of them was in weaving, weaving on a backstrap bloom. So I asked some others, how do you teach your daughters to weave? This is very complex. It requires a lot of skill, a lot of understanding, planning, memory, mathematics, and so on. And they said, well, we don't teach them, they learn. And that gave me a big puzzle, because I had by that time spent, I don't know, 20 years in schools, and my idea of how people learn is by being taught. And so what they were telling me was that they don't do that, but so that left me the question, what, how do the children learn that? It's very complex. They couldn't be inventing it on their own. It's like a technology that has developed over millennia in over Mayan history, and the same with agricultural skills and astronomy and many other complex aspects of Mayan life in that town. And so I said I'm trying to understand it. And part of what I think is important in relation to your question is that it's not just culture as carried in the child, but the culture as developed in the community that supports children's learning. So if a child is not in their everyday home and community setting, if they're in some new setting, I think they have the opportunity to learn a new way of doing things, like schooling is a new way of doing things for many kids. Not perhaps for kids whose families have grown up with generations of schooling in the family's experience, but I would broaden understanding what children bring to school to include the way their community is organized, and their family is organized. And so it's not just carried by a solitary child, but by cultural communities. I'm not sure I answered your whole question there, but can you remind me of what I didn't get to? Well, I think what we're hearing is this notion of the layers of the family connections and the kind of community not just in terms of the child, but also in the kind of wider kinship network and stuff. And the challenge we have here in London is that the extended family isn't always available and around. And a lot of the family connections is done online are in more distant way, although it's noticeable that where there are community centers are localized services. Even if it's around the barbers, are the sharp part, whatever it is. There is a sense of other people at different levels kind of in a way becoming a community. part of that child's web of learning and web of understanding. So I'm I'm a king. So I get that my and community in that one place. How do you how do you translate that then to the kind of more disparate kind of communities which I'm sure you have them as much as we do? Yes it's a very interesting question to try to understand what happens as as families migrate or in communities where other practices are are now much more evident practices from around the world through various forms of technology. So pretty much everywhere people are now learning in more than one way and I think that that is a key to what you were asking me that it is that learning in more than one way I think is the goal and sometimes people who come from the mainstream society of any country are think of other ways of doing things as being kind of a deficit a way that is not so good and that the goal is to teach these newcomers how to do things our way because our way whatever we think whatever that is we think of it as best way or even the only way. And what I'm what I've been working towards is the idea that we all need to learn to do things more than one way and what I've learned to in the my and community is much is applicable in many other settings and what we see here in California is many people immigrating from another country for me in small communities often of their own from their own background so they maintain some diaspora contact with the ways that things have been done in the in their home country. In in particular Lopi is something that seems to be widely practiced in fact I would argue that Lopi is a way of doing things that we all do I mean all that like everywhere in the world all of us. This is how we learn our first language by being involved and helping and pitching in so a little baby listen to you know the whatever language is around them sees that it gets people what they want or gets people involved and learns the language as they try to get things done like if they say the word moe that and they and the mother can under or the father or the grandmother can understand that they might get moe milk and so they're learning by observing what's going on around them listening to what's going on around them and pitching in so in that sense I think the what I learned in this Mayan community brings to attention something that we all do but we're not very aware of how powerful it is as a way of learning because we tend to think of the way schools are organized as the ways that children are learned are the ways that children learn we tend to think of the way schooling is done as the way that children learn that it's natural somehow but it's just one way and we can learn from the other ways and they're very effective um the lopew ways can be used they are used in graduate school they're used in preschool this as people pitch in together to have a common purpose and get something done I just read an article about research on marine mammals and penguins in the in Antarctica and how the new researchers who were involved in this um international research how they learn how to take a blood sample from a penguin or measure the weight of a of an elephant seal and it is through lope they they are involved with people with varying skill levels they have a common purpose they watch what's happening they help out and in the process they're learning to be the kind of researchers who know what to do with the penguins and the in the elephant seals it's a bit about values isn't it really and about valuing um like other ways of doing things and I think I don't know but it feels at the moment that this notion of measure and pressure and having to you know achieve these various steps um it seems to be overwhelming the the way we think about how children learn so for example um we have a thing I don't know if you have it in in in in California but we have a thing now called school readiness yeah it is a very contested um term and concept really um and it seems to be misunderstood by some and just misused by others I think so that the idea is that the child has should be able to achieve certain things by a certain age and then their school ready and that the teachers in the earlier settings need to be pushing them along the way and there's a real tension here because in the UK they're sending the children to school very young now or three years old they're putting them in they want to put them in a two and of course quite often what the child can't achieve is because they're not physically psychologically are you know pedagogically in any way shape or form ready for this um and and so there have been expected to do stuff that is almost impossible and then they're kind of blamed for it you know them and they and I think your your your work is kind of almost the antidote to that because you're saying just allow them to find some space to be able to develop that within their own home space and within their own community space that has a value and that we build on that in the in the school setting and um and I guess that could work very well for a lot of children but those children that we often work with who come from really quite difficult home lives you know where uh they're not always safe in their home themselves the children how do you kind of tie that up so that they are also involved in this so that they're not also excluded that we find a way of connecting with those families as well oh you raised quite a few things though that are really important I think that one of my concerns about early education is the idea that we are just bringing younger and younger the practices that are really not very they don't respect the learning process of whole children but they try to treat children as cogs in a machine and teach them specific skills that are seen as important in school but in the early years and even into later years so much of what we need to learn to do well in life is beyond what we are trying to teach kids in academic subjects in school and I think that for learning academic subjects an approach like low B is is probably more consistent with children's ways of learning in general by having children see a purpose to what they're trying to trying to learn and then they have a reason to get involved with it at a level that they can connect with so part of the most important way of designing learning experiences is having the learning experiences be open to a number of different perspectives and and um well approaches to learning and approaches to and what children come equipped with so it's sort of multi-generational but also multi if you're enjoying this conversation don't forget to follow talking early years we'll bring you fresh discussions every episode so hit follow and stay up to date. Experience multi background and if it's open experiences that that have a that the children see a purpose in then I think children are guaranteed to be learning but if it's just enforcing some kinds of academic exercises I think that's a way of keeping kids from learning in many cases and so especially in the early years I think it's important for uh children and adults together to be involved in activities that have a have a meaning have a purpose have have different ways of connecting not just trying to treat kids in an assembly line that treats them as if they are all sort of basic same material and then you just plug them into a machine um so it's I think we need to be more open and engaged with young children's interests and direction for them to be learning and that would apply to children of all backgrounds where um one of the difficulties for people planning early childhood programs is that if they don't have much culture experience with the communities that they're trying to serve. It's much harder to design things in a way that fit with the value systems, with the kinds of knowledge and expertise that are widespread in those communities. So there I think partnership with the communities and with the families may be an important way for the planners and the practitioners to be learning how to open up the activities so that children have a chance to be entering in with interest and and a feeling of curiosity and a feeling of being able to do this. Yeah I think it's really interesting to listen to you talking the other you know about the children weaving because I've just been refreshing our thinking about technology and because of actually the the American Institute for Pediatric Health we've absolutely banned anything to do with technology at least till they're two two and a half because that's not necessarily what's happening at home but it was really interesting because when I was refreshing this I was talking to some colleagues of mine about coding because one of them sent me what we should be teaching them something about coding June and I thought well let's a little look at what coding looks like and we did some research and a couple of my colleagues said to me well actually this book that they had read had suggested that what coding is before we start physically coding is exactly what you just said there the kind of weaving skills they they kind of problem solving they you know the shaping the pattern and I think sometimes we just have to name things in a different way and get people to realize that just sitting down and doing your funny lesson are you know filling in your what did they say I'll do in your work and then you can play kind of thing actually is can be translated into a much more kind of scientific way and so you think that in the US there's also that same thing that the sector the early year sector the early childhood and education and care sector sometimes plays down what it does by not by not using the language in a way that explains things better and so we're either kind of put in a play box and they don't understand the science of play anyway are they just feel that we're just keeping the children safe till they get bigger and then when they go to school it'll all happen well I think there's an issue that's behind some of this which is that in the US and I think elsewhere there's a pendulum swing between thinking that learning is something that adults do to children teaching or the alternative that often comes up is it's children run is child run instead and then it becomes it's like work versus play and it's a pendulum swing between adult run ideas about learning and child run ideas about learning and that pendulum swing is not what Lopie involves it's a collaborative way of learning in which adult expertise is a part of it child expertise is a part of it having a shared goal so it's not dividing things into work versus play or adult run versus child run but I think that there's a tendency very deep in US thinking and probably Britain written two of a dichotomies between whether adults are in child or children have freedom or and that dichotomy I think is one of the things that gets in the way of being able to design situations in which it's collaborative making use of the expertise and also children being deeply involved with interest I wanted to mention that there's I've been involved in a book that looks at a kindergarten through sixth grade public school public is different here in the US yeah it's run it's it's a state sponsored school state of Utah sponsored school and so the people who go or just anybody who wants to go there it's it's free to the people who go it's a school that's running in a way that's similar to Lopie where the children and the adults plan curriculum ideas that help achieve some of the the state of Utah's goals for for the core curriculum and at the same time there was that the children are engaged in designing and running and and and learning from but they're not on their own it's the adults parent volunteers in the classroom as well as teachers engage together in these activities so it's it's a much more collaborative way of looking at things and in that school parents who volunteer in the classroom as as well as new teachers often have a trouble have trouble because of the pendulum swing between the idea that adults if it's clear that this is not the regular school where adults run everything but many of the newcomer adults think oh then it's all run by the children it's just play it's just we get out of the children's way and they'll discover everything that they need to know no it's a collaborative process where there's an awareness of what the school curriculum is and there's flexibility creativity improvisation in figuring out activities that make use of those things that the kids are trying to learn and in a way that it serves a purpose that the kids and the adults see as an interesting way to make use of those tools like writing letters in the in I'm remembering that the back when I noticed when I was seeing this particular event public public broadcasting was under fire from Congress and what and Congress was trying to take away the funding for public broadcasting and the children these are first and second graders they were very upset about that because some of their favorite shows were things like Sesame Street and so the class decided they were going to write letters to Congress to try to protect Sesame Street and their other favorite shows so in the process the adults in the classroom the teacher and the parent volunteers who were there they helped the children learn about what is the formal letter what is the form of a formal letter how would you do the salutation how do you do paragraphs how do you do how do you talk to people in Congress or deer what and so the children had a reason to be learning this otherwise really boring stuff about about you know where do you put the date how do you end the letter but they were learning this for a reason and it was a reason they cared about and the adults were with them in helping them do it so the adults were providing information the children didn't otherwise have but the children were interested in it because they had a shared project that was something that was really motivating to them that's a collaborative process it's not run by the adults it's not run by the kids well it is run by the adults and the kids together yeah and it kind of there's a couple of things in there so in terms of the kind of notion of social justice it's kind of fits in there because it's the child's voice really and it's a way of giving the child a voice that's meaningful as opposed to a sort of token effort but also it kind of begins to fit into the kind of sustainability narrative doesn't it a bit like where you're weaving those three things particularly social and environmental together in a in a kind of coherent way so that you know we have found that the work we've been doing on education for sustainability it's much better driven through sort of a shared project approach with adults and the children together then necessarily either finger-working and making people feel guilty are actually trying to sort of teach a session on it in addition to teaching everything else we have to do as well so that it's I mean maybe that this model could in a way kind of reflect from a positive perspective some of the negative conversations being had at the moment about migration and inequality because you're saying that you know other communities have things to offer and we just need to find a structure to be able to make better use of it and to celebrate it am I am I interpreting this correctly or have I got that big deal wrong that that fits well in fact I think that the ways that children who are involved in low-peas ways of learning they learn to collaborate in a very sophisticated way that we have not seen commonly among European American middle-class kids who tend to be much more individually focused and it's important to be able to do things both ways but I think I think that learning to collaborate better is a large part of what we need in order for society to be more harmonious for our our lives to be sustainable but also for us to be able to be in in a in collaboration collaboration as it were with the environment and for sustainability of the the rest of the world other than the humans and it's it's So I think there's a lot to be learned from the ways that communities who are not necessarily part of the mainstream value system or practices. I think we can learn we who are running schools or designing curriculum or doing research can learn a lot from whatever other community it is Because it's clear that the the way that things are being are happening now There's dangers in the ways that we've been doing things and so figuring out how we can do things better It's just like if we try to make the world be just one species of plants. Yeah We would not be able to have a sustainable world But if we try to have the world be just one cultural system We would also not have a sustainable world because we can all learn from each other in in a collaborative way with communities who at the moment may not be in positions of power No, it is about appreciation isn't it about Recognizing the contribution everybody has to make in a way that's kind of accessible and that's quite a challenge when we're living in a politically quite divisive and unkind environment where now our politicians seem to seem to be clear enough About how to do this they are they don't seem capable of of pulling all of that together and that's Not just the UK and the US. I see that all over the place. You know, it's it seems very It doesn't seem a very future-proved way of going about things and I think those of us workers more children were kind of highly kind of alert to that and and and it's a heightened sort of tension in our daily work And I think that's why we're such great advocates of becoming sustainability and formed because that's one way I think of thinking about it the bigger picture stuff um If you could influence one major policy In early childhood education worldwide based on all of your experience and your decades of research What would it be? Well one thing that happened with industrialization was that children were excluded from the places that mattered for adults and That was important in some ways because at that time they were being included in factory work that was dangerous for them So it was a good move in some ways But I think it has been vastly overdone for us to be putting children in places where And they don't have any contact with what matters in in their In adult's lives and if we could change the practice so the children and adults had more Opportunities to be doing things together Like in that school that I was telling you about and we wrote about in the book learning together Children and adults in a school community. So that would that's an example of children and adults multi-generational learning is very powerful but we have Made it into children are segregated into places that The the treated as if they don't really quite exist until their adults And instead if we treated them as people who can contribute and children can contribute um, and if they have a way to contribute it would be It would be much better for them, but it would also be better for the sustainability of the Societies that were that were involved in it at the moment I think there's some hope with early childhood education to be kind of thinking ahead Beyond the the kind of narrow views of the current politicians To be what is it the these little ones? What do they need to learn to help us all? As we move beyond and I have some hope that we move beyond where we are at present in the kind of Damaging ways that our societies are treating people um What what do we need the children to know how to do and I think they need to know how to Learn through collaborative means and and to be a part of something bigger than themselves and to be able to deal with potential conflict in ways that are harmonious and i think that Part of the reason why i'm so interested in in learning from communities other than the mainstream of european American or i think uk ways of doing things is that i think there's some answers That we can get from ways of doing things that have been around for a long time and have been successful for a long time I mean you know the the theme of Your whole this whole conversation for me is is entirely around social justice I mean, you know there is like if people don't know what social justice is I think this conversation highlights it. It's about the children's voice. It's about collaboration. It's about sustainability It's about fairness and equity. It's about understanding that you are part of something bigger and you have a role to play and doing something making decisions There are not going to damage the kind of a marchia said and kind of idea of making decisions that are not going to damage the capabilities of the future So it seems that we're probably in quite Sort of turbulent change times without feeling without sort of naming it in that way As people always associate turbulent change with kind of big Big issues, but actually this is maybe less not so big But it's definitely kind of like a like it's like a meandering river. It's just weaving through everything we do that It reminds me of that book. I don't know if you know it called braiding sweet grass. Yes, I do Yeah, you know very lyrical book, but very much this kind of ideas and Yes And so I would like to just add one thing to what you're saying. I agree with it Um, I think it goes beyond fairness and justice I think we need that information we being society. I think the It's not just about treating individuals fairly, which is very important But it's about we can learn from each other things that will help us move Beyond the moment that we're in which in the United States is dire and So, but how can we move beyond where we are? I think some of the answers and braiding sweet grass is a great example of With ideas about how we can move beyond the ways that we have been thinking about Are the relationship that humans have with the environment the rest of the environment the ways that humans relate to each other and these little people who are in early childhood settings the The responsibility we have for them Is something that is it's It's a blessing and it's also gives us an opportunity to think with their families and communities about what is the goal of human development What are the goals we have for relating with each other? How what are ways to be handling that beyond what we have been doing which clearly has some problems And that's i mean that that is like a fascinating and You know we often say that Early years is a very political space because we're working with children and children are always the first To experience bad decisions that we make whether it's physical or financial or whatever I think that's what you're kind of highlighting here that you're highlighting the the kind of the kind of nurture of of of our current society that sort of community framework is is completely being Kind of eradicated and this how we rebuild it, but we build it with New communities with existing communities, but actually the real appreciation I feel from your work And I'm hoping on this rightness. It the sense that community is the kind of basis. It's the it's the kind of it's the frame of that weaving you know That um we really need to rebuild our even not rebuild actually build Yes, I think so and this is consistent with what a lot of the conversation is in the United States About what went wrong in the in recent decades really and ways to address it so a sense of community a sense of being involved with A group of people to try to be human together And look out for each other and build on what each other has to offer Um those are things that I hear in the public discourse in the United States as being something that we forgot about being important and that we need to build for people. There's a loneliness epidemic in the United States. There's and the political, the ways that people are just hold up in their own little little, um, cells really. That's not a human way to organize and especially for little children, but we can see the damage with with all kinds of measures of dysfunction among youth, our students in universities are suffering, old people. It is something that clearly needs fixing and I think some of the answers come from paying attention to the wisdom of societies that have been through difficult times like Indigenous peoples of the America. Have been through difficult times. They're still here. They're still honoring the ancient wisdom even though there's lots of issues in their in their lives. And I think that is to me that gives some hope. Yeah, and on that quite hopeful message, I'm going to ask you a much lighter question here is that if you were stranded on a desert island, you can choose what kind of desert island you want to be stranded on, by the way. What does toy, our object from childhood, would you want to take with you and why? That's a hard question and I think I think it would not be an object that I'd want to take with me. It would be more the kind of understanding and memories that I've gotten from having had the opportunity to be involved in different communities that my parents gave me. Maybe the closest I can come to an object I would take with me is a song that I learned in fifth year Spanish in high school. The Mr. Holderied taught the class and when I had my first grandchildren, I was trying to remember some lullabies and I remembered this beautiful song, "Vindipastores" and that became the lullabie that I sing. I have four grandkids, well four grandkids and two step grandkids. When the little ones were babies, I would sing "Vindipastores" to them and now they're a little older. The youngest one is just turned six and she asks me, "What's your favorite song?" I don't really think of having a favorite song. Everything is favorite color, favorite animal, all that. But I answer, "Vindipastores" is my favorite song. I would take that along. It's a beautiful, beautiful song and I don't think I'll sing it for you. Thank you. In fact, fully enough, I've just started to acquire the organisation because my instinct is that we need to be building even stronger communities. The Leif team are from all over the world and we've created our own family and connections and I feel very protective of them, especially as some of them are from communities that are really struggling with. We've just had this horrific hurricane in Jamaica and a lot of the stuff would be from there. You have to put your arms around people and pull things in and I always think music is a beautiful way of connecting people. I'm having a go at creating the Leif choir and I'm going to see how that pans out. But I suspect that those who are a bit shy about the idea I'm doing it, when they hear from others how it's going, I think they may well enjoy. We might end up with quite a big quack because we have like 1200 staff so we should be able to pull something together. So yeah, so I think that's a lovely way to finish the music of the community really and building your own song to bring your own memories with you. So thank you so much for giving up your time and talking to us. It's so interesting what you had to say. I just could talk to you for absolutely ages on all of this because it is just what you're what you're what you help in do. And I'm going to go away and look at that lovely thing again in relation to maybe how we might use it to apply some of our thinking around some of our project to work and just like without without without just re-typing it up. You know what I mean? Not kind of na, like trapping it but to kind of understand it better. But I think what you've done is you put your you put into words how a lot of us are feeling about that disconnect and how we kind of reconnect again. So I'm really grateful for you for doing that. And thank you so much. And I think everyone very much enjoy listening to you. Thank you. I think that if if you're looking for some aspect of what I've been writing that might be helpful in that in that goal. I think that book learning together, children and adults in a school community. I think that could be helpful. It has reflections from parents. It has reflections from teachers, new teachers, experienced teachers. It has reflections from a school administrator and from some of the children on learning together, on collaborating in the learning process. And it has, as they reflect on how they learned about this, they also give examples of some of the activities that were places that were memorable in which they were doing those kind of learning together. And I think that might provide some both examples and ideas and ideas for the group. Thank you. I will I'll just run it down actually. I will make sure we get that now. I'll put the link in and everything to the blog for anyone who wants to access that because I think that might be that makes things much easier for people who are also hugely busy in their daily lives. But thank you again. Thank you for joining me today. If you like what you have, please share it. Check us out on our website. Meet us at www.join.jogad.com