Growing up in the country, I spent countless hours playing alone in the woods. Unbelievable worlds full of pirates, bandits, explorers and cowboys were constructed from the most basic of found materials. I was alone with my imagination in the production of a virtual world contained in the trees, rocks, gulleys and hideouts that the woods afforded me. Although my siblings might join in playing in close proximity to my own forts, they were often far removed in other parts of the wilderness where they were constructing their own lands for me to visit (or attack) later in the day. These experiences afforded me a rich imagination and access to natural materials as raw invitations to play and creativity. They were spaces of play which, by definition does not have a defined outcome. I wonder if the play of Minecraft Realms may be comparable?
All posts by clare hammoor
Media culture = school culture
Although Sefton-Green argues for collapsing the boundaries between learning contexts online and in person, virtually and physically, I wonder how that might look in practice. A recent review of AltSchool in The New Yorker highlights a few of the confrontations of these conflations.
Queer ancestors
I remember being in undergrad when the rash of queer youth suicides happened in the national media. It is (and was) especially interesting to me to notice the bodies, identities and possibilities that get shared in some of the most watched and read media. I always hope that campaigns for trans women of color who are victims of unbelievable violence will find its way into our national discourse in a healthy way. But these discussions involve a number of intersections which are unpalatable by many media sources whose content continually re-enforces the basic social acceptances with few exceptions. One of these exceptions would seem to have been this rash of suicides (by specific folks with specific connections — no less a tragedy for being such) and I am left wondering about their effect on today’s youth’s socioemotional development. The general loss of ancestors in the queer community is well understood through the AIDS crisis in the US of the late 80s and early 90s. While this was a much larger scale, I wonder how the information floating in the social media and LGBTQ cultural atmosphere of these losses will continually warn our society at large while giving voice to the difficulties and tragedies of life that often appear in those around us. These tragedies may have laid the framework for Dan Savage’s often idealized “It Get Better” campaign but I wonder what supports are in place for folks who have heard about their peers’ suicides and left wondering if it ever does. The Clementi article in The New Yorker gives voice to the oppression of one experience — it also gives voice to a queer ancestor of our youngest generation.
Brain-based learning is the answer
I was especially struck by the depth Philip brings to what are outlined as two generalizations of neuroscience in education: ‘Brain-based learning is the answer’ and ‘Neuroscience research is speaking directly to educators’. Both of these statements are more than over-generalizations; they support larger structures of power in the education system that are constantly looking for systematic, quantifiable, often absolute answers to deep questions about the brain, learning and meaning-making. By shifting the power of knowing to another scientific assessment, educators fall into the same traps presented by standardized testing and the pathologization of youth. I was excited to read more about the thinking Philip is doing to this epistemological realm in education because as an educator on the ground, I am inundated by newer, hipper, sexier neuro-learning possibilities that make all sorts of promises — not all of which are quantifiable but many of which seek to be. I worry that this new fad of education may miss the depth Philip points to while covering up the abstract difficulties of teaching, inquiring and exploring in meaningful ways.
‘Boomerang kids’
“Sleeping in a twin bed under some old Avril Lavigne posters is not a sign of giving up; it’s an economic plan. ‘Stop dumping on them because they need parental support,’ Arnett cautioned. ‘It doesn’t mean they’re lazy. It’s just harder to make your way now than it was in an older and simpler economy.'” —Adam Davidson
Johnson, Crosnoe and Elder identify what they see as the key intersections of adolescence as “the complex mutual selection of person and context — that which occurs through the interplay of environment and biology and also through the agentic strivings of adolescence.” In using this definition, they outline more than the commonly identified “nature v nurture” debate as critical to the identify formation of a person. The authors go one step farther to give voice to the “agentic strivings of adolescence” namely those features which empower the individual. One might imagine that the use of agency might separate adolescents from their parents. One would be mistaken. As Patricia Cohen points out, the “Long road to adulthood is growing even longer” today. Cohen highlights the trend of delayed adulthood in today’s 20-somethings and connects this upswing to lower economic possibilities, among other factors. The pitiful possibilities for folks graduating college today cripples an individual’s agency and highlights the important crossing of agency and economy as a barrier between adulthood and adolescence. If this barrier continues to grow larger, leaving more 20-somethings financially reliant on their parents, I wonder how the definition of adolescence and adulthood might morph into a more representative one. I also wonder how financial reliance may hold other forms of development in place as well.