One of the many things from Myers that caught my attention is his explanation of the Piagetian letdown. Piaget's theory of development (something we all probably learned in high school psych or at least undergrad ed) has these stages that all kids supposedly go through in the same order, but not at the same rate. It does make sense. This idea was the basis of my training when I worked for the IRD, something I had to constantly repeat during parents' meetings and conferences with not-doing-well students, and it's something I believed, but anytime you say something like "all kids," you're setting yourself up. Piaget described the exceptions as "decalage"--every concept can have several layers or levels of meaning, and this is not the exception, but the rule. Just like AISD's slogan "every child can learn" (duh), these pat ideas and boxes don't contain or explain how children learn, what they learn, and what they learn to do with it. I was really impressed when my kids figured out how to get around the myspace firewall, for appearing to have little technological skill. Unfortunately this kind of problem solving isn't tested on TAKS. As described in Ch. 10, negotiating sign systems, problem solving, and communication is what we should be focusing on in our curriculum. Given the scope of the Internet's effect on how we communicate, learn, think, etc, it's ridiculous that kids are given so little time in the computer lab and are so restricted in their search parameters.
More interestingly, Myers goes on to suggest that we not only condone internal talk (deemed to be sign of craziness by mainstream society), but make it explicit, to use "the power of internalized discourse as a tool for self-regulation, problem analysis, and self-discovery." We all do it. I was thinking a good blog would be one where all one's inner monologue was written down, but I don't think it works that way--some things, once uttered or written, lose the function of its structure. To say your inner thoughts aloud would place them outside the context of your own brain, out there in the world to clash and interact with other stuff. It's not meant to be shared, it's how you work through things on your own, and it's pretty important unless we want classrooms of helpless kids who rely on us for everything.
Chapter 8 is titled "Embodied Knowledge: Self-fashioning and Agency." The idea is that a form of literacy is always a form of self-fashioning. Clearly our self-talk also influences and forms our identity, and it worries me, given the state of things, what kids may be saying to themselves and making of themselves.
More to come.
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To say your inner thoughts aloud would place them outside the context of your own brain, out there in the world to clash and interact with other stuff. It's not meant to be shared, it's how you work through things on your own, and it's pretty important unless we want classrooms of helpless kids who rely on us for everything.
But as teachers (and parents), and I think Myers makes reference to this, we need to give voice to our own inner monologue so that students can experience that in a community, learn about it, and then internalize it.
I think you're definitely right--giving respect to inner speak and making it not only okay but necessary should be something educators do. My point is that once it becomes something more than inside you, it changes.
"Thinking aloud" was a frequent occurence in my (and hopefully lots and lots of other teachers') classroom - a useful pedagogical tool for modeling reading, writing, and thinking processes. Myers foreshadows what may now be commonplace in his suggestions that we "make internalized talk visible" (p. 167-168). Such a great tool for making the work of thiking more explicit for young learners! :-)
it is all simply modeling. We "act out" our inner speech in order to show the students the process. However it is still just an act because it is our own inner speech which is directing our acted out inner speech. So I guess I am going along with Jen, because it is outside and when it is outside it changes. Of course it (whatever it is) changes as we use it, as we ourselves are changed.
Ok, so I'm disappearing into the ozone on that last sentence.
But I don't think an 'inner voice' really is an isolated internal voice. It is constantly being buffeted by the social world in which we live. So while this voice does change once spoken/written aloud, it changes even if it is not made public because whatever event initiated the reaction, automatically changed the voice.
Did I get somewhere, or just go further into the stratosphere?
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