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Teaching the Child Under Six
1 SOFTCOVER BOOK, RETIRED FROM LIBRARY
Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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July 26, 2021
I really appreciated Hymes‘s thoughts and arguments in this book. I was hesitant to pick up a 47-year-old book on teaching, but I was equally astonished and frustrated with how much of what Hymes laments is still true today: overcrowded classrooms, underfunded schools, undue downward pressure for “readiness” on early childhood programs. It’s depressing to think that folks have been saying this for a half-century and we still haven’t pulled out of it. That said, this book does leave a lot out. There is little-to-no conversation of race and language as dimensions of diversity in education. He brushes up on socio-economics (as a proxy for race, certainly) in discussing Head Start, which he also had a heavy hand in developing. (A fact that’s conveniently ignored in the text!) His admissions around some of the pitfalls, assumptions, and limitations of Head Start were surprisingly honest to me, but still don’t go far enough to position them within a broader societal-political context of systemic oppression. Were he alive today, an updated version/edition of this text could be incredibly powerful for practicing and pre-service teachers.
In a similar vein, finally, one area where I vehemently disagree with Hymes is the ending. He claims that we must “climate control” schools—that is to say, “[t]he world outside may get out of bounds, but inside the world of the classroom, no child need to know the idleness of depression, the violence of a war, the driven fury of the rat race.” Hymes suggests that we “exorcise” these societal sicknesses from out classrooms. This is a privileged, whitewashed, and wholly inadequate response to the types of very real problems that are lived daily experiences for many, many young children. It’s a shame that Hymes couldn’t push beyond that neoliberalist worldview of reform in his final assessment of what’s next, when he came so close to advocating for real reimagining ways of being in schools throughout the book.
All in all, a solid base, and a great introductory reminder of what’s important for our youngest humans. But its messages need some timely maintenance.
In a similar vein, finally, one area where I vehemently disagree with Hymes is the ending. He claims that we must “climate control” schools—that is to say, “[t]he world outside may get out of bounds, but inside the world of the classroom, no child need to know the idleness of depression, the violence of a war, the driven fury of the rat race.” Hymes suggests that we “exorcise” these societal sicknesses from out classrooms. This is a privileged, whitewashed, and wholly inadequate response to the types of very real problems that are lived daily experiences for many, many young children. It’s a shame that Hymes couldn’t push beyond that neoliberalist worldview of reform in his final assessment of what’s next, when he came so close to advocating for real reimagining ways of being in schools throughout the book.
All in all, a solid base, and a great introductory reminder of what’s important for our youngest humans. But its messages need some timely maintenance.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review