Transforming the Structure of Failure; The Structure of Failure: Part II

The present trend in writings on school has shifted womewhat from the documentation of educational inadequacies and inequities and suggestions for their reform, to analyses of the role schooling plays in out society generally. While the efforts of educationally disenfranchised communities to achieve some influence and control over the schooling of their children has slowed, it has not ceased. Such efforts can give direction to those who still seek ways to improve education for the poor. The first section of this focuses on the social context of teaching from the viewpoint of an anthropologist. The second follows through on the implications of individual learning from the standpoint of a psychologist. Three basic arguments are put forth: (1) that a new process-oriented education for poor children cannot be implemented in schools which have failed to resolve the ideological tensions between oppressed communities and their educational institutions; (2) that the focus on children as targets of change in the war on poverty--a focus which did not include entire communities in programmatic efforts to eradicate poverty--created new problems without necessarily solving old ones; and, (3) that teachers cannot respond productively to the learning and thinking styles of children which are different from their own unless we develop new forms and structures for schooling. (Author/JM)