Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited

Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited by Tobin, J. et al. (2009) is a landmark in the history of early childhood education. It is a study on childhood education of China, Japan, and the USA. It explored what changed and what remained unchanged in teaching modes within the span of twenty years. While China emphasized control, discipline, and didactic mode of teaching in early 1980s, it now paid stress on child-centered approach, child’s creativity, and independence with socialist values being unchanged. Compared to China, the preschools in Japan did not change so much. On the other hand, the mode of teaching in the USA was interactional. I think the aim of preschool education in those countries is same (imparting education) but their modes teaching are different.

The mode of teaching in China through sociodramatic play has really impressed me. The children play different roles – roles of patients, doctors, grocers, hairdressers, and clients. This is a rehearsal of the drama intended for children to stage later in their real life. Teachers are also seen to participate in their drama as guest, and behave like children. In this regard, teachers produce a new identity: identity of children, deleting their identity as instructors. No teachers can teach well without lowering themselves to the level of children. Perhaps the teachers participating in this drama evaluate this idea. They apply, and comply with this idea in preschool education.

The non-interventional role of Morita-sensei in children fighting has also impressed me. It is an approach or art that teaches students to solve their problems by themselves. This is one kind of training of how to address problems in real life. The sociodramatic play in Chinese preschool education and teacher’s non-interventional role in students’ fight are both equally significant. Both intend to train children how to overcome problems in real life.

            One of the key themes of this study is indigenization or localization. It is a process through which an exoteric culture merges into native culture. In other words, it is a process of borrowing things to be planted in native culture. Negativists label this process as a cultural aggression. However, indigenization is associated with the notion of hybridization which results from the process of globalization accelerated by an overwhelming advancement of science, technology, and information. The use of videotapes might accelerate the process of hybridization in pedagogical practices and procedures that helped teachers and policymakers to adopt the good aspects of pedagogical approaches of the exoteric culture to reconstruct the native mode of their teaching in education system – a hybrid method which belongs to all, and in this way, this method might be universal in appeal. This method has left an ample space for self-correction, self-criticism, and self-development. It works for the principle of taking and giving labeled as key to hybridization resulting from the process of globalization.

Another theme that I would like to discuss here is “the relativity of time and space in the workings of educational reform – 2004 in Kunming, China, is not quite the same time as 2004 in Shanghai.” It is true in the context of China, if not fully convincing in the case of developed countries like the USA, Canada, and Germany which ensure equal development in all their provinces or territories. But the economic development in the developing countries in most cases center around the largest cities. This economic growth and development impact on education. Kunming’s rapid economic development helped it to be more advanced than Shanghai. Though these two cities belonged to China, they could not equally pace with time: Kunming advanced, but Shanghai lagged behind in pedagogical reforms. The local factors had immense contribution to this relativity of time and space in the workings of education reform.       

             The strength of the method in this study known as video cued multi-vocal diachronic ethnography consists in the synthetization of ethnography, historiography, and tape recording. This method included the following steps: videotaping a day at a preschool, editing the tape, and reducing it to 20 minutes; showing the tape to the teacher whose class was recorded; showing the tape to the teachers of the same school; showing the tape to preschool educators in the same country, and finally to the preschool educators of the two other countries. It is the strength of the method that interlaces the voices of participants to create an orchestral collection of cultural approaches to preschool education. In other words, this method has juxtaposed the past and present of the pedagogical practices of three cultures. It helps the instructors and policymakers rethink about their education system and mode of teaching.  This method ensured the engagement of all parties: students, teachers, educators, directors, and policymakers.

In this study the authors have used videotapes which “are not the data; rather, they are cues, stimuli, topics for discussion, interviewing.” It is convincing because videotapes are devices that record pictures and sounds of this study. They are devices through which the authors recorded the pedagogical practices of this study with an aim to watch events later. May be, the authors did not view videotapes as data, but they (videotapes) got some aspects of data that one could use if needed.

The strength of this method surpasses its weakness. However, lengthy process of showing the videotapes to varied individuals and institutions of the three cultures concerned in pedagogical practices is a bit time consuming as well as expensive.  This study was conducted on a limited number of preschools which cannot reflect the overall preschool education system in China. Besides, the authors took around twenty years to complete this study. It is, indeed, a long time, during which there might be a sea change in the realm of pedagogy. The preschool education systems followed 20 years ago might naturally seem outdated, irrational, and awkward 20 years later. However, despite these weaknesses, the method applied in this study is novel, that deserves credit.

References

Tobin, J., Hsueh, Y., & Karasawa, M. (2009). Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China,    Japan, and the United States. University of Chicago Press.