Abstract

LESKO, Nancy. The promises of student talk: The Harvard public issues series and stuttering pedagogies. Educação. UNISINOS [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.1, pp.36-47.  Epub June 18, 2019. ISSN 2177-6210.  https://doi.org/10.4013/edu.2019.231.03.

Amplifying student talk in schools was one of the multiple reforms of the 1960s-1970s that targeted the passivity and mindlessness of US schooling. The Harvard Public Issues Series (Oliver and Shaver) was a “new social studies” curriculum that explicitly promoted classroom discussion. Through a close analysis of this curriculum, I will examine student talk as a desired pedagogical practice. I plan to historicize educators’ focus on classroom talk and utilize feminist and postcolonial critiques of the presumed universal effects of student dialogue (e.g. Boler). Materials to be examined include the Public Issues curriculum materials and teacher manuals, secondary scholarship on the Harvard Public Issues Project (e.g. Bohan and Feinberg) and on classroom discussion, and my own recollections of teaching the new social studies as a beginning teacher.

Keywords : student talk; new social studies curriculum; pedagogical objects of desire.

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