The Moral Implications of Teacher - Child Discourse in Early Childhood Classrooms
Cary A. Buzzelli
Indiana University
The author wishes to express his appreciation to Marion Hyson, Janice E. Lilly, and three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. This article appeared in Earlychildhood Research Quaterly, vol. 11, 515-534, 1996.
Copyright © 1996, Cary A. Buzzelli
Abstract
The ways teachers engage children in discourse during teaching-learning activities have profound moral implications for children's learning and development. Specifically, the goals of the article are: 1) to explicate how teachers' control over classroom discourse patterns during teaching-learning activities influences the types of knowledge children create and acquire; 2) to examine the relationship between two types of teacher-child discourse commonly used in early childhood classrooms and the semiotic tools children appropriate through participation in each type of discourse; and 3) to outline the moral implications each has for children's learning and development. A framework for considering the moral implications of the ways teachers engage children in discourse during teaching - learning activities in early childhood classrooms is presented.
Numerous authors have discussed teaching as a moral activity (Ayers, 1993; Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993; Noddings, 1984. 1992; Sockett, 1993, Tom, 1984). Although these descriptions differ to some degree, two common features emerge: 1) teaching is founded upon a relationship between two or more individuals and therefore must be guided by a morality of relationship; and 2) teachers are engaged in changing the behavior of others to attain prescribed ends. These ends involve making decisions about what others should know and become: such judgments are based upon questions of value and worth, making them moral judgments. Jackson and colleagues cogently bring these two points together saying that teaching is "a way of trying to make people better than they are, which means that it is always legitimate to ask questions about how well or how poorly the teacher's students are being treated. And to raise questions about how one person treats another, no matter what the relationship, is to enter the domain of moral judgment" (Jackson et al., 1993, p. 173).
Surprisingly, few studies have examined the moral implications of the teaching - learning activities that occur in classrooms. Notable exceptions in the literature are the work of Rheta DeVries and her colleagues (DeVries, Haney, & Zan, 1991; DeVries, Reese-Learned & Morgan; 1991; DeVries & Zan, 1994), the study by Jackson, Boorstom, and Hansen (1993), and the recent study by Ball and Wilson (1996). Remarking on the dearth of studies, Sockett (1993) notes:
Much of what we read in the literature of education and much of what we are told is 'good' in the process of schooling is morally totally unexamined. Our conversation is dominated by mechanistic language: strategies, skills, time on task, and so forth.... But technique in teaching itself implies a view about what a human being is, what a person is, and that is at the very least evaluative and certainly moral (p. 14-15).
Teacher-child discourse is a central aspect of classroom life (Wells, 1992), whose moral implications have been ignored. A number of studies have examined the ways teachers talk with children in classrooms during teaching - learning experiences (e.g., Cazden, 1988; Christie, 1991; Cobb, Wood, & Yackel, 1993; Dillon, 1988, 1994; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Edwards & Westgate, 1994; Lemke, 1990, Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Couthard, 1975; Tizard & Hughes, 1984, Wells, 1993; Wood, 1992). These studies have focused primarily on how teachers structure discourse to achieve instructional objectives, and on the relationship between certain patterns of discourse and the types of knowledge children develop. None of these studies has explicitly addressed the moral implications of the types of discourse used in the classroom.
The purpose of this article is to examine classroom discourse and its moral implications for teaching and learning. Specifically, my goal is to establish a relationship between the discourse used by teachers in the classroom and the types of knowledge that are generated and shared in the classroom. Once this relationship is established I will examine its moral implications for children's learning and development.
This article will not be about direct forms of moral education (Jackson et al., 1993, Oser, Dick, Patry, 1992). Examining the moral implications of classroom discourse means that moral education cannot be examined as a separate 'type' of education but must always be seen as woven throughout all that happens in the daily fabric of classroom life. As Sockett notes "Every educational and teaching context remains a moral context" (1993, p. 14). What teachers say to children does matter, and because of this, classroom discourse is moral.
This topic is of particular importance to early childhood educators. It is within the early childhood classroom, be it day care center, nursery school or Kindergarten classroom, that many children encounter their first group learning experiences outside their home. It is also within these settings that children experience the two central moral aspects of teaching, namely, their relationship with their teacher and how the teacher will guide them in attaining the goals that have been set for them. Children experience these moral aspects of teaching primarily, though not exclusively, through classroom discourse.
The type of discourse used by a teacher in establishing relationships with children and engaging them in teaching-learning activities reflects the teacher's stance toward the role of the teacher in the classroom and toward children as learners. Thus, through classroom discourse children develop their understandings of themselves as learners, their expectations of their teachers as teachers, and their understandings of teaching and learning through the types of discourse they participate in during classroom activities. In other words, classroom discourse experiences are seminal to the ways children learn, what they learn, and how they come to see themselves as learners in their own education. Therefore, when examining the type of discourse used in classrooms numerous questions can be asked which focus our attention on the moral aspects of teaching and learning. Among these questions are the following: Are children treated in dignified and respectful ways due someone seen as a competent co-learner and as the subject of their own learning (Young, 1992)? Does the teacher allow children to bring their ways of thinking, knowing and communicating into teaching-learning activities? Or, does the teacher take the role of an authority whose role it to transmit knowledge and facts to children who are then seen as recipients and the objects of their learning (Young, 1992)? The answers to these questions will illustrate that different types of discourse involve children differently as learners and as individuals. Such differential treatment has profound moral implications for children's development and learning. These implications will be developed more fully in later sections of this paper. My purpose in this introduction is to establish two points: 1) that the type of classroom discourse teachers use and how they use it during teaching-learning activities with children does have moral implications for children; and 2) that is it important to begin the examination of the moral implications of the classroom discourse between teachers and children in those settings where children first encounter such experiences.
This paper is organized into the following sections. In the first section I argue that the ways teachers structure discourse influence the quality of children's engagement in learning activities and the types of knowledge that are created and shared in the classroom (Burbules, 1993; Buzzelli, 1995; Cazden, 1988; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Lemke, 1990; Mehan, 1979; Wells, 1992, 1993; Wood, 1992). Specifically, I will discuss two variations of the IRE (Initiation - Response - Evaluation) pattern common to early childhood classrooms. In the first form of the IRE pattern (from here on referred to as IREva), the teacher initiates with a question, to which a child responds, followed by either the teacher's evaluative comment or another question. In a second form of the IRE pattern (from here on referred to as IRExp), the teacher's E 'turn' is used to expand the children's responses enabling an extended discussion among teacher and children. I also will discuss the mediational means children appropriate from each and how each is related to the development of a particular type of knowledge (Lemke, 1995; Wells, 1993). In the second section I will consider how children are socialized into different 'epistemological worlds' (Edwards & Mercer, 1987) through engagement in different types of classroom discourse. I will outline two epistemological worlds which have different assumptions about the nature of knowledge, the nature of inquiry, children's capabilities as learners, and how children learn. The different epistemological worlds are reflected in and reflective of the ways teachers create a "moral culture of discussion" (Dillon, 1994, p. 109) in the classroom through the types of discourse they use and the manner in which they use them. As these differences are based upon questions of value and worth; what is worth knowing and how is it acquired (Jackson, et al., 1993), they are fundamentally moral decisions and therefore have moral implications for children's growth and development. In the concluding section I will examine the implications for early childhood research, teacher education and practice.
CONTROLLING KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING BY CONTROLLING DISCOURSE
Teachers control the structure and content of discourse through the types of questions they ask and through their responses to children. Edwards and Mercer note that the structure of teacher-child discourse provides teachers with a means "for controlling topics of discussion, directing pupils' thought and action, and establishing the extent of shared attention, joint activity and common knowledge" (1987, p. 46). Based upon fine-grained analyses of transcripts, Edwards and Mercer, found that by controlling classroom discourse "the teacher maintained a tight definition of what became joint versions of events, and joint understandings of curriculum content" (1987, p. 129). These authors remark that even though a classroom may appear to be child-centered, one in which teachers help children develop their own knowledge and understandings of curriculum content, a closer look may reveal that something quite different is occurring. An examination of the predominant type of classroom discourse will illustrate this point.
The IRE Pattern (Initiation - Response - Evaluation) (Mehan, 1979; Sinclair & Couthard, 1975), referred to as "triadic dialogue" by Lemke (1985, 1990), characterizes much of classroom discourse. It is common in many early childhood classrooms in various forms and activities (Cazden, 1988). The following example is drawn from a study by Hughes and Westgate (1988, p.11) in which a teacher (T) and six 4-5 year-old children (P) are involved in a 'sink/float' activity.
(1) (T) Now we're going to find out things that will...?
(2) (Chorus) Float.
(3) (T) Float. And things that will...?
(4) (Chorus) Sink.
(5) (T) Sink. How many of these will float?
(6) (P) A boat will.
(7) (T) How does a boat float?
(8) (P) It just floats there.
(9) (T) How do you know it is floating? (Pause) Does it go under the water or does it stay on top of the water?
(10) (P) On top.
(11) (T) It stays on top of the water.
In this short sequence the teacher controls the dialogue through use of known-answer questions. Particularly characteristic of this type of dialogue is the 'fill-in-blanks' nature of the questions as evident in questions (1), (3) and (9). Children are confined to contributing only exactly what the teacher asks for with little or no opportunity to express or expand upon their own ideas.
The IREva pattern when used primarily as a method of instruction raises a number of educational and moral concerns. The moral concerns will be addressed later in this paper. Numerous researchers (e.g., Dillon, 1988; Hughes & Westgate, 1988; 1990; Lemke, 1990; Michaels, 1991; Wood, 1992), have criticized the IREva pattern as having limited educational value for three reasons: 1) IREva is overused by teachers in the practice of asking too many known-answer questions; 2) when teachers' use of the E 'turn' (Evaluation) primarily for the evaluation of children's responses, they limit children's opportunities to initiate and develop their own topics; and 3) rather than encouraging children's engagement in learning activities, IREva reduces such involvement. For example, Hughes and Westgate (1988), in commenting on the example above, found that teachers' pedagogical agenda often resulted in a confined dialogue which restricted children's participation to short responses. Similarly, Edwards and Mercer (1987) found that use of the IREva pattern was related to children developing a 'ritual knowledge' of curriculum content, that is, merely knowing what to say or do when asked by the teacher. Thus, discourse patterns that restrict children's participation in learning activities to a confined way of reasoning and thinking, limit the types of knowledge they develop and the ways they engage in inquiry and the world of ideas (Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Mehan, 1979).
According to Wells (1993) the IRE pattern can serve an important function in the teaching-learning context, but its "merits or demerits depend upon the purposes it is used to serve on particular occasions, and upon the larger goals by which those purposes are informed" (p. 3). An increasing body of research (e.g., Burbules, 1993; Cazden, 1988; Dillon, 1988, 1994; Edwards & Westgate, 1994) argues that when the teacher's E 'turn' is used to expand children's responses, allowing for extended discussion among the teacher and children in the classroom, the IRExp form of discourse becomes a very effective means of guiding future learning and for " the co-construction of knowledge on the basis of ideas and experiences contributed by the students as well as the teacher"(Wells, 1993, pp.34-35). Below is an example drawn from a third-grade classroom in which the teacher (T) works with two children (C1, C2) to define the word 'unmotivated.'
(1) (T) Let's talk about 'unmotivated.' I know we haven't talked about ...we probably haven't even said that word in the room this year.
(2) (C1) No way! Uh un!.
(3) (T) That's a big old word that's about fifth or sixth grade level....
Ok, if you're motivated to do something...
(4) (C1) Yeah, I've heard it, but...
(5) (C2) Does it mean to sign up for something?
(6) (T) Let me use it within context um..."Ricky was motivated to make good grades."
(7) (C2) He learned to make good grades.
(8) (T) He learned and he...
(9) (C1) Succeeded.
(10) (T) He wanted.
(11) (C1) He tried.
(12) (T) He wanted to. He was motivated because for every A he was going to get a hundred dollars.
(Comment) Lots of smiles and "wow's from the children.
(13) (T) Good! OK. So, if you're motivated what does that mean?
(14) (C1) It means you want to.
(15) (T) Now, if you're UNmovtivated...
(16) (C1) You don't want to.
In this example, the teacher rather than asking the children for a definition of 'unmotivated', begins by using the word 'motivated' in a 'complete the sentence' format (3). She uses this approach, in part, to reinforce the children's previous work on prefixes. Then, a child, rather than the teacher, asks the first question (5). The teacher responds to the question by again placing the word in sentence, but this time in a complete sentence (6). As the discussion continues, the teacher builds upon the children's comments (8). At (10) she provides the main part of the definition "He wanted", and then gives an example (12). However, in providing the answer for 'motivated' she prepares the children for understanding the original word 'unmotivated', which she does by emphasizing the prefix when she pronounces the word (15).
Throughout this discussion, the teacher engaged the children in the process of 'finding out' what the word means. She expanded upon some of the children's responses by repeating them in her subsequent comment to them. An understanding of the word developed over a number of turns which indicates how the teacher engaged the children in the process. The teacher assisted the children by first, finding out the meaning of 'motivated' and then incorporating their previous study of prefixes to arrive at a definition of 'unmotivated.' So, the teacher has not only defined two words but placed a deeper understanding of how prefixes work within this activity.
Edwards and Mercer (1987) found a similar pattern of discourse when examining the dialogues in their study. Analysis of the dialogues indicated that discussion was extending when teachers expanded children's responses. This extension resulted in the development of 'principled knowledge' which is "essentially explanatory, oriented towards an understanding of how procedures and processes work, of why certain conclusions are necessary or valid" (1987, p. 97). Therefore we cannot consider the IRE pattern as representing a single form of classroom discourse resulting in children developing one type of knowledge or understanding. Rather, we must conceptualize classroom discourse, particularly the IRE pattern, more broadly, and in doing so realize that it is central to creating a context in which teaching and learning take place.
Equally, if not more important, though, is the consideration of the moral implications of classroom discourse (Buzzelli, 1995; Sockett, 1993). Thus, the broadening of our conceptualization of classroom discourse allows us to develop a better understanding of how different types of discourse have different moral implications for children's learning and development. Below I examine how the work of Bakhtin and Lotman, which builds upon that of Vygotsky, can expand our understanding of the role of classroom discourse in mediating teaching and learning, and thereby provide a context for conceptualizing the moral implications of classroom discourse.
Discourse and Dialogue in the Classroom: Contributions of Bakhtin and Lotman
Teaching based on the IRExp pattern, which draws heavily on the work of Vygotksy (1978, 1979), has been the focus of much recent research (e.g. Burbules, 1993; Cazden, 1988; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Lemke, 1990; Moll, 1990; Norman, 1992; Palincsar, Brown, & Campione, 1993; Wells, 1992, 1993, Wood, 1992). Recently, Bakhtin's (1981, 1986) notions of voice and speech genres have been used to extend Vygotskian theory by providing a fuller account of the role of discourse in teaching and learning, a view that conceptualizes teaching and learning as a dialogic process (Buzzelli, 1992, 1993, 1995, in press; Wertsch, 1991; Wertsch & Smolka, 1993; Wertsch & Toma, 1995; Wertsch, Tulviste, & Hagstrom, 1993).
Bakhtin considered all human experience as organized and expressed through utterances (Ramirez, 1992). Utterances always occur in response to a previous utterance. "Any utterance - the finished, written utterance not excepted - makes response to something and is calculated to be responded to in turn. It is but one link in a continuous chain of speech performance" (Volosinov, 1929/1973, p.72). For Bakhtin, utterances are expressed by a voice through a particular speech genre. Voice refers to the "speaking consciousness" which embodies not only the speaker's voice but the other influences upon that speaking consciousness, namely, other voices (Wertsch & Smolka, 1993).
Wertsch (1991) uses the concept of voice to explicate three basic ideas about mental functioning shared by Vygotsky and Bakhtin. Wertsch first notes that to understand mental functioning it is necessary to understand "the semiotic devices used to mediate such action" (1991, p. 13). The second point is that voice reflects the understanding that the communicative process is tied to aspects of mental functioning in fundamental ways. Lastly, voice highlights the belief held by both Vygotsky and Bakhtin that mental processes originate in communicative processes in a social context (Wertsch 1985, 1991).
For Bakhtin a voice is expressed through a speech genre which
"is not a form of language, but a typical form [i.e. a type] of utterance; ...genres correspond to typical situations of speech communication, typical themes, and...to actual concrete reality under certain typical circumstances" (1986, p. 87).
Speaking, then, necessitates the appropriation of a speech genre through which a particular utterance is expressed. Accordingly, the two patterns of IRE discussed above represent two types of speech genres.
Wertsch and Smolka argue that the speech genres are a mediational means for making a crucial connection "between inter-mental and intra-mental functioning on the one hand and cultural, historical and institutional settings on the other... [speech genres]..are quintessentially sociocultural in nature and hence naturally 'import' the sociocultural into the mental" (1993, p. 77). Speech genres, then, provide a means for linking the types of discourse used in a particular context to the types of mental activity and knowledge children develop through participation in shared activities in that context. For Wertsch and Smolka this link is "essential if one wants to specify how mental functioning is shaped by the various mediational means employed" (1993, p. 77).
Bakhtin, in his description of how children's responses are shaped by the speech genre used by the teacher, notes that "in schools, two basic modes are recognized for the appropriation and transmission - simultaneously - of another's words (a text, a rule, a model): 'reciting by heart' and 'retelling in one's own words' (1981, p. 341). For Bakhtin, reciting by heart "permits no play with the context framing it. One must totally affirm it, or totally reject it" (Emerson, 1981, p. 342-343). Reciting by heart best fits the IREva pattern because it describes the internalization of information conveyed by the adult. Conversely, retelling in one's own words exemplifies the IRExp pattern because it allows the creation of new meanings and new understandings of words available for use in new contexts. Bakhtin referred to "retelling" as internally persuasive discourse because it is the individual's self-formulated, self-regulated response to others.
Thus, the types of discourse used during different classroom activities represent different genres which have different purposes and different functions in the classroom. They engage children in different types of activities from which they appropriate different types of mediational means, and ultimately lead to children's creation of different types of knowledge (Wells, 1993). Lotman's (1988) conceptualization of classroom discourse as text provides a means of understanding how this occurs in classrooms.
Classroom Discourse as Classroom Text
Lotman (1988) describes two fundamental functions of all types of texts, including classroom discourse: "to convey meanings adequately, and to generate new meanings" (p. 34). Lotman refers to the first function as 'univocal' and the second as 'dialogic.' Although Lotman notes that both functions may operate in most texts, usually one function becomes predominant.
When the main emphasis is on the transmission of information, the univocal function dominates. According to Lotman (1988) "The first function is fulfilled best when the codes of the speaker and the listener most completely coincide" ( p. 34). In this function, the text is a passive link between sender and receiver whereby the receiver is to receive the sender's message as sent. Characteristic of a transmission mode of education relying on the IREva pattern, the purpose of the first function is to convey to children a specified body of content and skill knowledge, with questions asked primarily to gauge the children's reception of this message.
In the second function, the dialogic, the text serves as a 'thinking device.' It becomes a generator of new meanings because the "text is a semiotic space in which languages interact, interfere, and organize themselves hierarchically" (Lotman, 1988, p. 37). The text is a place where multiple voices come into contact with one another, and in doing so, they open possibilities of generating new meanings and new knowledge. These characteristics describe the IRExp pattern.
The characteristics are evident in the following dialogue between a teacher (T) and a group of children (C1, C2,...) about buddies which occurred in a Kindergarten classroom.
(1) (T) Let's see, anybody know what a buddy is?
(2) (C1) I know. It's somebody who you like.
And it's your friend, and all, I mean...
(3) (T) Anything else? Raise your hand. Haley.
(4) (C2) Uh...Somebody who you like very much.
(5) (T) Uh huh.
(6) (C2) Like me and Jeremy are.
(7) (T) Right. What kinds of things do buddies do together?
(8) (C3) Play with each other.
(9) (T) Play together. What are some other things that buddies can do besides play?
(10) (C3) Read together.
(11) (T) Read together. Ok.
(12) (C4) Do homework together.
(13) (T) Do homework together. Play math games together.
(14) (C4) Reading buddies?
(15) (T) Uh Huh.
In this brief dialogue the teacher has engaged the children in the process of looking at the different aspects of 'what a buddy is'. She begins with a question (1) that allows multiple voices to be heard and contribute to the description of 'buddy' evident in comments (2), (4), (8), (10), (12), and (14). By repeating each child's response in comments (9), (11), and (13), the teacher implicitly asks for a continuation of the discourse. She does not attempt to close it, but allows the children opportunities to continue building on the concept of buddy. Although the answers from the children are short, their cumulative effect is to create a jointly constructed concept of "buddy." In one sense the teacher does maintain control of the discourse by in directing it. In another sense, however, the children's responses appear to directly influence the teacher's subsequent comments. The teacher not only acknowledges them, but incorporates them through repetition into her subsequent comment. By allowing the multiple voices of children to be heard and incorporated into to the discourse, the teacher and children participate in a dialogic inquiry. The inquiry does not end after the first correct response, but continues as a search for more answers which will provide an enlarged and richer description of the concept. From this shared experience the children appropriate a different style of inquiry, one that seeks answers from multiple perspectives and sources.
Therefore, the two forms of discourse briefly described above carry no inherent moral value in and of themselves. Two factors account for their becoming moral in nature. These factors also allow for a distinction to be made between moral means and moral outcomes (Dewey, 1909). The first factor considers the function the discourse serves in teaching-learning activities. How discourse is used in a teaching-learning activity is part of what constitutes the very nature of that activity. An example may help clarify. It is perfectly legitimate, educationally and morally, for early childhood teachers to use the IREva pattern for assessing children's knowledge either prior to or following a teaching-learning activity. Using the pattern prior to the lesson provides the teacher with important information about what the children already know so that adjustments can be made in the activity that is to follow. Similarly, by employing the pattern following an activity, a teacher can assess the knowledge and skills children attained as a result of the lesson. However, use of this pattern becomes problematic educationally and morally, when it is used as a means of teaching certain types of content, such as the use of rote drill to teach the concept of addition or subtraction. The second factor, intimately related to the first, addresses the extent of the IREva pattern's use in classroom activities. It is the exclusive or primary use of this pattern throughout teaching-learning activities that can become an educational and moral concern. The educational concerns are that the types of knowledge children develop and the ways they engage in inquiry are limited. The moral concern is that children are denied the opportunity to hear multiple perspectives from which they can generate new knowledge and retell it in their own words. This hampers children's ability to develop a self-formulated, self-regulated responses to others.
DIFFERENT DISCOURSES - DIFFERENT KNOWLEDGE - DIFFERENT WORLDS:
CREATING THE MORAL CULTURE OF THE CLASSROOM
Placed within a sociocultural perspective, classroom discourse has the potential to influence children's appropriation of the mediational means for inquiry and problem solving, as well as the ways of conceptualizing the nature of knowledge and its pursuit through inquiry. Essentially, if we consider "the nature of education as a socialization into a pre-existing epistemological world" (Edwards & Mercer, 1987, p. 98), exclusive or extensive engagement in IREva may socialize children into a different 'epistemological world' from that of children engaged in IRExp learning experiences.
Different epistemological worlds have different conceptualizations of knowledge and inquiry, that is, what is worth knowing and how it becomes known to the teacher and the learner. In the epistemological world of IREva, knowledge is to be acquired as bits of information. Children as learners are to absorb, take in, facts and hold them for later recall. Conversely, knowledge in the epistemological world of IRExp is constructed by and with those involved in the learning activities, by teachers and children alike. Children are seen as capable learners worthy of the work of intense, sustained, meaningful, and deliberate inquiry. In the former view, knowledge is to be had, to be received from another as a commodity that becomes known. In the latter view, knowledge is created through social experiences and is connected to the social world of others and their concerns.
For Dewey (1909), the distinction between the two epistemological worlds as exemplified by types of discourses associated with each provides: the moral standard by which to test the work of the school upon the side of what it does directly for individuals...Does it afford sufficient opportunity for these to assert themselves and work out their results?
Can we even say that the school in principle attaches it self, at present, to the active constructive powers rather than to process of absorption and learning? (p. 53).
For Dewey "active constructive powers" represent the full engagement of the child's abilities, interests, and feelings in activities connected to the social life of others, whereas "absorption and learning" is the passive taking in of unrelated facts and abstract knowledge. This distinction parallels that between IRExp and IREva.
While providing insights into our understanding of different epistemological worlds, the nature of classroom discourse also reflects teachers' beliefs about teaching, learning, and children. In considering the ways teachers engage children in dialogue during teaching-learning experiences Burbules (1993) notes that:
Choices ...we adopt in a dialogical relation - such as the kinds of questions we ask - arise from explicit or implicit decisions about such things as a view of knowledge, a conception of authority, or assumptions about our partners in the relation (p. 109).
Burbules' comments echo, once again, the two central moral aspects of teaching:
teaching is founded upon a relationship between teacher and child, and based upon that relationship the teacher attempts to change the child in prescribed ways.
The decisions and choices about which questions to ask, how to ask them and in which context to ask them are based upon teachers' beliefs and assumptions about: how children learn, the children's capabilities as learners, what is worthwhile for children to learn, and ultimately, to teachers' views about the value of knowledge and its pursuit (Anning, 1988; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Kagan, 1990). These decisions, once made, influence the teacher-child relationship and the nature of the teaching-learning activities undertaken within the relationship.
Maher and Tetreault (1994) outline four dimensions which provide a way of examining teacher-child interactions during learning activities. The dimensions provide a means of analyzing how teachers engage children in teaching learning activities, what children learn from the activities, the nature of children's participation in the activities, and how teachers and children relate to one another during the activities. Further, they provide a means of framing teaching learning activities in a moral context. The dimensions and questions that derive from them are as follows: 1) Mastery: What knowledge and mediational means are children mastering as a result of their participation in classroom activities? What do they mean for future learning and development?; 2) Voice: Are children's voices present in the discourse? Do we hear children's interests, questions, concerns expressed and acknowledged in the discourse? Are children able to keep their own voice while appropriating the voice of the school?; 3) Authority: Who is seen as the authority on knowledge and ways of learning in the classroom? What authority is given to children for their own learning? 4) Positionality: What is the teacher's position relative to children as learners and what is to be learned? Does the teacher strive to enlist children as co-learners and as co-teachers? (see also Young, 1992, for a similar discussion on positionality).
These dimensions provide a means of making crucial connections between the epistemological issues described above and the moral implications of classroom discourse for children's learning and development. Below, for each dimension, the epistemological issues are presented followed by a set of moral questions which directly address the dimension. Again, my purpose in doing this is to clearly place the epistemological issues of classroom discourse squarely in a moral context.
Mastery: Wertsch (1991; Wertsch & Smolka, 1993; Wertsch & Toma, 1995) clearly makes the case that the form of mediational means children appropriate from participation in teaching-learning activities is directly related to the type of classroom discourse selected and used by the teacher. We can now ask: Is it moral to engage children in the mastery of a collection of facts and content rather than in mastering forms and strategies of inquiry?
Voice: Bakhtin (1981; 1986) has outlined how the different forms of discourse, 'reciting by heart' or 'retelling in one's own words', reflect a univocal or dialogical approach to teaching and learning. In the former, children respond using the teacher's voice as it has been transmitted to them. In the latter, children fashion their responses in unique ways which reflect their own ways of learning and knowing. In this process children continually develop their own voices as learners and knowers. Also germane to this dimension is Lotman's notion of the first and second functions of texts and of how teachers use them, either to convey a message or to generate new knowledge. For this dimension, the following questions arise: Is it moral to limit the contribution of children's voices in classroom discourse? Or to allow only the voices of only some children to be heard? Is moral to prohibit children from bringing to the classroom their own ways of knowing and communicating which they express through their unique voices ?
Authority: As noted above, Bakhtin's notions of 'reciting' and 'retelling' reflect the teacher's authority and control over the types of discourse used during teaching-learning activities. A teacher's authority can take many forms of expression. Authority can be used to open dialogue among all in the classroom or it can limit participation by privileging some member over others, by it the teacher or select children. The following questions may be generated from this dimension: Is it moral to engage children in learning activities in which the teacher assumes the role as exclusive authority over knowledge and claims to the validity of that knowledge? Is it moral that children's claims to knowledge be seen as challenges to the teacher's authority as a transmitter of knowledge rather than a challenge to the authenticity of that knowledge in their own lives and experiences?
Positionality: This last dimension focuses on how the teacher views children as learners and what is to be learned. It encompasses questions about how children come to know and the nature of the knowledge that is made known to them. As such it is intimately related to each of the other dimensions. The moral questions focus on the nature knowledge and of teaching -learning activities: Is it moral that the position of the teacher relative to children be exclusively one of a holder and transmitter of knowledge rather than partially as a co-learner? Is it moral that knowledge is understood exclusively as content transmitted from one individual to another rather than envisioned as co-constructed by all learners engaged in shared inquiry?
Thus, the moral implications of discourse extend beyond the selection of one genre rather than another, choosing IRExp rather than IREva. There is a second aspect to the moral implications which has to do with how a teacher creates and supports "the moral culture of discussion" (Dillon, 1994, p. 109). For Dillon, the moral culture of discussion is created through the participants' shared commitment to a set of assumptions which serve as principles of conduct. These included among others "respect for persons, truthfulness, equality, reasonableness" (1994, p. 10). Based upon these shared assumptions, "Discussion initiates us into a special way of acting together, cultivating within us dispositions and virtues of conduct" (Dillon, 1994, p. 109). The moral culture of discussion, then, is concerned with how one treats others and the ways of engaging with others for the pursuit and creation of knowledge. Thus, within a moral culture of discussion respect and care is taken when engaging in inquiry with others and their ideas. Neither persons nor ideas are dismissed out of hand.
Rice and Burbules (1993) have enumerated a similar set of dispositions and virtues that are central to and necessary for dialogue. They refer to the following as communicative virtues: "patience, tolerance for alternative points of view, respect for differences, the willingness and ability to listen thoughtfully and attentively, an openness to giving and receiving criticism, and honest and sincere self-expression" (1993, p. 35). These virtues allow for authentic dialogue, one in which all participants are able to engage one another and ideas. They are constitutive of dialogue but also are developed through dialogue. Children develop these virtues "in their relations with others who already possess them (Rice & Burbules, 1993, p. 40).
The virtues outlined by Rice and Burbules, and Dillon, are pertinent not only for how teachers and children engage one another as learners, but for how teachers and children as learners engage knowledge and its pursuit. They are fundamental to the creation of a context in the classroom in which children engage with their teacher and peers as active teachers and active learners in meaningful encounters with others and their ideas.
A final aspect of the moral implications of classroom discourse has to do with decisions about what is of worth for children to know and attain. Indeed, Jackson et al. (1993) describe worthwhileness as an underlying assumption necessary for the educational process which has important moral implications for teaching and learning. If either teacher or students questioned the very worthwhileness of their shared undertaking, it would be very difficult if not impossible for any teaching or learning to occur. But these authors note that what makes this assumption of worthwhileness moral is that it rests upon a deeper, tacit understanding about schools as institutions and their purposes. Worthwhileness is based upon the notion that schools are places "where one goes to receive help, to be made more knowledgeable and more skillful... this implies that the people in charge care about the welfare of those they serve and only ask them to do things that are expected to do them good (Jackson, et al., 1993, p. 25). Therefore, children's experiences in learning activities have profound moral implications for children's growth and development not only as learners, but more fundamentally, for the types of people they become (Noddings, 1992, Sockett, 1993).
In this section I have located the moral implications of classroom discourse in the ways teachers engage children in teaching-learning activities. To do so, I have made connections between epistemological issues, such as the nature of knowledge as socially constructed through joint participation in activities (e.g. Bakhtin, 1984; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Wertsch, 1991; Wells, 1993), and moral aspects of how teachers engage children in teaching learning activities (e.g., Buzzelli, 1993, in press; Dewey, 1909; Jackson, et al., 1993; Lyons, 1990; Maher & Tetreault, 1994). The connections illustrate how two types of classroom discourse are related to the construction of different types of knowledge and how each socializes children into different epistemological worlds. Ultimately, this influences children's understandings of teaching, learning, the nature of knowledge, and their role in its creation. Finally, I have outlined how specific dispositions and virtues are developed through, but are also necessary to develop the moral culture of discussion (Dillon, 1994).
IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH , PRACTICE AND TEACHER EDUCATION
In this paper I have argued that the types of discourse teachers use with children during teaching-learning experiences have moral implications for children's development and learning. The recognition of the moral implications of classroom discourse means that they also should serve as a lens through which early childhood educators can reflect on research, practice and teacher education. Examining research, practice and teacher education through a moral lens forces us to consider the values which underlie our selection of research questions, classroom practices, and the focus of teacher education programs. Each will be examined below.
Acknowledging the moral implications of classroom discourse has important implications for research in early childhood classrooms. Research on classroom discourse in early childhood classrooms (e.g. Cazden, 1988, Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Wells, 1993) has provided us with a wealth of knowledge for understanding how teachers and children jointly create, or fail to create, meanings of classroom events and experiences. However, this research has not examined the moral implications of the discourse used in classroom experiences. Another active area of research in early childhood education is the influence of children's experience in developmentally appropriate and developmentally inappropriate classrooms on their development and learning (e.g., Charlesworth, Hart, Burt, & DeWolf, 1993). However, these studies in their examination of the long-term effects of experience in developmentally appropriate and developmentally inappropriate classrooms on children's social, emotional, psychological and physical development, also have not examined the moral implications of such experiences. Thus, important research questions remain among them are the following: Might teachers who incorporate many developmentally appropriate activities into their classrooms still use forms of discourse that are inconsistent with those activities?; How might consideration of the moral implications of classroom practices change our understanding and implementation of developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms?
Viewing practice through a moral lens means that teachers' reflections must focus on the moral value of the choices they make for children's experiences in classrooms. As practitioners, our reflections must question not only how our classroom practices influence children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and language development, but also how these choices influence the very nature and quality of development in these areas. This means that reflections upon the effectiveness of one's work as a teacher must always be placed within a moral context.
If teachers are to undertake reflection upon the moral implications of classroom practices such reflection must become a central focus of teacher education. Care must be taken to insure that future early childhood educators envision their classrooms as moral contexts for children's development and learning. Within such classrooms their practice as teachers will have profound implications for children's development and learning in the very broadest sense.
CONCLUSION
As early childhood educators our concerns should focus on providing experiences which acknowledge children as capable and enthusiastic learners, encourage children to pursue knowledge in creative ways, nurture their excitement for learning, and assist them in making connections between what is known and what could be known. The ways teachers undertake these activities have profound moral implications for children's development and learning.
The restriction of children's development and learning as the result of the way teachers engage children in classroom activities should be of great educational and moral concern to early childhood educators. For an appreciation of the moral implications of classrooms experiences upon children, education must always viewed as occurring within a moral context. At the beginning of this century Dewey described how education can occur within a moral context. As we enter the next century his words are as poignant as ever:
in so far as methods used are those that appeal to the active and constructive powers, permitting the child to give out and thus to serve; in so far as the curriculum is so selected and organized as to provide the material for affording the child a consciousness of the work in which he has to play a part and the demands he has to meet, so far as these ends are met the school is organized on an ethical basis... The teacher who operates in this faith will find every subject, every method of instruction, every incident of school life pregnant with moral possibilities (1990, pp.44,58) Conceptualizing teaching as inherently a moral activity means that we, as early childhood educators, must consider the moral implications of all the activities that occur our classrooms.
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