A Film Analysis of Cultural Confrontation in the Schools


About the Book

This is a study of the educational process where the teacher and the student represent different communities. The settings for the study range from schools in isolated Alaskan villages attended only by Eskimos to schools in Anchorage where only 7 percent of the student body are Eskimo, Indian, and Aleutian. The research is unique not only because it was done on a wide range of communities but because it was carried out by an anthropologist using film and tape as his major data collecting devices. The procedures used and explained by John Collier in this case study enabled him in a comparatively short period of time and with twenty hours of film as data to produce a substantial and very insightful analysis of education.
Perhaps because of his use of motion picture photography as a research technique, his analysis calls attention to the elemental rhythms of interaction and movement within the classroom. The teacher who moves into and becomes a part of the circle of children, the teacher who talks to the empty seats in the classroom at a great distance, the teacher who is oriented to the individual tasks of individual children, and the children themselves, involved and spontaneous or bored and sleepy, come through in a way that is rare in the literature of schooling and education.
The insights into educational process to be gained from this case study are not limited in their application to Eskimo or Indian education alone. The teacher in every school in every classroom is in some measure separated culturally from his or her students. The separation and insulation of the teacher is more severe in the cases described by John Collier than in many schools in the United States, but the elements of interaction and communication are perceivable and held in common in all schools. Conversely, the elements of effective teaching and productive learning are identifiable and applicable to all schools. In this case study it is clear that education is a transaction dependent upon interaction and empathy.
The case study also raises questions about the relevance of what is taught. It is nor merely a question of whether Eskimo children should be taught about the culture and technology of the Whiteman in, say, Seattle, Washington, but rather one of how the knowledge about Seattle shall be joined with an understanding of the environment in which the Eskimo child is living. If the teacher is sealed off from this environment both physically and psychologically, the probability that a viable joining will occur is remote. This generalization applies to any school any place.

George and Louise Spindler General Editors
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA

Information about the resource can be found at:
ANKN Clearinghouse
P.O.Box 756730
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-6730

Tel: (907) 474-5897

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