bruner posting

Jerome Bruner considers that there is no age at which a person is not able to learn something if it is taught in the appropriate way. Although this may be true, I question whether learning certain things when very young is healthy. For example, children may learn to read when very young but might it not be better that the child is playing outdoors and experiencing real life?
Bruner claims that there are three modes of representation: Enactive, Iconic and Symbolic and everything should be taught in this order. It is interesting to note that these same modes correspond to the rough approaches which are used in Steiner education with the first seven years of life being active (not reading etc), the second seven years having learning with many pictures being used and the third seven years becoming more logical and academic in its focus.
Bruner also says that the culture in which a person lives is very important in education and I agree with this. I am sure that where someone is living has an enormous impact on how someone learns both negatively and positively. When I think of the lack of motivation in most of the North Shore students I teach, it is quite alarming. It is very difficult for students to imagine themselves outside of their immediate surroundings, so to them the idea of learning a foreign language is a waste of time as it not part of their culture. For Germans to learn English is a different matter as English is so readily available in their media. As Bruner says an “interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus for learning”. (The Process of Education. 1960)
Knowing how very little I remember from the information I learnt while at school, the final quote I read by Bruner reflects exactly what I think:
“To instruct someone…is not a matter of getting him to commit results to mind. Rather it is to teach him to participate in the process that makes possible the establishment of knowledge. Knowing is a process not a product”. (Postscript for The Process of Education. 1966)
References:

Flores, Nicole. Jerome Bruner’s Education Theory
Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Bruner.html" http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Bruner.html
on April 3 2007

jerome bruner and the process of education
Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm" http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm
on April 3 2007

Jerome Bruner Wikipedia article
Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bruner" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Bruner
On April 3 2007

LECTURE 14: BRUNER
Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/lect14/lect1400.htm" http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/lect14/lect1400.htm
on April 3 2007