2006-03-17 DailyWorkNotes

<em>"The phenomena we call 'culture' arise as people pool and accumulate their discoveries, and as they institute conventions to co-ordinate their labours and adjudicate their conflicts. When groups of people separated by time and geography accumulate different discoveries and conventions, we use the plural and call them cultures."</em>

• Steven Pinker, /The blank slate: the modern denial of human nature/ (2002), p. 60

Quoted in /Sinister storytellers, magic flutes and spinning tops: the links between play and 'popular' culture/, Sandra Smidt, /Early Years/ Vol. 24 No 1, March 2004, p.79

Smidt writes about Paula Rego, disturbing surrealist painter, "the sinister storyteller."

She reflects on the cultural influences on her grandchildren's play, and how these can scaffold their learning and inspire them to learn in self-directed and novel ways. The popular cultural influences (cartoons, Harry Potter, Pokemon etc.) are important because they click with the interests and level of understanding that children have, and so they can make sense of and assimilate what they are exposed to, and hence learn from it.

What is popular culture? In order to answer this, Smidt has first to define culture. Hence the Pinker quote above.

"Learning is to do with the transmission of culture." The passing on of accumulated knowledge, adaptations, discoveries and traditions.

To be continued...