Reaction Day Three Dr. White's Class

HCD 502 Chilhood in Cultural Contexts
Wednesday, 20 June 2006

Reaction Paper:

1) “Children at School” by Mackinnon: The story of Anita sums up Bangladeshi schools i.e., the teacher tells them what they need in the Chennai school but the school in the UK expected the students to find the answers! How do we change the Bangladesh school system from rote to finding their own answers?

2) I had never thought of Manifest and latent functions i.e. Compassion’s Manifest is releasing children from poverty; however, one of the latent functions is a place to get a good hot meal for poor children.

In our group on “WORK and Children” our Manifest was “work is for a better life.” However, some of the latent functions are:

• By working I can help my family
• By working, I don’t have to listen to anybody (parents, teachers, adults)
• Work is forced and slavery
• Work is used for education

3) Culture is so important:

• Culture makes children different then apes or chimpanzees
• Culture prepares a child to go into the world
• Greatest Development in a child is culture
• It invokes memory, gives a child a past, present and future
• Provides a story for the child’s life (street children need a story)
• Cultures provides: Language, Symbol & Signs, and artifacts

Okay, I get the point culture is important but how do we influence culture. How do I give the children of Compassion Bangladesh the best culture or my own boys? Yes, I can give them stories but I want a Christ Centered Culture for everyone of them but that is not the culture of Bangladesh or any other country! To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what culture our boys are growing up in: is it Bangladesh culture, USA culture, some International culture from their school that has children in it from 30 different countries/cultures? So why I agree with you that culture and childhood is very important I’m not sure what we are to do with it?

4) Of course, your five fingers (fundamental Needs of children) are important and I continue to marvel at how you put them all together. They all add up to: Security+Significance+Boundaries+Community+Creativity= LOVE