Objects to Learn about and Objects for Learning 1 E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 376

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Resulting from a conference that took place in Amiens, France, in June 2019, this book examines the place and role of objects centered in teaching practices from kindergarten to university, both in the context of France and elsewhere. These "objects for learning" are considered in their physicality as productions, work or signs that are used for learning. They become "objects to learn about" when the object itself is the learning objective. This book offers a cross-disciplinary perspective, linking the different disciplinary fields studied and the many reference sources used by the authors. This two-volume work offers an overview of current research on the subject, with this first volume introducing the questions addressed and then going on to investigate the relationship between objects and languages, looking at objects at the heart of early learning.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Preface From a Conference to a Book on the Role of Objects in the Practices of Teachers

Acknowledgements

Introduction In the Teaching Resources Store Cupboard: Investigating the Functions and Uses of Objects in the World of School

Introduction to the Subject Didactics and Socialization Processes: Walking Between Objects, Things and Worlds

PART 1 Objects and Language(s)

1 The Children’s Illustrated Literature Book in an Elementary School English Session: An Object Considered in its Materiality?

1.1. The origins of questioning and theoretical framing

1.2. Constitution of the corpus

1.3. Analysis of the results

1.4. Conclusion

1.5. References

2 Objects as Catalysts for Writing

2.1. Introduction

2.2. The object, a mediator in self-knowledge

2.3. Objects as organizers of the act of writing in the Elementary Section

2.4. Conclusion

2.5. References

3 The Role of Artifacts and Gestures in English Language Learning

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Theoretical background

3.3. Methodology

3.4. Results

3.5. Discussion

3.6. Conclusion

3.8. References

4 From Object to Instrument for Language Development in Kindergarten: Necessary Support in the Development of Professional Competence Among Probationary Public School Teachers

4.1. Introduction

4.2. From object to instrument for language in kindergarten

4.3. Learning objects: Speech instruments for teacher and pupils

4.4. Conclusion and perspectives

4.5. References

5 Professional Testimony: Construction and Analysis of a “Graphic Object” in a Physics Class in a 12th Grade Science Major

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Description of the second pilot sequence

5.3. Conclusion

5.4. Appendices

5.5. References

PART 2 Objects and Early Learning

6 Mascots and Notebooks: Preschool Objects Circulating between the School Space and the Family Space

6.1. A pair of peripatetic objects from the transition zone

6.2. Theoretical background and corpus

6.3. Between the “correct use” of the mascot and a plurality of practices

6.4. The parental role written into the mascot’s suitcase

6.5. Conclusion: Accentuated, attenuated or neutralized scansion between socialization spaces

6.6. References

7 Educational Posters in Kindergarten: A School Object that May Be a Differentiator?

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Our methodological choices

7.3. Findings

7.4. Discussion: From the construction of the meaning of the study materials to the representation of the act of learning in kindergarten

7.5. Conclusion

7.6. References

8 Professional Testimony: A Programmable Object for Learning Computer Science at Elementary School

8.1. Introduction

8.2. Teaching sequence observed in cycle 1

8.3. Teaching sequence observed in cycle 2

8.4. Teaching sequence observed in cycle 3

8.5. Discussion

8.6. Acknowledgements

8.7. References

List of Authors

Index

Summary of Volume 2

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Preface From a Conference to a Book on the Role of Objects in the Practices of Teachers

Acknowledgements

Introduction In the Teaching Resources Store Cupboard: Investigating the Functions and Uses of Objects in the World of School

Introduction to the SubjectDidactics and Socialization Processes: Walking Between Objects, Things and Worlds

Begin Reading

List of Authors

Index

Summary of Volume 2

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 3

Table 3.1.

Content of the activities

Table 3.2.

Descriptions of the exchanges and presentation of the codes

Table 3.3. Learners’ use of artifacts and gestures to mediate dialogic exchanges...

Table 3.4. Summary of the main code units: speech turns and occurrences of the u...

Table 3.5. Number of learner interventions using artifacts and gestures...

Table 3.6. Number of teacher interventions using artifacts and gestures...

Chapter 6

Table 6.1. Distribution of respondents reporting use of a mascot and notebook in...

Chapter 7

Table 7.1.

Three levels of analysis

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Education Set

coordinated byAngela Barthes and Anne-Laure Le Guern

Volume 10

Objects to Learn About and Objects for Learning 1

Which Teaching Practices for Which Issues?

Edited by

Joël Bisault

Roselyne Le Bourgeois

Jean-François Thémines

Mickaël Le Mentec

Céline Chauvet-Chanoine

First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUK

www.iste.co.ukJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USA

www.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2022The rights of Joël Bisault, Roselyne Le Bourgeois, Jean-François Thémines, Mickaël Le Mentec and Céline Chauvet-Chanoine to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949741British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA CIP record for this book is available from the British LibraryISBN 978-1-78630-671-5

PrefaceFrom a Conference to a Book on the Role of Objects in the Practices of Teachers

This book is the result of the communications that took place during the conference organized by CAREF (the Amiens Center for Research in Education and Training), part of the University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens. This conference, entitled “Objets pour apprendre, objets à apprendre : quelles pratiques enseignantes pour quels enjeux?” (Objects to Learn About and Objects for Learning: Which Practices for Which Issues?), took place on June 11 and 12, 2019, following a study day on the same theme held on December 10, 2014, in Amiens.

The objective of this colloquium was to question the place and role of objects mobilized within classical or innovative pedagogical practices, from kindergarten to university, in France and in other national contexts. It favored a transversal approach that enabled a coming together of various educational fields (disciplines, subjects, fields of activity), comparing the views of practitioners, trainers and researchers, statuses that are sometimes held cumulatively by the same individuals. From this perspective, the work of the conference focused on the objects that teachers and educators use, ask for, call upon, interrogate or create, together with their pupils, in the various educational fields.

We consider an object to be a “learning object” if it is included within a teaching–learning project. The use of one or more objects results from a pedagogical choice made by the teacher or the facilitator; this choice, restricted to a greater or lesser degree by the institution, is more generally an educational decision, or a policy decision. This object must be considered both in its materiality that permits engagement with the senses and under other aspects – the object as a production, as a creation, as a symbol, etc. – enabling it to be engaged in a variety of ways, both material and intellectual. It is generally considered not on its own but within a wider set of objects, functions and uses that form a system within or outside the educational context. Moreover, each object is generally involved in a set of relationships: it can also be considered singular or general, contingent or universal, moving from uniqueness to collection or series, from its singularity to the category that encompasses it, the same term sometimes pointing to these different definitions. These “objects for learning” are also “objects to learn about” when the learning objective for the pupils or for the teachers is the object itself: the term “object” then covers a set of knowledge and skills associated with a specific area of learning.

Choosing these objects, the ways in which one makes use of them and the effects that one expects from them are first and foremost a matter of the point(s) of view: these points of view can be very different according to the field in which these objects are apprehended or according to the educational level. The status and nature of the objects in the classroom are diverse, as Joël Lebeaume analyzes in the introductory text to this book: some exist outside school, others are designed specifically for educational or, more specifically, school uses; some of them remain school objects despite being obsolete in everyday life (the Roberval balance1, the 4.5 V battery2); conversely, others have disappeared from schools (slide rules, spirit duplicators and other now-vintage objects). Certain objects are integrated into the school tradition and are iconic of particular disciplines (geography wall maps, the compass, the set square, the microscope, the chronological timeline and flash cards), areas of learning (temporal and spatial points of reference, learning about the world3, etc.) or even more generally of the school (posters, mascots, etc.). Furthermore, the generalization of information and communication technologies legitimizes the introduction or integration of new objects or systems in the classroom.

This book tackles the question of objects in education and teaching by adopting different points of view without seeking to be exhaustive. Its approach lies in attacking, as it were, this theme by calling upon various stakeholders (researchers, teachers, trainers) who work within different communities and who often have little to do with one another. This aspiration, which the scientific committee adopted and fully supported, is reflected in a wide variety of contributions. The levels of education concerned thus range from pre-school to university and the objects referred to cover a very wide field from the train of the days of the week in kindergarten to the Minkowski diagram in a 12th grade science major, via the geographical map at the end of elementary school and the start of junior high (middle school).

Varied corpora have been constituted: video recordings and transcriptions of sessions, output from pupils or learners more generally (musical scores in pre-school, maps, drawings, printouts, etc.). Depending on the frameworks of analysis and the opportunities for observation or experimentation, they may give rise to case studies or call for various work to identify typologies or enable quantitative analyses. The relationships between researchers and practitioners are multiple too: the researcher can also be the practitioner, the designer of an engineered device, the external observer of a situation or a stakeholder in collaborative research. Professional testimonies (Chapters 5 and 8 of Volume 1 and Chapters 4, 5 and 9 of Volume 2) accompany the research texts in this book: these testimonials, which provide more detail on the pedagogical descriptions and professional issues raised, come from teachers involved in the research or from researchers who have undertaken careful analysis of the research in which they have participated. These different researcher positions invariably shed light on what is being described and investigated: standard practices or more expert practices in collaboration with the researcher(s). Finally, these analyses also make it possible to learn more about professional practices and institutional frameworks specific to various national contexts: mainland France and its overseas territories, and also Spain, Greece and Switzerland.

The book begins with an introductory text by Joël Lebeaume that contextualizes and problematizes the theme of the book by summarizing the inaugural presentation of the conference. This is followed by an Introduction to the Subject (contributed by Sylvain Fabre) that demonstrates, for one type of object and one particular disciplinary context (the plastic arts), how pupil activity can result in the creation of an artistic object from an everyday object (a chair).

The two volumes consist of five parts, drawing together research texts and professional testimonies. Part 1 of Volume 1 examines the links between objects and language. Part 2 of Volume 1 is devoted to the place of objects in early learning in nursery school. Then, Part 1 of Volume 2 explores one specific area of teaching–learning content – space and time. Part 2 of Volume 2 investigates records of activity with objects. The two volumes conclude with Part 3 of Volume 2, comprising three chapters that offer, transversally, contrasting points of view on objects, as well as perspectives for future work.

Part 1 of Volume 1 – Objects and Language(s)

This first part focuses on the relationships between objects in the broad sense and language(s): the learning, for young pupils, of foreign languages or the production of written work in French but also, for 12th grade students, the approach to the role of a “geometric object” in physics. Chapters mentioned in this part are concerned with clarifying, analyzing and investigating the mediation of a variety of objects and its contribution according to the learning objectives.

Progressing to writing short texts is a difficult step for the first grade pupils in a Zone d’éducation prioritaire (ZEP)4. The objects chosen to tell a story materialize the elements and characters of the plot, thus becoming “catalysts” for writing. “The objects, through their materiality and the actions they stimulate, give a real character to situations that the child struggles to represent to him/herself because it calls for such a high level of abstraction” (written by Bruno Hubert in Chapter 2).

Chapters 1, 3 and 4 of Volume 1 examine foreign languages: second languages (Chapters 1 and 4) and additional languages (Chapter 3), respectively.

Chapter 1 (Élise Ouvrard) investigates the contribution of work carried out around children’s English-language picture books and their handling in Modern Foreign Languages (MFLs) sessions in elementary cycle 3, and considers what their instrumentation may involve. It compares approaches of beginners and experts in order to analyze the entries into reading enabled by these approaches, and underlines what is gained through material contact with these picture books: an affective environment and an emotive learning experience. It is an invitation to training so that the introduction of these books can become a real entry into foreign language literacy.

The Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) experience (Zebra Gabillon and Rodica Ailincai in Chapter 3) lies at the intersection of the socio-cultural and the (socio-)interactionist perspectives. The two perspectives allow us to consider the role of mediation in language development, together with the role of linguistic and communicational aspects in the learning process. The joint contribution of the two teacher–researchers is innovative and offers the particularity of reporting on research on the CLIL process implemented in English, at elementary level, in French Polynesia. Chapter 4 (Émilie Magnat and Karima Olechny) offers a reflective study of objects for language in kindergarten and the process which probationary teachers pass through with regard to the use of these objects, with a view to raising English language awareness. The choice of learning objects used (sequential images from a children’s story, a felt mitten, wooden characters) and the preferred approaches underline the importance of training so that objects and processes become instruments for linguistic development.

Finally, in Chapter 5 (Laurent Moutet), the term “language” refers not to French or to another national language, but to a different semiotic system: graphic language. This graphic language, which makes it possible to visualize a mathematical relationship between the quantities of the system being studied, plays a very important role in scientific and technological education, particularly for the content and the school level being considered here (special relativity in a 12th grade science major). The graphic that is constructed with the pupils and then used (Minkowski diagram) takes on the status of a “graphic object” that enables the pupils to reason on concepts that are often counterintuitive. This chapter thus illustrates the fundamental role played by graphic representations in conceptualization.

Part 2 of Volume 1 – Objects and Early Learning

There is one segment of education that cannot manage without objects for learning and to learn about: it is kindergarten, in which the ubiquity of objects of all kinds could be described as an invariant of this first school. In fact, as early as 1886, Pauline Kergomard, founder of this institution devoted to early learning, wrote:

In order to keep occupied, the child must have material objects at his or her disposal. The child who is barely walking pushes a chair in front of him/her for support; an older child turns his/her chair into an improvised horse; then there are the toys, real ones, from the rattle with bells on for the babe-in-arms, to the game of dominoes with which the eldest is learning to count to 12 […]. And it actually is an educational resource, since each of the objects of which it is composed is used for the physical and intellectual development of the child who has it within his/her reach5.

While it is incontestable that objects are plentiful in kindergarten and that they are used in early learning, their role often receives little attention or analysis from educators and researchers. The second part of this work, devoted to objects and early learning, sets out to shed some light on very diverse objects.

Certain objects, such as mascots, have become commonplace in kindergarten; they are supposed to help bring parents and teachers closer together in a collaborative vision of the parent–teacher relationship; it is precisely this supposed rapprochement that is investigated here in terms of social inequalities by Marie-Noëlle Dabestani (Chapter 6). Based on a survey of teachers in mainland France, this author shows a recurrent use of a notebook linked to a mascot and highlights an accentuated, attenuated or neutralized scansion between two spaces of socialization: the family and the school. Thus, the socializing practices of parents and teachers can either be coordinated and reinforced between the two spaces or, conversely, remain separate, the same object being understood differently by each of the stakeholders.

Posters, which are also objects positioned at the interface of materiality and symbolism, are widely used in kindergarten classrooms, generally with no consideration being given to their role in pupil learning and the difficulties they can pose from a didactic point of view. In Chapter 7, Elisabeth Mourot studies the way in which kindergarten pupils from contrasting social backgrounds construct the meaning of didactic posters. Based on interviews in which pupils are confronted with this kind of material, she puts forward configurations of social interpretative subjects, according to the pupils’ ability to symbolize and use language in its evolutionary function.

Conversely, other objects are found less often in kindergarten or elementary school classrooms, such as robots, but are worthy of attention in order to understand the use made of them by the pupils and the skills and knowledge they help to develop. Olivier Grugier and Sandra Nogry show in their testimony (Chapter 8) how elementary school pupils seize upon small robots (BeeBots) and manage to program instructions to generate their movements. Analysis of the sessions observed reveals the essential role of certain artifacts in teachers’ guidance. A comparison of three different class levels (pre-school, first grade and fourth grade) shows a learning progression in computer science and technology.

Part 1 of Volume 2 – Objects and Representations of Space and Time

Space and time, brought together in Part 1 of Volume 2, may suggest a familiar disciplinary split, illustrated by geography and history. This is not the case, however, even if, because of the groupings made during the compilation of the work, objects to learn about/objects for learning in geography are placed together here.

Regarding space, the issue discussed in Chapters 1, 3 and 5 is how objects to learn about make it possible to learn, not so much about geography itself or during geography lessons but, more broadly, about space. Learning about space means articulating through the medium of school objects – wall maps (Xavier Leroux in Chapter 1), “paper” maps and sketches (Sylvie Considerère, Anne Glaudel, Maud Verherve and Mikaël Glaudel in Chapter 3) – or non-school objects – tactile interactive maps (Chapter 5) of images and relevant information in an egocentric spatial frame of reference (oneself, here, at this moment) with relevant images and information in an allocentric spatial frame of reference, for example, a universal system of geographic coordinates. Object systems are thus required to support sensory, emotional, linguistic and cognitive articulations, which are not simple matters, in the standard situation of the geography class (Chapters 1 and 3) or during experiments conducted with visually impaired people (Chapter 5). The common issue in the three propositions is perhaps to describe this change of status imprinted on the proposed objects which, from tools, must become objects – representations – in other words, discourses supported by a materiality that permits the sharing of knowledge.

This part allows us to ask whether it is easier to materialize space rather than time. Thus, Chapter 5 seeks to further improve the multimodality (touching and verbal interactions) of objects that enable visually impaired people to find their bearings in space. Christine Croset, in Chapter 4, focuses on the difficulty of representing musical time: “A problem arises when we want to represent these dimensions: while a visual product (writing, drawing, photo) relies on spatial perception, oral flow (linguistic or musical content) must be reconstituted, which involves memory and attention. The perception of time thus requires more effort than that of space, which is instantaneous.”

This comment is all the more relevant since Chapters 2 and 4, which deal with time, address the preschool teaching of pupils who cannot yet write; a level which takes us away from a strictly subject-related historical approach. The issue is to design the concept of time in young pupils, a specific sub-topic in French syllabuses and associated with space in a wider topic concerned with learning about and exploring the world. While maps or plans are traditional teaching aids in the geographical approach, only chronological timelines or calendars traditionally support these early learnings, time being so difficult to grasp no matter what the age of the learners. The calendar approach in a Greek nursery school (Maria Moumoulidou in Chapter 2) raises the question of the teaching aids used but above all of the objectives pursued, the learning approaches chosen. In a more unusual way, musical time makes it possible to work on another dimension of time as part of the child’s development in the framework of a pedagogy that embraces sensoriality (Chapter 4). In fact, music, by definition, like the speech process, has to do with multiple temporalities (succession, rhythm, simultaneity, etc.). The writing of musical scores by young children, aged between 4 and 6 years old, in a Swiss school, was thus chosen to materialize the appropriation and characterization of segments of a song learned in class.

Part 2 of Volume 2 – Objects and Traces of the Activity

Part 2 of Volume 2 deals with various objects (assessments, technical objects, school objects) and their activation by subjects. The contributions in this part are based on a variety of theoretical and analytical frameworks, which do, however, have the common point of studying the way in which material or symbolic objects become usable objects as soon as they enter into a relationship with the user. The relationship between the subject and the object thus reveals unique experiences and activities, which differ according to the contexts studied, and these traces must be recorded. This part consists of three research reports and a testimony.

With regard to the research aspect, Sylvie Grubert Jost’s contribution (Chapter 6) focuses on the practice of self-assessment of the skills expected in elementary school as a learning object and a shared responsibility between pupil and teacher. The author shows how assessment becomes a communication object as soon as it enters into a relationship with the subject who uses it. Communication between the teacher and the pupil around the practice of self-assessment then becomes a means of making the two parties jointly responsible for learning and for better perceiving each other’s expectations. The contribution of John Didier, Marion Botella, Rachel Attanasio and Marie-Dominique Lambert (Chapter 7) analyzes the process of creation of a technical object by elementary school pupils, paying particular attention to the different stages that lead them to this creation, whether reflective, decisional or linked to action. The objective of this research is to analyze the process of transforming recycled materials to enable the creation of a sound garden and to analyze what the pupils take away from it in terms of learning throughout the process. Chapter 8, by Corinne Marlot, Christine Riat and Patrick Roy, examines the methods of entry into scientific culture for elementary cycle 1 pupils. More specifically, the authors analyze the conditions under which a school discipline object (in this case, a collective poster) can foster the institution of scientific practices in these pupils. The results show that scientific acculturation – as a means of learning about and understanding the world – involves thinking about the nature of the material, symbolic and language objects that can be mobilized, their relationship and also the way in which they should be introduced in order to engage pupils intellectually. This part concludes with the testimony of Irene Guevara, Iván Moreno-Llanos, Lucía Romero, Laura Zapardiel and Cintia Rodríguez (Chapter 9) who examine the self-regulatory practices of children below 3 years of age by analyzing their actions on objects and instruments around them. The authors show that children control their behavior and actions long before they have consolidated verbal language. Their actions on objects arise from understanding the phenomena but also from the solutions and strategies envisaged to understand what must be done and how. They also underline the role of the teacher and the challenges they impose on them to foster the development of the child.

Thus, these four contributions analyze the way in which material or symbolic objects enter into a relationship with subjects, their activation and what the subjects take away from them in terms of learning or development from the moment they think about them, handle them or transform them.

Part 3 of Volume 2 – Points of View on Objects and Perspectives

The last part is not, like the previous parts, composed of research texts and professional testimonies concerning a particular object. On the contrary, it brings together contributions addressing the topic of objects in teaching practices in a more global way. Based on his experience as a teacher and researcher, José Luis de los Reyes Leoz (Chapter 10) presents a resolutely cultural and emotive point of view on objects steeped in history kept in museums. The second point (Chapter 11) from the conference’s round table presents the points of view of four researchers (Mickaël Le Mentec, Anne-Laure Le Guern, Jean-François Thémines and Abdelkarim Zaid) on the place of objects in their journeys as researchers. In Chapter 12, Alain Panero puts forward a philosophical overview of all the texts in the book by considering the positions, often implicit, of the authors while sketching his own point of view, thus feeling an emotive experience that is a preliminary version of writing.

November 2021

Preface written by Joël BISAULT, Roselyne LE BOURGEOIS, Jean-François THÉMINES, Mickaël LE MENTEC and Céline CHAUVET-CHANOINE.

1

Twin pan scales, widely used in France until the 1960s/1970s. These types of scales have for a long time been a typical example of school equipment used in every elementary school.

2

These batteries were widely used in France (in pocket lamps for example) until the 1960s/1970s and are still used in French elementary school for their practical side (metal plates to facilitate electrical contacts).

3

“Repères temporels et spatiaux, découverte du monde”:

examples of parts of the French syllabuses for pre-school.

4

ZEPs were created in France in 1981 to advance equality of opportunity between pupils, taking into account the social problems of the areas concerned.

5

Kergomard, P. (1886).

L’éducation maternelle dans l’ècole

, Librairie Hachette et Compagnie, Paris.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all those who contributed to this collective work: the participants in the June 2019 conference who agreed to re-engage with a view to authoring a chapter, the members of the conference’s scientific committee who undertook an expert review of the articles submitted and provided guidelines for editing when necessary and the colleagues or former colleagues who shared with us their expertise on specific topics.

We would particularly like to thank Sophie Pelissier who facilitated the contributions from our Hispanic colleagues, Catherine Rebiffé and Anne Delbrayelle for their invaluable help on French language issues and Karima Olechny for her advice on this English version.

Scientific committee of this publication

Jacques Audran (INSA Strasbourg), Christine Berzin (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Joël Bisault (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Justine Breton (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, CEREP), Céline Chauvet-Chanoine (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Cora Cohen-Azria (University of Lille, CIREL), Anne Delbrayelle (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Béatrice Finet (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Joël Lebeaume (University of Paris, EDA), Roselyne Le Bourgeois (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Anne-Laure Le Guern (University of Caen Normandy, CIRNEF), Mickaël Le Mentec (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Corinne Marlot (Haute Ecole Pédagogique du canton de Vaud), Sophie Pelissier (University of Picardie Jules Verne, CAREF), Valérie Tartas (University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, CLLE) and Jean-François Thémines (University of Caen Normandy, ESO).

IntroductionIn the Teaching Resources Store Cupboard: Investigating the Functions and Uses of Objects in the World of School

From the ferule to the touchscreen tablet, through alphabet primers to be leafed through or to be embroidered, translating earpieces for lessons, the cuddly toys of the very young, the virtual patients of future doctors, molecular models, home automation systems, the double decimeter, the oscilloscope, the map of the world, the recorder, jacks, marbles… These usual or ordinary, strange or unfamiliar, current or outdated objects are used in teaching and training, learning and education, classroom and playground. Material or virtual, made or disassembled, manipulated or transformed, they fall under the heading of didactic or pedagogical materials by reason of their functions and uses. These functions are multiple because these objects are, on the one hand. aids or resources for the content being taught and. on the other hand, indexing markers or testament to the content being appropriated. These classroom things and objects are thus an integral part of the curricula from nursery school to university. The uses of these objects, and therefore the practices of teachers and pupils, assign to them specific aims and references contributing to the elementarization, progressivity, flexibility and differentiation of the content. Hence, this investigation involves characterizing the contrasting points of view on the objects of this world in order to discuss their usage functions or their esteem functions1and also their global or technical functions, their authenticity, their schoolification or even their misrepresentation or misappropriation.

The theme of “objects” is dear to me as a specialist of technology and technical education because objects created, put together and assembled, designed and used, analyzed and represented, are at the heart of this area of teaching. This theme is also dear to me because it crosses over between works and reflections devoted to material culture and those relating to technical culture (Lebeaume 2009, 2019a), whose spans are different according to the distinction made by Rabardel (1995), addressed below, between anthropocentric and technocentric perspectives.

This introductory text thus aims to invite an interrogation of the specificities, meanings and conditions for the admission of “objects for learning” and “objects to learn about” into the school world and beyond its borders. It opens by proposing a characterization of school objects and their role, with a cultural and historical perspective. Following on from that, it suggests a problematization of the uses of these objects in teaching practices, linked to the concepts of instrument and artifact. These two main points cover the two most important terms in the title of this work: “objects” and “practices”, as well as the features of all the chapters, which are characterized, on the one hand, by the very great diversity of the “objects” presented or investigated, and on the other hand, by focusing on analyses or testimonies of particularly innovative teaching practices.

I.1. Objects in school, objects of school

This first point deals with the “material culture” of the school very recently highlighted by an international conference (Figeac-Monthus 2018).

I.1.1. School objects

The “school form” as a particular mode of socialization (Vincent 1980; Vincent et al. 1994) favoring “the written culture” or the scriptural mode (Lahire 2008) sets standards and generates specific equipment, for example the chalkboard, school furniture – fixed at first and later mobile – grounds and equipment for individual or collective sports, classrooms for practical work with their glassware, their measuring or experimentation instruments, their machines… This category of “objects for learning” also includes many accessories which play a part or have at times played a part in pupils’ upbringing and in the discipline – in the original sense of the word – of school and of learning and in the teacher–pupil relationship, such as the dunce’s cap or other objects for corporal punishment.

In contrast to these corrective devices, more appealing objects are indications of the more play-orientated approaches of alternative pedagogies, well-illustrated by the materials devised by Froebel (1840), the father of the kindergarten. Those “Spielgaben” or “toys for active play” are also objects for learning, mainly shapes and actions in gymnastic games and songs. The advent of plastics at the very beginning of the 1960s and the strong social demand for education then legitimized these educational games, as they now are, at home and at kindergarten. Anchored in these traditions, the most recent official recommendations for kindergarten (2019) thus mention “games with various dice, lottery games, dominoes, battle games, board games or digital trail games, etc.”2

I.1.2. School supplies, approved or prohibited objects

In the school resources store cupboard, “learning objects” are also supplies that show technological and commercial progress, for example writing implements (Reynolds fountain pen (1942), Bic pen (1952), Pentel felt tip (1962), Pelikan eraser (1977)) replacing the pen-holder, blotters, and inkwells (often hijacked into becoming receptacles for bits of chalk!). However, not all objects are allowed in school. We should not forget the long controversy that began in the late 1950s about Bic pens, debated in the notes of the journal L’Éducation Nationale from 1957 to 1965, at which point a circular gave it approval3. The same happened again more recently with the prohibition of the use of cutters, considered dangerous but also a Class 6 weapon4. For different reasons, programmable calculators are generally forbidden during exams5 while the use of cell phones is forbidden in class even if having them in one’s possession is permitted6.

The presence of objects at school is thus regulated and depends on educational issues and therefore education policies. Vincent (1980) looks back on the arrangements of space and furniture and the function of supervision: the playground as a transitional space, the platform and rows of tables to structure the displacement flows; preference for tables with two places, with a rack with perforations for checking the hands; a slate with a special pencil and copper pencil holder to check handwriting movements or to monitor learning progress following the familiar “La Martinière” process… In the same spirit, wooden rifles have been approved and recommended ever since the bloody defeat of Sedan which led to the fall of Napoleon III and the establishment of the Republic. The desire for military preparation at school was therefore in the spirit of the times, as Paul Bert pointed out in a speech to teachers delivered on September 18, 1881:

We want rifles for school… yes, rifles, little rifles that each child will learn to handle from school, the use of which will become for him something instinctive, that he will never forget and that he will not need to learn later. For this little child, remember this, is the citizen of the future, and in every citizen there must be a soldier; and a soldier who is always ready. (Bourzac 2004, pp. 86–87)