Si prefiere comentar o preguntar en español, con mucho gusto.

If you prefer to comment or ask questions in Spanish, please do.

You can see the LOPI prism (in English and Spanish) and related references and videos at https://learningbyobservingandpitchingin.sites....

Que bonito ejemplo, Elisa. Gracias por compartirlo. Se ven varios elementos de LOPI presente, como la inclusión de alumnos jóvenes y la expectativa de que poco a poco contribuyen más mientras observan y crece más la conexión con la montaña y el grupo.

[Angélica's message belongs with a post that has been moved to later in the discussion.  See below...]

Barbara,  Your videos have had a profound influence on us.  We have consciously, and quite deliberately, been learning from you and your team. For many years. Which means drawing from the essential wisdom of the Mexican and Indigenous cultural heritage your programs are discussing.  Our desire is to ourselves Learn by Observing and Pitching In (practicing LOPI). That is precisely what we elder volunteers encourage and allow our younger volunteers to do -- in regards to climate action, social justice and STEM education.  How we always work together as a multi-generational team. I think of our students as young colleagues in making a better world. Preserving the world, thinking generations ahead and of those who came before.

I say your videos in plural as we would like to consider ourselves a part of your family, or village. Your culture is our culture. Your way has become our way. On purpose.

https://stemforall2021.videohall.com/presentati...

https://stemforall2020.videohall.com/presentati...

https://stemforall2019.videohall.com/presentati...

We now live what your team encourages. Learning by Observation and Pitching In (#LOPI) is now what we are all about at the Mobile Climate Science Labs, Climate Club DC, and Lowell School. It is how Abigail Stark relates to others in our (her) teams.

I cannot thank you, and your team, enough.

Thank you James, and thanks to your team as well.  I'm glad to know that our work is useful for you.  And I am really impressed with your video.  Readers -- you can click under James' name and the link will send you to see the important work of James and his colleagues.  I voted for it, in public choice, and presenter's choice.  See it.

LOPI is deeply connected to Indigenous Knowledge Systems in a number of ways.  The LOPI model is a holistic paradigm for understanding children's learning.  In our approach, the learning "context" and learning processes are not conceptually seperated.  That all living systems are meaningfully connected across both time and space is a foundational assumption in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (see Wilson, 2008.  Research is Ceremony).

Likewise, the axiom that human beings are active agents in the evolution of this single living system -- and bear responsibility for the health of the whole -- is another foundational aspect of IKS (ibid).  The facets of the LOPI prism reflect this, each facer orients the learner to the group, while the overall "purpose for learning" is to become a skillful and eager contributor to the group.

 

By the way, the research on toddlers' helping in LOPI that's alluded to above is published here: 

Coppens, A. D., & Rogoff, B. (2021). Cultural variation in the early development of initiative in children’s prosocial helping. Social Development, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12566

Thanks Barry!  And I'll add that our understanding of this way of learning continues to deepen, through discussions like the one that is starting here!  It is an ongoing collaboration with people who share their ideas and experience, here and in the communities where we do our research.

I agree, Barry. This video shows different historical moments of communities as well as different stages of the research process. 

Longitudinal observations help us better understand the complexities and variability within communities throughout time and deepen our knowledge of how learning occurs.

We had a Cherokee informant/guide offer a similar reply when we asked about this.  Something like "we don't really teach them, they just pick it up when they're ready."

Learning is clearly a developmental process.  I wonder how we came to assume "teaching" is a necessary component of this process? 

Our (Cherokee) teachers teach us that they have little to teach!  Everything we need to know is embodied by the natural world.  We only need to know how to listen.  And this is what we learn from our Elders.  How to listen.

Similarly, Yucatec Maya mothers describe how children in the community learn by having the 'will' and interest to learn. Learning cannot be imposed but adults can be attentive to recognize children's interest in certain activities and support their interest and efforts, but ultimately the learning needs to be initiated by the child. 

It has to come "from the heart," as mothers have reported in your research Lucia, and also from the research of Mejia-Arauz and colleagues 

Thanks for watching and for the interest, Connie! I appreciate that you noticed the point about evaluation in LOPI, which education and psychology communities on the whole understand very poorly. I work with pre-service teachers at university and many initially have a very difficult time imagining educational assessment that is intrinsic to activities for learning rather than being a separate and often imposed layer. Growing up in a middle-class European-heritage community, I also had very little exposure to this idea. 

I wonder: Is there something about your experience or expertise that made the points about evaluation in LOPI catch your eye?

Hi Andrew.  We've just begun a new project that we've dubbed civic environmental science - with the goal of science and social studies overcoming disciplinary siloes to focus learning on the watershed where the school is located - the science of the watershed and the local government's policies that affect it.  we're in the iterative phase where everyone is trying things out, thinking about how stuff could 'fit' into their discipline, and gradually sifting out what we hope will be core elements of the watershed curriculum - which we only imagined when we wrote the proposal. As I'm sure you know, the tension in writing proposals is that you have to sound like you have the 'it' figured out and how 'it' will be evaluated while at the same time saying that the teachers and community partners on the ground are the ones who really know how the ideas might take shape on the ground.

Yes, indeed. Your comments remind me of Lucía Alcalá, Barbara Rogoff, and Angélica López Fraire's work on planning in LOPI where sophisticated collaboration skill and community-mindedness seem to allow for a lot of flexibility in adapting plans to on-the-ground and changing circumstances. See: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805707115. 

Look forward to viewing your video!

 

Thank you for your enthusiastic comment, Susan! You bring an interesting point. As mentioned by others in the previous comments, LOPI is connected to Indigenous Knowledge Systems and has allowed communities to resist imposed ways of organizing, living, and learning which are contradictory to Indigenous cultural practices (which are inherently participatory and relational). Viewing LOPI from this historical perspective might be a way to understand social movements. But I'm curious to know more about your speculation of how LOPI can help us understand local community practices. 

Hi Susan, Thanks for your curious note!  Do you see parallels between LOPI and broad social movements?

Or maybe other visitors to our video might want to speculate?

Barbara, I would offer that a social movement where LOPI is essential is in taking action on climate change.  Where thinking is selfish and short term, little positive will happen.

In consciously adopting the LOPI approach, our multi-generational team finds itself having to break free of the dominant culture.  Children are treated as a product in a processing pipeline. They are to be refined for a role; trained to think selfishly and with blinders -- blind to the distant past or considering future generations.  Pre-selected for specific roles often based on their gender or ethnic lineage. Only years later, when they are corporate employees, will they maybe be considered as having a meaningful role.

Many young people have strong feelings of wanting to pitch in and do something on climate change.  Yet our society has had a hard time accepting that young people even have emotions and opinions on climate change of any value. (Opposition to Greta's led movement.) The idea that young people can practically pitch in now in STEM, having learned very quickly through observation and collaboration, is something that runs counter -- I would say -- to the views of most American adults. Certainly, from what we have experienced, about the position of major energy corporations. (Outright surgically precise opposition to initiatives such as ours where young people are pitching in using STEM.)

We are deliberately practicing Learning by Observing and Pitching In. Young people have developed a way to make clear, significant, and meaningful contributions to greenhouse gas reductions. Not just asking for change, but being part of making the actual STEM-based changes themselves. They are working with federal agencies, such as the Smithsonian Museums and Library of Congress to make the buildings of Washington DC more energy efficient.  The students work very collaboratively across the generations.

Barbara: If you consider what Climate Club DC is doing as a deliberate application of LOPI with regards to climate change action (using STEM), shall we check in each year at the STEM for All Video Showcase?  We can report to you how we are doing.  What have been our advances and successes. Have we successfully outmaneuvered the corporate status quo interests in energy who have expressed very clear opposition to seeing the LOPI approach taking hold.

In my experience, LOPI is absolutely essential if the intertwined social movements of climate action and social justice are to be successful.

One can't guarantee what will come of social movements. Will they receive support; will the necessary alliances be developed? Will enough people of all ages work together collaborative?

We can each commit ourselves to pitch in and do all we can.

Nice to hear from and think with you, James! Thanks for this thoughtful post; you've connected a number of dots and I think climate change is a deeply instructive venue for questioning the practice of segregating children from mature endeavors (which LOPI contrasts) and for clearly seeing that children's contributions are not only beneficial for their own learning, but needed by all of us. I'm thinking here of Juliana v. US, among the many examples of Indigenous communities worldwide leading our communities in climate activism and insight.

In terms of social movements, you might also be interested (if not aware) in the working children's social and labor movements in Peru (and beyond). Although interesting, and although there may be LOPI elements in these movements, they are an instructive example of how LOPI is different than merely putting children in charge instead of adults. LOPI is about children and adults in collaborative relations. 

James, thank you so much for showing how LOPI can characterize a social movement!  And your team's work harnessing LOPI for climate change is SO important!

Yes, checking in together at the next Video Showcase is a great idea.  I'll be interested to find out how your work is going.

I've seen the power of this approach in young children's environmental activism in a public elementary school where the philosophy is very similar to LOPI.  For example, the children noticed that an urban creek near their school was trashy and not good for wildlife, so they wrote a small grant to clean it up.  If I remember right, this is example is from a second/third grade class. 

I wrote a book together with teachers, parents, kids, and a principal, explaining the philosophy of this school.  The approach involves inclusion of children in contributing, collaborative roles (including designing curriculum together with adults) where they learn through observing and pitching in.  

Learning Together:  Children and Adults in a School Community (Oxford University Press).

I really don't want to take up too much space in this marvelous discussion.  Too much already...

My experience strongly confirms that LOPI is essential in a social movement that includes of STEM-based climate action. With young people playing an active role. Further, why precisely LOPI is discouraged and even suppressed in the dominant American education system.  Where there are strong interests to resist change to the status quo, it is quite undesirable for people of all ages to be pitching in to create innovation together. Truly leading -- especially if they are drawing from indigenous cultures, values and knowledge.

Much preferred is the highly regimented #TOOLATE model. *** Teachers Obediently Lecturing And Testing EveryWeek. ***  :-o   Assuring that what is covered never varies from what has been pre-approved from the top down.  Maintaining a human pipeline, from childhood to un-questioning and un-creative selfish corporate employees, with little experience in  community collaboration.  The fossil fuel industry absolutely dominates in what is taught about energy, and climate change, in most American K-12 schools. Following the #TOOLATE model.  Too Late to do anything about climate change.

Historically, wasn't the #TOOLATE system essential in working to suppress the Native American Indian Tribes? Making it mandatory that children may not even speak in their native tongue.  English only, mono-cultural, highly structured curriculum.  Tested to assure absolute compliance.

And yet LOPI survives. Celebrated and showing the way forward.  As essential as ever.

Thanks very much, Ruth! This is such a rich commentary; I'd like to connect to just one of your associations.

Jackie Goodnow and colleagues' work on middle-class cultural values related to "fairness" -- what Bryan Brayboy has, from Indigenous perspective, critiqued as a quid pro quo modality of family and community relations -- has been valuable to us in communicating how the cultural values undergirding LOPI collaboration such as reciprocity, relationality, and mutuality are so different. Her work has also been a model for the importance of cultural research in all communities, not just those communities underrepresented in psychological and developmental research.

Several of us have written on this specifically, too. See: 

Coppens, A. D., Alcalá, L., Rogoff, B., & Mejía-Arauz, R. (2016). Children's contributions in family work: Two cultural paradigms. In S. Punch, R. M. Vanderbeck, & T. Skelton (Eds.), Geographies of Children and Young People (vol 5: Families, Intergenerationality, and Peer Group Relations), 5, 1-27. Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-981-4585-92-7_11-2

Thanks for your comments, Ruth!  Especially where you say, "I like to take the social emotional aspects - by pitching in you feel valued by the partner, and capable, and perhaps feel closer than beforehand."  I agree that pitching in carries a feeling that a person is trusted and competent to contribute.

Also, you noted 'feeling closer' -- Facet 2 of the LOPI prism that is presented at the end of the video notes that people pitch in "For togetherness... To get things done, with initiative, responsibility, relationality, & harmony"

This is central to Indigenous values.

The social-emotional aspects that you are commenting on, Ruth, are essential for many Indigenous heritage communities. Facet 2 of the LOPI model asks, ‘Why do people participate?’ One of the main reasons is to contribute. We are writing a manuscript exploring how important family togetherness or convivencia is for families familiar with LOPI.

Thank you Ruth for making the point of the importance of socioemotional aspects involved in LOPI. Learning is (or could be) a socioemotional activity; and families and communities with a social organization of learning as in LOPI, provide many opportunities for emotional connections and development, making learning  more valued and rewarding

Hi Meredith, Thank you for your comment!  Are you researching these topics now?  I'm curious how you would relate your research with this video.

In addition to the observational aspect, the hands-on and side-by-side learners' experience makes this model useful for those who engage in it :)

Thank you Joni, this means a lot to me.  Especially because, last year, when I mentioned that I was thinking about focusing the video this year on trying to explain LOPI in 3 minutes -- but I thought it might be impossible to explain in such a short time -- you encouraged me to try.  

You can also view our team's six prior award-winning 3-minute videos related to LOPI (and the previous discussions), at https://multiplex.videohall.com/playlists/3448/...

Deep thanks to Joni and NSF for archiving the videos (ours and all the others), over the years. 

Barbara:  I am curious. How does your team, based at the University of California at Santa Cruz (at the southern edge of the Bay Area) feel about having a presence at mass scale public STEM events? In addition to videos and all the forms of your incredible work.

We would be honored, and have no qualms about sharing space with you.  We too are in the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Cruz-Monterey Bay Area. If there ever is a way you'd like to see promotion explicitly for LOPI and your work, we are well practiced in highlighting programs we consider to be the most essential.

At no charge, with or without members of your team being physically present.

We practice LOPI, so the tie in would be quite organic and natural. For twenty years, we have brought hands-on STEM labs related to climate change and climate action to communities in California.  Always with emphasis on communities of color.  Absolutely to communities strong in Mexican heritage.

Examples of the events are: mass scale science festivals, field trip hubs (where school groups from all over the Bay Area come to take part in our hands-on STEM/LOPI labs), conferences, youth summits, and community events.  Some events draw 300,000 people in one day (pre-COVID numbers).

On Sunday, we are the anchor exhibitors at the entrance to the pavilion at the North Bay Science Discovery Day.  With a 400 square foot booth, donated to us by the event. We're featuring the work pioneered by the teams for whom Abigail Stark is the spokeswoman -- in Washington DC... now forming teams in California.

twitter.com/climatescilabs

Great leaders deserve active and enthusiast followers /adopters.

When we can be of service to your team and LOPI (explicitly), it would be our honor to do so.

Announcing a friendly competition:  OK, other commentators, and Showcase video presenters.  We happily challenge you to top our offer.  What can YOU do to promote LOPI and Barbara's work. Make the Showcase be even more collaborative.

What will you do to pitch in and do your part? 

James, this is an incredible idea.  Thank you.  It would be wonderful to pitch in together with you highlighting LOPI as a way of young (and old!) people learning together as they make a difference in climate change.  I'd like to do this.  Anyone else?

Hi James and Barbara,

I would love to participate in this!  As opposed to creating another long post, what are the next steps?  We use LOPI to design STEM and emerging tech programs for American Indian communities here in the Cherokee Nation.  I'm sure community members here would love to participate in your programs, as we have a history of migration to the Bay Area, and maintain strong Tribal ties with Cherokee families throughout California (and nationally).

What do y'all need us to do?

Hi James, Barbara, and Andy,

I also would like to be part of this incredible effort! I work with Maya children in Mexico and use LOPI to support STEM learning (including using medicinal plants and protecting the natural resources) at home and in the community setting. 

Let us know what the next steps might be.

Lucia, Andrew, and Barbara: Suggested next steps.

+ My promising to be in communication with you, and the initiatives you'd like to include. + Running by you events already on our calendar, where space can be created and infrastructure provided (e.g. tents and tables).  Listed by cities and counties: San Francisco, San Jose, Berkeley, Marin, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, etc.  +Nature and size of event. e.g. 1,000 to 300,000 attending. +How much space would you like us to provide? +Who in addition to partner with? Specific communities to be in; especially connecting with which ethnicities and nationalities.  Always multilingual. Always multi-generational.  Best times of year? Indoor, outdoor, in sun or shaded.  All are options. (We're in the communities year round.) {By the way: We love for those alongside us to benefit from our ability to draw a crowd -- families of many nationalities gathering around to do LOPI together.  Both fun and serious community building at the same time. Very diverse presenters -- being not so much as teachers, as encouraging LOPI to take place. Then stepping back as the families keep the uplifting experiences going.

Complimentary to this: Where might we serve gatherings, events, schools, community centers that you all connect with and take part in? Where we can be of service by pitching in with what we can bring?  What we can help publicize.

Our promise: To re-double our efforts to be an example of LOPI; working alongside other forms of LOPI.  We'd very much be in learning mode, expecting to change and grow as cultures and experiences come together.  

Lucia: Having a LOPI focus within large events experiencing how Maya Children use LOPI around medicinal plants and protecting natural resources would be absolutely perfect. For example.

Andrew.  Apologies for not making that a short response.  :-p  :-)

Oh... a characteristic of the majority of the events we take part in:  It is usually OK to have multiple video cameras running. Respecting, of course, the wishes of participating families. These events are great opportunities for gathering further footage of LOPI in action. Celebrating LOPI.  Generations together. Joyous children with their elders.  Footage for your programs to further document and promote the ways of LOPI.

Having observed and contributed in Mexico and in indigenous communities, honoring and advancing these cultures and ways of learning in the Bay Area and California.  (Actually the lands of these indigenous people's for 15,000 years plus.)

By the way:  After Sunday's big and very successful North Bay Science Discovery Day, I ran it by the event organizers if they would be OK with us sharing space specifically with LOPI programs associated with your work.  Santa Rosa at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Next year's event will be in March 2023.  Mobile Climate Science Labs each year has a 400 square foot booth right at the pavilion main entrance. (The pavilion = essentially a football field sized exhibit hall filled with hands-on STEM programs.)

I received an enthusiastic "Yes!"  So, that's one example of a real option.

Hi James,  Thanks for your ideas and your energy surrounding LOPI!  How about we set up a zoom meeting between us -- inviting you and your team and me and those of my colleagues studying LOPI who are interested?  I think that would help us imagine the synergies that could be possible.

¡Sí!

 Yes!  That would be perfect.

I'd want to be sure to include some of our younger colleagues, in DC and California. And let event organizers, such as of large the science festivals in the Bay Area if they would like to join us in the Zoom meeting. The Bay Area Science Festival events very much share the values and views of the LOPI ways.  No matter what. I'll be sure to keep them in the loop.

Inclusion of the Cherokee Nation would be a great honor.  Lucia's and Andrews programs, examples, people's and cultures spoken are of great interest.  Bringing together would be immensely heartwarming, and very timely.

I would love to be part of this conversation! 

Thank you for your comment, Erika! Generational change and globalization are at the core of my research. We have noted many transformations in cultural practices and family interaction across generations in an Indigenous town. This relates to a wide transformation of a whole constellation of practices that include an increase in schooling, a decrease in family size, mothers working outside the home, an increase in digital technology, and others.

I am very interested in your work with Camilo Garcia, which has also documented this longitudinal change. I look forward to learning more about what you find in your current study.

Me too, Erika.  Your work sounds really interesting -- I'll be eager to see what you find.  Itzel and I are working on several publications based on our project following up with Mayan families that I have been involved with for several decades.   One focuses on changes in inclusive collaboration among mothers and their 2 young children, and another focuses on mothers' reflections on changes in children's lives since their own childhood (when they were toddlers in earlier studies of my team).  Barbara

Dear Erika, Thank you for your comment! I am sure you might find some traces of LOPI but also some transformation in the process, based on the mothers' experiences with formal schooling, participation in the formal economy and their current immigration experiences at the boarder. I am interested in joining you and helping with conducting some observations. (Platicamos pronto.)

  

Hi Erika! Thank you for this comment and thoughtful inquiry into patterns of change and transformation. For many of us, implicit in the LOPI model are questions about generational and contextual change -- what happens when social and economic conditions change, or when families migrate? It's an empirical question, to be sure. But, as I'm sure you note, LOPI is not a model of mere "traditional" ways of life and is not merely "determined" by the right set of social and environmental circumstances. Families and communities who organize learning in ways similar to LOPI choose to do so, guided by cultural values about learning. This makes the question of the resilience of LOPI practices very interesting. Looking forward to reading about your work in Tijuana!

Just to point out-- This interest in changes and continuities in communities' practices related to LOPI is an important aspect of LOPI itself, which is a process extending over generations.  This is noted in Facet 4 of the LOPI model, describing that learning is considered a process of continual transformation of people's participation, in being and becoming responsible contributors for the benefit of all, across generations.

The interest in changes and continuities in communities' practices also fits our approach to understanding the relation of individuals and culture -- as a process of generations participating and innovating in cultural communities' practices. This is very different from a social address approach where culture is equated with static categories such as race and ethnicity.  (See Chapters 2 and 3 of The Cultural Nature of Human Development.)  Of course, race and ethnicity matter, as cultural practices themselves in distinct cultural communities.

Thank you so much, Carol!  When I edited the video, I paid special attention to the coordination of the peoples' hands and actions.  

Estimada Bárbara:
Me gustaría compartir mi experiencia como administrativa en una institución privada de Guadalajara , México con alumnos de bachillerato, secundaria y primaria, como parte del aprendizaje informal del cual sugiere LOPI y que se promueve en el colegio fuera de clases por parte del Club Alpino a cargo de alumnos de entre 15 y 18 años enseñando y coordinando a alumnos menores en expediciones en la región, dentro y fuera del país. Este grupo alpino tiene aproximadamente 65 años funcionando en el colegio; se inició con adultos y gente de las comunidades cercanas que servían como guías a los alumnos; este grupo ha ido transmitiendo de generación a generación cocimientos de la montaña, escalada, uso de plantas, impacto ambiental, entre otros; las expediciones son organizadas y guiadas actualmente exclusivamente por los alumnos mayores; varias veces por año se organizan expediciones para alumnos de diferente rango de edad. Los alumnos mas experimentados sin importar su edad tienen cargos como jefes de expediciones; muestran a los mas pequeños el respeto por la montaña, aprender a escucharla, entenderla e identificar sus comportamiento, preparan sus alimentos y lugar donde dormirán. Cabe señalar que en las expediciones con alumnos de entre 10 y 11 años los equipos que utilizan son los básicos y algunas veces muy rudimentarios, los niños aprenden a contemplar, a escuchar a ponerse de acuerdo en equipo par a realizar las tareas que se les asignan haciéndolos consientes de que si no hacen bien lo que les toca en grupo, afectan al resto , unos dependen de los otros; se ayudan entre sí siempre, cuando hay cansancio, o cuando alguno se lastima; todos intentan llegar y regresar con el lema de TODOS O NUNGUNO; estos pequeños aprendizajes a tempranas edades han motivado a los alumnos a seguir siendo parte del grupo durante largos periodos de sus vidas hasta llegar adultos o hasta que ya no pueden subir mas a la montaña por la edad; en 65 años estos aprendizajes colaborativos han dado frutos, los ex alumnos mas experimentados se van moviendo a expediciones mas grandes y lejanas, algunos han llegado a ser a ser parte de ongs , a ser parte de grupos de rescate nacionales e internacionales; en los 65 años de este grupo, los abuelos que han sido miembros de este grupo motivan a hijos y nietos a conectar con la montaña, ha continuar con la tradición ; hay un impacto real de aprendizaje significativo, de por vida; ellos dicen que se es CAICO de por vida ; es decir, que de por vida quedarás conectado y aprendiendo de la montaña en colaboración con este grupo.

For those who don't read Spanish -- Elisa Azuara García recounts an impactful experience she has had as the administrator of a private school in Guadalajara which includes informal learning resembling LOPI, in an Alpine Club of students ages 15-18 in    charge of teaching and coordinating younger students on expeditions.  The club has been going for about 65 years, started by adults who guided the students; across generations, the group has shared knowledge of the mountains, climbing, use of plants, environmental impact, and so on.  The expeditions are now organized and guided exclusively by older students for students of a range of ages.

The more experienced students, no matter what age, serve as leaders of the expeditions.  They show the younger ones respect for the mountain, to learn to listen to it, understand it and identify its behavior.  They prepare the food and places to sleep.  With 10-11-year-old students, the teams are basic, but the children learn to contemplate, to listen, to come to agreement in the team to carry out their tasks, aware that if they do not do them well, it affects the others, they depend on each other.  They help each other always, even when tired or someone is injured -- everyone tries to arrive and return, following their slogan EVERYONE OR NO ONE.  

This learning at a young age has motivated the students to continue being part of the group for long periods, even as adults or until they can no longer climb.  Across the 65 years, this collaborative learning has given fruit -- the more experienced former students go on bigger and more distant expeditions; some have become part of NGOs, or part of national and international rescue teams.  In the 65 years of this group, grandparents who have been part of the group encourage their children and grandchildren to connect with the mountain, to continue the tradition.  It has a real impact of important learning, for life, and for life you'll stay connected and learning from the mountain, in collaboration with the group.

This is an impressive example from Elisa.  It is a beautiful example of inclusivity and of learning a wide range of knowledge, skill, and interpersonal relationality with the other people as well as with the mountain.

Elisa, gracias por este ejemplo tan elegante -- es un bello ejemplo de la inclusividad y el aprendizaje de un rango amplio de información, destrezas, y relacionalidad con las demás personas y con la montaña.

Here's a response from
Angelica Lopez-Fraire
 
Que bonito ejemplo, Elisa. Gracias por compartirlo. Se ven varios elementos de LOPI presente, como la inclusión de alumnos jóvenes y la expectativa de que poco a poco contribuyen más mientras observan y crece más la conexión con la montaña y el grupo.

 

 

Gracias Angélica; sin duda la conexión con la montaña es parte de nuestra herencia cultural; el respeto a la madre tierra se ve incluso reflejado en la frase que utilizan los alumnos CON DIOS A LA CUMBRE.

Elisa commented that connection with the mountain is part of the cultural heritage; respect for Mother Earth is reflected in the phrase that the students use, WITH GOD TO THE SUMMIT.

I agree Quinton. Having concrete examples of how young children could be included and participate in different daily endeavors is helpful for reimagining possibilities on communities where children are segregated from “adult” work. 

Thanks for your thoughtful post, Quinton!  I especially like the example you recount in number 4!  You said you wrote about that scene in your dissertation.  Want to tell us a little more about your dissertation?  Barbara

Sure, thank you for the invite.

The title of my dissertation is Teaching as a Standing Invitation. You might recognize that descriptor from a line in your 2009 piece with Ruth Paradise. In it, Manuel Espinoza recounts not being shooed away as a child while relatives worked on tuning cars. As Manuel described the social setup, there were "multiple, standing invitations" (p. 131) for him to both learn to tune a car and act as a member of the family.

My three article dissertation begins with a book chapter (Freeman & Jurow, 2018) where we analyze a conversation that took place among pre-service teachers in a course on learning. There these students, many of them future vocational teachers, grappled with a contribution made by an elementary-age child during a read-aloud at the after-school club they all participated in. Many of the teachers felt that the child contributed in a way that pushed to its limits any shared commitments of adults and children learning together side-by-side as partners. 

One of our conclusions in that chapter is that vocational teachers need robust tools to remain side-by-side with children. . .support in continuing together as interlocutors even within (perhaps especially within) the specter of U.S. schooling. Another was that, based on some of the discourse, many teachers responded as they did at least in part because they did not consider the contribution "childish".

The second article is where I include the scene from "Ugly Delicious". In this paper, I describe my attempt to create an imaginative artifact (Cole, 1996), a tool to help support and stretch future teachers in noticing the social organization of learning. Of particular interest were situations where people learn while hierarchies like age-group membership are disrupted. I feel that these moments, where children are regarded by others as regular participants, can be instructive for learning to organize settings for regular participation.

To help support this kind of noticing, in future iterations of the aforementioned course on learning I introduced students to what I refer to as machete stories. First, drawing on examples you gave in The Cultural Nature of Human Development like young children handling large knives meant for cutting or selling produce at markets. Then, I asked students throughout the semester to become witnesses to children acting seemingly "above" their ages. Over the semesters, at times students acted as first person analysts, reflecting on their own experiences, and second person analysts who observed the experiences of others.

In the paper I focus on two stories shared by students. One, a first person account of a student recalling being a young child helping her mother (a professional chef) prepare meals for clients. One thing that  struck me about her story was the seemingly peripheral activities she engaged in first before becoming someone who, in her words, believed anyone could cook (contribute). It reminded me of Lave's (2008) description of legitimate peripheral participation and you/your team's work on LOPI. I used the example from "Ugly Delicious" to help illustrate what I was seeing as peripherality helping to mediate moving closer and closer to a target activity.

My argument was that collecting and thinking with stories of children acting (seemingly) above their ages helped to make more legible the ways that the relations between people, tasks, and contexts can be enabling. And for me, this kind of noticing is supportive of attending to how others are (or not) genuinely included. Doing so is arguably a co-factor in school-based teaching being and becoming a relation between and among learners characterized by multiple, standing invitations to enter into an activity.

Quinton, thank you for underlining the importance of inclusion, through your work!

In Morelli, Rogoff, and Angelillo (2003), we observed that middle-class European American 3-year-olds spent far less time in places where adults were doing work (other than tending to the children), compared with Mayan children in Guatemala and Efe children in Democratic Republic of Congo.  This lack of inclusion of course limits middle-class children's opportunities to observe and to contribute.  

In that paper we claim that the idea of separate child and adult worlds is a middle-class cultural idea and practice, though middle-class society seems to regard this separation as natural.

Morelli, G., Rogoff, B., & Angelillo, C. (2003). Cultural variation in young children’s access to work or involvement in specialized child-focused activities. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 264-274.

Quinton, I can't wait to read the work you outlined above! Your rejection of both "precocity" and deficit ways of accounting for difference rings true with research we've done on toddlers' initiative in LOPI at ages 2-3. To us, it is crystal clear that neither work as explanatory frameworks despite the developmental literature on children's helping continuing to characterize very young children's helping as "natural" (to me, the root assumption of "precocity"). The field has a long way to go to account for cultural learning (is there another type?) at very young ages, but LOPI is a step in the right direction.

Hi Quinton, Barbara and Andrew,

Thank you so much for mentioning my book, Hunt, Gather, Parent. Although the book doesn't specifically use the term LOPI, it extensively cites the work of Barbara, Lucia, Rebeca and all their colleagues. 

Now that my eyes have been opened by this amazing research, I too have started to see (parts of) LOPI all over pop culture and the media. Perhaps it's rising and will become more common as media, film, tv, etc becomes a bit more diverse and inclusive?

There are some wonderful examples in Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever and in this New Yorker video, you can find hints of it... (even a little bit of "activation" by the mom.... "I've added the chhonk," she'd say... And I knew it was time to set the table) https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/chhonk-my...

It's funny because in an early draft of Hunt, Gather, Parent, I included the scene from Ugly Delicious that you cite here. It was very striking to hear David say that his mom never "taught" him to cook and then say he watched her cook all the time (to paraphrase).

 Thank you so much, Barbara, Lucia, Rebeca and all your colleagues for this very important research. And another fantastic video!

Michaeleen, great to think with you here! I hadn't seen that video on chhonk; it is beautiful and with several connections to LOPI and the kinds of learning that you and we've been interested in and writing about:

1. The video reminds me that learning is always a process of being and becoming, a process with "outcomes" that accompany us over long arcs of our lives. Even though many middle-class communities assume learning is transactional -- trade this for that, in the moment -- to me, LOPI responds to the moral or ethical question of what we want our children to both be and become over many years. 
2. The video also reminds me of the politics of learning, always present, in this case learning as resistance to cultural hegemony (even when PB&J sandwiches need to be made for a time) that does not need to sacrifice hybridity and futurism (e.g., the blending of culinary traditions that the video narrator's mother was reported to do).

Again, thanks for these connections.

That's a beautiful video of an "Indian kid" reflecting on how her own transformation from an 'angsty' South Asian immigrant kid to a food writer and influencer, thanks to her inclusion in her mother's culinary wizardry.

It's an open question that is worthy of research -- how widely used is LOPI?  It's probably used by everyone to some extent, such as in learning our first language by being immersed in it and wanting to take part.  And it seems to be commonly used in many Indigenous and Indigenous-heritage communities in the Americas.   There are hints of it on other continents and island communities. But we need research to examine whether common ways of organizing learning in other lands have the same multifaceted features of LOPI -- or whether different models are needed to describe other ways of organizing learning.  They may have some characteristics in common with LOPI, but not others -- indicating that they deserve a model of their own to describe them.

Some other researchers have made use of the LOPI model as an inspiration to examine Indigenous ways of learning in places like Australia, New Zealand, gathering and hunting communities in Africa, Circumpolar regions.  In her post in this discussion, Yu Zhang describes making use of the LOPI model to deepen understanding of a model for learning common in Chinese childrearing.  Leslie Moore has used the framework of the LOPI prism to describe learning through guided repetition in Koranic learning in Cameroon.

The use these researchers are making of the LOPI model is as inspiration, and asking the same questions that provide the headings of the 7 facets of the LOPI prism.

Hi Michaeleen,

You mentioned the idea of “activation” by the mother.

From what I have seen with Indigenous heritage mothers, a key to their success in fostering initiative is their subtle yet constant guidance, full of patience and respect for the child.

I like how in your book, you provide a beautiful ethnographic example of how a Mayan mother is very patient with her child and, instead of pressuring him to put on the shoes, provides very gentle reminders. This routine results in a harmonious start to their day, a highly uncommon in many highly schooled communities.

Hi Becca, and thank you for your interesting comment.

This reminds me of Itzel Aceves-Azuara's dissertation that examined generational differences in collaborative practices by Guatemala Maya mothers who participated in one of the studies included in the video when they were toddlers.

Another point that you make is the impact of employment outside of the community and how this might impact LOPI practices at home. I hope to explore this question with Yucatec Maya mothers and compare the home practices of those mothers that leave the community to work in the tourist sector and learn Spanish (become bilingual) in the process with those mothers that stay at home (monolingual Maya). 

In a longitudinal study exploring continuity and change in family practices, Barbara Rogoff and I noticed some changes in family engagement across generations, especially in collaborative inclusion. We are also exploring mother’s opinions on how they noticed changes in family togetherness or family convivencia. In general, there are fewer opportunities for families to spend time together, a highly valued aspect of family and community life.

Thanks for the reflections, Becca!  You asked, "Given how long you've explored this question, do you have any follow-up that examines how or whether these practices get carried on by the children in the video who then become parents?"  

Yes, Itzel Aceves-Azuara and I are carrying out a series of studies on this question.   We re-visited the same Mayan families that Christine Mosier and I had included in a study 30 years ago, with mothers and their 2 young children.  Itzel and I used the same procedure, and even with the same local Mayan research assistant (my colleague Marta Navichoc Cotuc).  The first study reports on the current mothers' reflections on changes in child life in this Mayan town, since they were children.  The second one examines the inclusive collaboration among the mothers and their 2 children, in both generations.  We have several other studies planned, using the visits, following up on third party attention and on forms of mother-child communication.

Becca you also asked, "I was also curious if you've been able to study or explore these questions within a U.S. context, where families are also negotiating different cultural norms about learning (i.e., as a highly independent endeavor, sometimes) or where structural experiences (e.g., having to work outside the home for long hours) might shape some of the learning that happens?"

Yes, my team and I have carried out a number of studies in the US and in cosmopolitan Mexico, looking at the patterns for children and families who have extensive Western schooling (and related experience) as well as practices stemming from Indigenous and rural Mexico.  In most of the studies, the kids from families with experience in both cultural systems show a pattern that is in between the pattern of Mexican-heritage children whose families have limited Western schooling and the pattern of children whose European American families have extensive schooling (and related practices) across generations.  

However in Ruvalcaba et al (2015) we found that US Mexican-heritage children showed similar amounts of considerateness in asking for help from an adult, whether their families had extensive experience in Western schooling (and related practices) or not.  Both of those groups showed more considerateness than their counterparts from highly schooled European American backgrounds.

An important study examining your question (López-Fraire, Rogoff, & Alcalá) was the focus of a 3-minute video that we made in 2018.  You can view "Learning by Helping" at https://multiplex.videohall.com/playlists/3448/edit?saved_search=true&search%5Btext%5D=rogoff

Plenty more to be said and studied about this important question!  I think the answer depends on which aspect of LOPI is being considered.  Some may be more stable than others.

Thank you, Diane. Your participation in this forum helps disseminate this message!

Thank you for this, Diane.  I appreciate your enthusiasm (and your efforts) to disseminate this information widely!  Personally, I'm convinced that short videos of research can help people understand research findings in a way that is difficult to do in just words in journals and books.  I think it is because videos that show ongoing processes can be a pretty good simulation of LOPI.  

Since you are past president of the American Psychological Association (and many other organizations), I wonder if you see ways for such organizations to prompt the use of short videos to convey research findings.  (Kudos to NSF for sponsoring this Video Showcase, for 8 years now, I think.)

Thank you for your feedback, Diane! I'm curious to know what would be some ideas you might have for possible dissemination of this work. 

I really appreciate this question, Andresse! It seems to me that a LOPI framework could potentially transform current mass educational/childcare institutions and practices for the better. It was only through Barbara Rogoff's book, The Cultural Nature of Human Development, that I myself realized how recent the current, mass educational, daycare, and related parenting practices are in the US, and how we might intentionally greatly improve them.

Hi Andresse, thanks for your question!  In the video, I talked about how l learned about LOPI through my work in a Mayan town, over many years.  But I also learned about LOPI as a parent volunteer in the early grades of an innovative public elementary school in Salt Lake City, the OC.  It took me a while as a parent volunteer to realize that I was learning the same lesson in the OC as I had been learning for years before that in my work in Guatemala.  (The teachers, parents, kids, and a principal wrote about the OC's collaborative philosophy in Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community, published by Oxford.)

In the meantime, I have learned about LOPI-like arrangements in a variety of schools serving young children, in a range of communities varying in economic and  cultural circumstances.

I'm glad that Lucretia Fairchild responded to your question, Andresse, especially because Lucretia has been doing important LOPI-related work with families of very young children.  Lucretia, would you like to tell us a little about your work?

Sure - Barbara's early work and more recent work from Andrew Coppens, Lucia Alcalá and others in the team, have described specific parenting beliefs and practices that go along with toddlers contributing to the family in a LOPI style (some relevant articles are below). Since such extensive, long-term, in-depth work has been done and is ongoing, as Barry Fishman rightly pointed out above, it was a solid basis to create a training for parents of 1- to 3-year-olds to encourage parents to support children's initiative in helping around the house. The idea is that parents can intentionally change their practices, and that this might have the most impact as children are just starting to learn how to move in the world and in groups, handle objects, and also how to understand and interact with people.

According to parent reports from an initial study, many parents found the training very helpful and seemed to have more fun and quality interactions with their toddlers. They seemed to move toward allowing and encouraging toddlers' contributions, if they hadn't been doing things that way already - how much and in what ways varied. Importantly, they seemed better at recognizing that their toddlers were capable of helping and that their toddlers' efforts were valuable, as were their own efforts to support their kids and work with them. Parents who seemed to work with their kids in a LOPI style before the training also liked the training for validating what they were doing already and helping them hone their skills and be more intentional about it. One parent felt guilty and thought she shouldn't be doing things that way before the training....

I am curious how daycare and early education settings might be restructured, and teachers and parents trained/validated, to better support kids to take initiative to learn, contribute to the group, and collaborate in some of the advanced ways this body of work on LOPI describes. It seems to me it would be beneficial to all kids, AND it's important to recognize and support families/children who are more advanced at this and already do it well.

Here are just a few (of many!) relevant articles that look specifically at family practices with toddlers:
Coppens, A. D., Corwin, A. I., and Alcalá, L. (2020). Beyond behavior: linguistic evidence of cultural variation in parental ethnotheories of children’s prosocial helping. Frontiers in Psychology, 11:307. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00307

Coppens, A. D. & Rogoff, B. (2021). Cultural variation in the early development of initiative in children's prosocial helping. Social Development. 2021:1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12566

Rogoff, B., Mistry, J., Göncü, A., Mosier, C., Chavajay, P., & Heath, S. B. (1993). Guided participation in cultural activity by toddlers and caregivers. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, i-179. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617718355

Here's one that synthesizes strengths for learning that have been studied:
Rogoff, B., Coppens, A. D., Alcalá, L., Aceves-Azuara, I., Ruvalcaba, O., López, A., et al. (2017). Noticing learners’ strengths through cultural research. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 12, 876–888. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617718355

Thanks very much, Lucretia! You're doing such important work and it's great to have you here in this discussion. Fascinating comments.

Hi Myriam,  Thanks for your comment!  Do you have a good example from Indonesia in mind that you could share?

Yes, two examples I observed: one was children observing their parents do a (very complicated) dance and imitating them, and then participating in the dances. Another was in the rice fields, where young children were initially carried by their mothers and later watched and helped with the picking. Your work codifying and describing LOPI is such a wonderful contribution!

Thank you for sharing these examples, Myriam! One aspect that I am fascinated by is how in these collaborative endeavors, people often synchronize their movements. I can picture the children in the rice fields moving alongside everyone else. 

We wrote on LOPI face 3, ideas about synchronization 

Dayton, A., Aceves‐Azuara, I., & Rogoff, B. (2022). Collaboration at a microscale: Cultural differences in family interactions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12398

Wonderful examples, Myriam!

And thank you for sharing this article, Itzel!

I've been thinking about this idea of mutual pace and synchronization of movements. I see this when children engage in family work at home but also when they participate in ceremonial activities at the  community level. 

The new paper that Itzel linked describes cultural differences in fluid collaboration at a scale of fractions of seconds, in the  interactions of triads of mothers with their 2 small children.  In the Guatemalan Mayan families, the triads usually engaged with all 3 people mutually interacting, whereas this was rare among the highly schooled European American families -- they more commonly spent the time with 2 people engaged together and one left out, or with no one engaged together, or conflicting with each other.  This is visible in coding fine-tuned, fluid synchrony in 200-millisecond segments, while the mothers and children began to explore novel objects.

Here's that cite again: Dayton, A., Aceves‐Azuara, I., & Rogoff, B. (2022). Collaboration at a microscale: Cultural differences in family interactions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12398

Would you tell us a little about what you've seen in LOPI being instantiated in specialized work and everyday practices among Yucatec Maya mothers and children?

James, what a wonderful project your team has! Hopefully it will inspire other folks. Yes, intergenerational engagement is key to promote community mindness. Bárbara and I had a interesting conversation with Ruth Paradise about a phenomena that you are describing, flexible leadership and people “following” others depending on the activity, specially genuine interest to move together towards change, innovation or just to get things done :)

I applaud your work, James.  Both for the progress it is making regarding climate change, and the impressive use of important features of LOPI that you summarized in your latest post. 

As you mention, the inclusiveness that is the focus of the central feature of LOPI (Facet 1) extends intergenerationally -- including generations of those who have become ancestors and generations of those coming in the future.  And connecting with the climate change issue, and posts by Elisa and several others, the inclusiveness as practiced in many communities of the Americas is not just about relations among humans but also includes relations of humans with other beings, including the mountains and the waters and the air.

Your experiences in Haiti sound really interesting! I am curious about what aspects of LOPI you experienced or observed with children and youth in Haiti? Do you have some examples to share?

Though the intricacies of LOPI have been described and studied in Indigenous families of the Americas by Barbara and her extended team/colleagues, it's my understanding that not a lot of in-depth work has been done in other places. In my work, I had a mother from Nigeria explain that when growing up nobody taught them these things (endeavors around the house), it was just what everybody did, what they were ALL doing. It is interesting to think about what aspects of LOPI might be practices of a global majority (the minority being middle and upper class, Western schooled people), and which might be specific to Indigenous people of the Americas.

Diane, your comment on how school is often seen as the only way to “receive” education. I often think that learning happens despite Western schooling...

I'm curious, Diane, about how you use the videos and the work on LOPI in your course on Childhood Globalization and Culture. 

Same question to others who have mentioned using the videos in your classes.

I'm also curious whether the students make use of the discussions, which are preserved with the videos each year.

Thanks for these observations, Janet!  You asked, "What about Indigenous theories of learning and development lend itself to the sorts of insights you share?"    

I think it will help if I distinguish the LOPI model from LOPI as a process. The work on the LOPI model is an effort by myself and about 60 colleagues in an international research consortium that includes many scholars who themselves grew up in Indigenous communities.  We are all familiar with LOPI as something that happens, and we are working to describe it in the LOPI model. The LOPI model that we present in the video is the latest in our ongoing attempt to describe LOPI, an Indigenous American theory and practice of learning and development that involves Learning by Observing and Pitching in to family and community endeavors.  

LOPI is an important system that presents a paradigm shift for many highly schooled people whose own learning has mostly been based in ways that Western schooling is commonly organized.  But many Indigenous scholars from across the Americas have written about aspects of LOPI, for many decades.  And when I present our work on the LOPI model in groups that include scholars from Indigenous American backgrounds, their response often indicates that what we are trying to describe in the LOPI model is simply common sense, but that the model (the prism) is useful for trying to inform others (such as outside agencies) about this paradigm.

Janet, you asked about keeping learning about learning.

One aspect that I have noticed is that in describing LOPI, the researchers are involved in promoting continuous intergenerational and intercultural conversations. In addition, these conversations have happened in different historical stages of developmental psychology as a science. This diversity helps highlight many different aspects of learning.

In other words, I have noticed how the creation of the LOPI model is a collaborative effort, continually expanding and shifting. As a junior researcher, I have been inspired by this process.

Rosado-May, Luis Urrieta, Andy Dayton, and Barbara Rogoff; wrote a paper on how innovation, continuity, and change are key elements to accommodate new circumstances, especially in Indigenous communities of the Americas (they address the Mayan term iknal).

Hi Janet - I am also very interested in how this work might inform the design of learning environments and experiences! There is some evidence that it might, at least in the case of parenting toddlers. My work now involves a parent training based on the work of this team (see my post above), and parents found the training very beneficial, increased their Parenting Self-efficacy scores on average with a big effect size, many reported having better interactions with their toddlers, and some reported toddlers helping more and/or taking initiative to help more. The evidence was consistent with the idea that parents across cultures want to raise children who are helpful, that parents with a lot of Western schooling often don't recognize that some of their practices go against this goal, and that changing those practices is possible.

If parents can do it, why not teachers and daycare providers? I think there is a lot of promise in looking at other aspects of early care and education (and later schooling too, of course!) that can be adjusted for systemic, beneficial changes that support and encourage LOPI, for the benefit of all kids' education. These changes should also give credit, recognition, and support to kids and families who already have the related practices and are advanced in helping and collaborating.

You can read more about the theoretical background to training parents in these ways at
Fairchild, L. (2021). Raising Helpful Children: Exploring Conflict Between Goals and Practices in Euro-Heritage Socialization of Helping. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 722998-722998. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.722998

Lucretia, congratulations on your publication! Thank you for sharing your work and for your insightful contributions to this conversation. 

Yes, congrats, Lucretia! I look forward to reading your work, thanks for sharing! 

Thanks to you both - and appreciate all your work!

I can vouch for the radically collaborative way in which Barbara works with students (and worked with me!). LOPI, deeply intertwined with the advising practices that Barbara outlines above, has become a core model for how I work with my own students -- not just doctoral students, but in university classrooms as well. 

To be sure, there are many constraints to implementing LOPI in bureaucratic institutions often not set up for collaboration across generations and across levels of expertise (e.g., many universities). I think many students and professors feel, implicitly, that their efforts are at odds with each other which has a lot to do with deep institutional design (both values and practices). However, implementing even a few aspects of LOPI can be transformative. 

I'm so appreciative of Andrew's comment!

I would add to his note that my undergraduate teaching became much more effective and enjoyable (to me and to the students) when I began to try to transform from trying to control and police the students, to trying to guide them.   For one thing, if I focused on guiding the students, my interest and resulting openness and that of the most engaged students would bring in the students who were just taking the course because it fit their schedule.   For me it was like flipping a switch, when I shifted to thinking of my teaching as guidance.  

I have LOPI and my experience in a Maya community to thank for that, along with UCSC's narrative evaluation system, and my experience in an elementary school that uses a LOPI approach, which we described in Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community.

Jose, thank you for your comment! Can you share what aspects of LOPI have you notice in the tech industry? I agree with you that using LOPI in any area that requires group collaboration can make a significant impact. 

I agree, Jose. Incorporation of LOPI can benefit all and has so many applications.

I have also noticed use of LOPI in tech learning, such as when a group of friends teach each other coding, in the process of creating an application or a startup.  Learning software languages is embedded in getting something done together.

Based on anecdotes:  When LOPI is used in learning statistics, such as applying statistics to the analysis of real data for a real purpose, it seems to awaken a kind of deep understanding that is not common when just learning statistics for a test.

That's one of my favorite scenes, too, Cynder! To me it shows togetherness, how the whole family can share a laugh. Also, the little boy shows how competent he is, by going straightaway to fix the broom that just fell apart on him (after the little giggle). Seems like highly schooled culture doesn't expect or nurture such agency and competence.

That part of the video was also one of my favorites -- I kept worrying that I was going to have to shorten it to keep within the three-minute limit.  But I always found something else I could cut.

I loved that little guy's and the adult's straightforwardness in working together, and in the little guy's fixing of the broom -- he just did what needed to be done and was trusted to do so.  

Also, that clip shows clearly how that small child, in the process of observing and pitching in, had learned how to use the helical structure of the threads (and their directionality) to screw the handle back onto the broom to convert rotational movement into linear movement to attach the two.  What is that, a process of everyday engineering?

One aspect that I particularly enjoy about that example is the flexibility there is when “mistakes” or unforeseen events happen.

People rapidly adjust to the circumstances and are ready to assist the learners in their ongoing endeavors. That does not mean that the learner’s contributions are not “real contributions”, rather, the person who guides adjusts to the pace and need of the learner.

In contrast, in many highly schooled communities, it is the case that children's help is seen as “cute” (but not as a real contribution, but rather as pretend play) or even obnoxious. Also, there is often less patience in this curve of learning. If we see this same scene in another community, it might be the case that the child gets removed from the activity. Some communities value more “efficiency” than doing things together (as discussed in Coppens and Rogoff, 2021).

Yes! I'm glad that scene made it in the video. It's a good example of reasons why highly schooled communities families often report that helping is not encouraged or expected at an early age. Like you said, Itzel, many parents claim it wouldn't be "efficient". 

Hi Cynthia! This is a fascinating description. I was especially compelled by your description of "conditions for working together":

The conditions for working together in this way: clear problem space (purpose), connection to students' identities and intergenerational lives outside of school, production (rather than merely reception) of media (doing rather than reading about or just watching), circulation of ideas, and the ability to engage in the creation of a counter-narrative.

So much here, but the notes about shared purpose and a "clear problem space" resonate in particular. I think there can be a misconception (which your next line about the dual role of harmony and conflict makes clear that you see too) about LOPI, an assumption that everyone taking part always agrees with one another and that a community organized in LOPI ways is homogenous in some way. Not so. "Clear problem space" is a brilliant way of articulating this sense of a common vision for larger purpose or "Big E" expectations. I even think that some kinds of conflict are most appropriately understood as commitment to that larger purpose (otherwise, why bother?). The behavioral control and lack of autonomy that many students experience in schools seems to contribute to seeing conflict as unproductive.

Thanks again!

Such an important observation!

Yes! Harmony and community-mindedness are key elements of LOPI. That contrast widely with ideas of control in Western communities. In a study that Andrew Dayton, Barbara, and I conducted on family interaction, we noticed that rough/resistant interactions happened more often among European-American middle-class families than in Mayan families. When we replicated the study 30 years later, Mayan families, even in the face of globalization, still do not engage as often in rough/resistant interactions as European American middle-class families. This finding highlights the importance of maintaining harmonious relationships in communities where LOPI frequently happens.

In The Cultural Nature of Human Development, I refer to this as "interdependence with autonomy," and I make the argument that its importance in a number of communities directly challenges the widespread dichotomy of individualist vs. collectivist cultures.

Indeed, I have argued that academia's common habit of creating dichotomies is a cultural practice of middle-class European American culture. In the case of the individualist/collectivist dichotomy, I think it reflects this culture's emphasis on control in social relations (among parents/children, teachers/students, leaders/followers, humans/more-than-human world).

"...maybe it is about actively welcoming different perspectives, tendencies, and talents, that help to get things done well for the group."

What a wonderful insight, Lucretia! Thank you so much for that idea.

Wow Michaeleen!  Thank you!  This means so much to me!

And about the video -- I decided to challenge myself to explain LOPI in 3 minutes.  I wasn't sure it could be done!  I wanted to do it in a way that would make sense to a broad range of viewers, including the participants in our research, from many communities.

I have been trying for years to learn how to talk and write in a way that is understandable to anyone interested. Awakening me to that goal is thanks to conversations with Mayan farmers and weavers from almost 5 decades ago, when people would ask me with curiosity what my work was in their town. I'm remembering specific conversations, as we walked together up the hill to town, or down the hill from the market.  That was before the academic form of research was part of the local everyday vocabulary, though of course Mayan people have been doing leading research for centuries.  And now there are many people from the town doing the academic form of research as well -- some of those folks' grandchildren.

The responses to the LOPI video are really gratifying!

Terrific!  Would you describe directive guidance for us?  And how the interpretation of this practice is different among the Chinese parents than among the European American parents that you have studied?

Hi Yu, is there a place to learn more about your research. Sounds quite interesting.

Hi Yu, I agree with Miachaeleen and Barbara. Your work sounds very interesting, and I'd love to read more about directive guidance. 

Yu, do you happen to have videos of these descriptions? It would be great to see them! 

Yes, I've been amazed at the number of views from cities in Ukraine that I've been reading about in the news!

You can see the map of the worldwide views of this video (and other videos) by clicking on the little map that is near the top of each video's page.