I looked up articles written and published by my grandmother, who was a child psychologist. I searched her name in google scholar, and found two articles available, though other non-published and unavailable papers had also been cited. The main one was entitled, “Attitudes of Children from a Deprived Environment toward Achievement-Related Concepts” published with Judith W. Greenberg in The Journal of Education Research in 1965. The article is available on jstor at: http://www.jstor.org/pss/27531652
In the study, surveys were handed to fourth grade African-American children living in low-income urban areas. These surveys asked them to evaluate different influences in their lives in terms of how good these influences were, and also how potent they were – how much these good or bad things were strong influencers in their lives. If I am getting this wrong, friends and family and others who are reading this, let me know. My favorite conclusion was:
“In general, it appears that the poor-achievers tended to assign the most favorable ratings, particularly to concepts which have high social value. It may be that they were less able than the better achievers to express critical attitudes.”
Similarly, for TV - which has, in many ways, a low social value – the lowest-achievers put the lowest value on TV, either as a defensive mechanism, to show that they knew what was right and wrong despite the poor grades, or perhaps, as written above, because they did not have the critical thinking skills to question the lectures about the evils of television.
To an extent, I think the kids in the village should be encouraged to question and critique even the values of the village and some of the rules, as long as they know they need to follow the rules – sort of like critiquing laws that you still should follow. They do this, to an extent, in family discussions and the “debate” club, which is more like a chance to discuss, from different perspectives, the rules of the village.
I was in Agahozo-Shalom when I heard the news about my grandmother passing away, and desperately wanted to take a walk by myself outside the village. As I stepped outside, a handful of children started to follow me, as I knew would inevitably happen. More followed, until around ten to fifteen children were following me, eager to engage in a conversation with me, as I was eager to avoid talking to them. I felt half guilty as I picked up my pace, watching them struggle to keep up which, for the smaller toddlers, necessitated running. But they kept up with me, despite the cultural norm of walking very slowly, something routed in the very long walks taken to fetch water and balance it on one’s head.
As I came closer to a small rocky path that turned off into a small cluster of homes and cows, a man came with his own six massively meaty cows and bulls to also take the same small, narrow path. One of the children asked for money in Kinyarwanda, which they often do in giggling, dare-devil voices, as the other children burst into laughter. I said, “no,” perhaps a bit to tensely, and the man walking his cows raised the stick he used to heard the cows above the little children’s heads, threateningly, and yelled at them, most likely telling them to stop following me. Some looked frightened, especially the small ones, and I felt very bad, so I yelled to them and the herder, “no, it’s ok! It’s ok!” which was also a sign for them to continue following me. So off we went – me, followed by six cows, followed by a herder, followed by fifteen children, up a the narrow rocky pathway. At one point the cows started to gallop – the cows and bulls in Rwanda are very in shape, it’s quite impressive, I saw one jump its hind legs in the air when I first got here. The herder hit the running cow – or was it a bull? - and I was saved.
I really did not want to walk with children, but they are a wonderful distraction, and more clueless than adults at facial expressions which say, “I really don’t want you to follow me.” They are also exuberantly happy to see me, and this cheerfulness rubs off on me, sometimes, at least for a moment. And, eventually, they did get tired and walk/toddle home.
As I came closer to a small rocky path that turned off into a small cluster of homes and cows, a man came with his own six massively meaty cows and bulls to also take the same small, narrow path. One of the children asked for money in Kinyarwanda, which they often do in giggling, dare-devil voices, as the other children burst into laughter. I said, “no,” perhaps a bit to tensely, and the man walking his cows raised the stick he used to heard the cows above the little children’s heads, threateningly, and yelled at them, most likely telling them to stop following me. Some looked frightened, especially the small ones, and I felt very bad, so I yelled to them and the herder, “no, it’s ok! It’s ok!” which was also a sign for them to continue following me. So off we went – me, followed by six cows, followed by a herder, followed by fifteen children, up a the narrow rocky pathway. At one point the cows started to gallop – the cows and bulls in Rwanda are very in shape, it’s quite impressive, I saw one jump its hind legs in the air when I first got here. The herder hit the running cow – or was it a bull? - and I was saved.
I really did not want to walk with children, but they are a wonderful distraction, and more clueless than adults at facial expressions which say, “I really don’t want you to follow me.” They are also exuberantly happy to see me, and this cheerfulness rubs off on me, sometimes, at least for a moment. And, eventually, they did get tired and walk/toddle home.
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