I love your choice of dinner guests. As yours is a small dinner party I am sure you would maximise participation and have some great interactions!
I wonder what you think Susan Isaacs might have thought of the EYFS, and if Jean Piaget would be happy with how schools are today – long-past – Plowden? (I first learned about Piaget in practice via the Plowden Report).
It would be delightful to hear from Valentine Châtenay [married to Piaget]; so frequently the women behind the male researchers were invisible. Her lens might have been different, but I don’t know.
The Reconceptualist movement folks frequently attack Piaget, stage theorists, and those they think are assuming ‘universalist’ views. Of late, I am hearing many critiques of so called ‘developmentalists’. These appear to come from academic sources, but often with a political agenda – that may or may not have merit. That said, they undermine the work of many of those who have offered important insights over decades.
Times change, and research and practice expand knowledge, but I think it a mistake to throw out important components of our heritage.
Here in Canada, one of the big slurs is to call any philosophy or pedagogy ‘Eurocentric’. Seems as though I am caught in the middle of the Atlantic.
Your career has been such an enormous asset to the field, Dr Grenier.
I wish I had been able to get back to the East End of London while you were still at Sheringham.
Sue Martin, online
