HLTC23H3 Final: Lecture 1 Study Notes
Document Summary
Childhood as a cultural artifact: unlike infancy, childhood is a social/cultural artifact. Infancy is a biologically driven event with a genetically timed duration: childhood is a different story. It can be longer or shorter depending upon several factors. The natural history of childhood: niel postman: the disappearance of childhood, greeks had no real world for child in the ancient world. Fall of the roman empire to the barbarians . Postman points out four points regarding the middle ages and the concept of the child: literacy disappears, pedagogy declines. pedagogy the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods: shame disappears, childhood disappears. Disappearance of literacy: literacy did not completely disappear. Social literacy disappeared for a 1000 years: craft literacy remained (monks and noblemen, scribes, reading speed, even among the literate, diminished significantly (re: calligraphic fonts made letters opaque )