Standing at the base of a small tree, my tactile functions engaged, I begin to trace my finger up the trunk. Almost immediately I encounter a crux, a place where the tree bifurcates and a branch leads me in a new direction. I allow my finger to meander along the branch and encounter another split. I choose a direction and continue following the new, much smaller branch. After seven more encounters like this my fingertip meets a nascent bud. Fed by water and nutrients absorbed by the tree, and encouraged by radiant sunlight, this tightly gathered leaf is ready to unfold and express itself as a manifestation of its environment. When I stand back, however, I fail to see the bud or even the branches. I see a tree, a connected and singular entity. When I walk further back, it too stops being a tree. Rather, it becomes an insignificant fragment of a much grander forest. I close my eyes and free my imagination and the forest becomes an emerald blanket laid gently on a majestic mountain.
This is analogous of how ideas are formed about how we view children and childhood in the framework of history. No single branch can be blamed for the health of the leaf. No single tree can be confronted for the emergence of the leaf. The context of the mountain, the forest, the tree, the branches, the nutrients, the water, and the sunlight all contribute to what will spontaneously emerge. Simultaneously significant and trivial, the emerging leaf, or idea, subtly transforms the landscape. As the seasons rhythmically change, some leaves succumb and die. Some glow bright yellow, brilliantly burst forth into a radiant red hue, turn brittle and brown, and spiral lazily to the ground to become nutrients for the ever-evolving flora and fauna.
The questions we must ask are: how are our ideas connected into the framework of history? What are the forces that shaped what we now consider true of youth? Should we be examining the branch, the tree, the forest, or the mountain when we struggle to reimagine the concept of childhood. Gleason (2009) theorizes that, ‘memories suggest that assumptions regarding children’s embodied vulnerability and incompetence translated into both benevolent and malevolent treatment, often had unintended consequences, [and] varied fundamentally depending on one’s social location’ (p. 129). The woven fabric of the time shaped how children were diagnosed, treated, and evaluated. The acceptance or rejection to these philosophies is based on a new landscape, one that was shaped by the previous landscape.
If ideas evolve and take shape in a context, it is invaluable to examine the forces that shaped the context itself. Brickell (2013) echoes this sentiment when he posits that ‘ways of knowing young people…parallel the social construction of youth itself,’ and later in the same article, the ‘institutionalized person comes to have “a history, a diagnosis, and an imputed future”’ (pp. 52 & 54). Brickell contends that case notes and files give us a glimpse into the historical concepts of responding to youth. The words in these notes were the branch from which the stems of dissent and agreement were both voiced. This divergence of ideas created two new branches and the complexity of thought was broadened.
In his paper, The Old Eugenics and the New Genetics Compared, Ekberg (2007) discusses the idea that cultures tend to value an environment where there is a ‘civic responsibility towards achieving collective health outcomes. All require expressions of altruism and a willingness to sacrifice individual rights to promote the common good of improved aggregate health.’ The idea that the collective gets to determine what is healthy highlights the point that it is social constructs that formulates ideas and beliefs. These are founded on the beliefs of the past, and they are formed on ones before them and so on and so forth.
We are then forced to contend with the idea that our own thoughts and ideas which we hold with such inviolability and hallowed sanctity, are not our own. The very tools we use to dissect and constructively critique the ideologies that built our own, are also borrowed from the past.
In other words, the budding leaf that is our current idea, is attached to the very tree we find so disparaging toward youth and that tree is part of a forest of ideas that makes it possible for us to critique the branch we are standing on. As reflective practitioners, it becomes our job and responsibility to look to the origins of thought in regards to the very tenets of our belief systems.
When we consider that the concepts of care, relationship, and trust come from a formerly held ideal, we will be less defensive when challenged about them. We will be more comfortable embracing the dynamic tension that these ideals are altruistic and selfish at the same time.
Stephen Neuman
References
Brickell, C.(2013). On the Case of Youth: Case Files, Case Studies,
and the Social Construction of Adolescence. The Journal of the
History of Childhood and Youth 6(1), 50-80. The Johns Hopkins
University Press. Retrieved September 25, 2015, from Project
MUSE database.
Ekberg, M. (2007). The old eugenics and the new genetics
compared. Social history of medicine, 20(3), 581-593.
Gleason, M.(2009). In Search of History's Child. Jeunesse: Young
People, Texts, Cultures 1(2), 125-135. The Centre for Research
in Young People's Texts and Cultures, University of Winnipeg.
Retrieved September 25, 2015, from Project MUSE database.
This is analogous of how ideas are formed about how we view children and childhood in the framework of history. No single branch can be blamed for the health of the leaf. No single tree can be confronted for the emergence of the leaf. The context of the mountain, the forest, the tree, the branches, the nutrients, the water, and the sunlight all contribute to what will spontaneously emerge. Simultaneously significant and trivial, the emerging leaf, or idea, subtly transforms the landscape. As the seasons rhythmically change, some leaves succumb and die. Some glow bright yellow, brilliantly burst forth into a radiant red hue, turn brittle and brown, and spiral lazily to the ground to become nutrients for the ever-evolving flora and fauna.
The questions we must ask are: how are our ideas connected into the framework of history? What are the forces that shaped what we now consider true of youth? Should we be examining the branch, the tree, the forest, or the mountain when we struggle to reimagine the concept of childhood. Gleason (2009) theorizes that, ‘memories suggest that assumptions regarding children’s embodied vulnerability and incompetence translated into both benevolent and malevolent treatment, often had unintended consequences, [and] varied fundamentally depending on one’s social location’ (p. 129). The woven fabric of the time shaped how children were diagnosed, treated, and evaluated. The acceptance or rejection to these philosophies is based on a new landscape, one that was shaped by the previous landscape.
If ideas evolve and take shape in a context, it is invaluable to examine the forces that shaped the context itself. Brickell (2013) echoes this sentiment when he posits that ‘ways of knowing young people…parallel the social construction of youth itself,’ and later in the same article, the ‘institutionalized person comes to have “a history, a diagnosis, and an imputed future”’ (pp. 52 & 54). Brickell contends that case notes and files give us a glimpse into the historical concepts of responding to youth. The words in these notes were the branch from which the stems of dissent and agreement were both voiced. This divergence of ideas created two new branches and the complexity of thought was broadened.
In his paper, The Old Eugenics and the New Genetics Compared, Ekberg (2007) discusses the idea that cultures tend to value an environment where there is a ‘civic responsibility towards achieving collective health outcomes. All require expressions of altruism and a willingness to sacrifice individual rights to promote the common good of improved aggregate health.’ The idea that the collective gets to determine what is healthy highlights the point that it is social constructs that formulates ideas and beliefs. These are founded on the beliefs of the past, and they are formed on ones before them and so on and so forth.
We are then forced to contend with the idea that our own thoughts and ideas which we hold with such inviolability and hallowed sanctity, are not our own. The very tools we use to dissect and constructively critique the ideologies that built our own, are also borrowed from the past.
In other words, the budding leaf that is our current idea, is attached to the very tree we find so disparaging toward youth and that tree is part of a forest of ideas that makes it possible for us to critique the branch we are standing on. As reflective practitioners, it becomes our job and responsibility to look to the origins of thought in regards to the very tenets of our belief systems.
When we consider that the concepts of care, relationship, and trust come from a formerly held ideal, we will be less defensive when challenged about them. We will be more comfortable embracing the dynamic tension that these ideals are altruistic and selfish at the same time.
Stephen Neuman
References
Brickell, C.(2013). On the Case of Youth: Case Files, Case Studies,
and the Social Construction of Adolescence. The Journal of the
History of Childhood and Youth 6(1), 50-80. The Johns Hopkins
University Press. Retrieved September 25, 2015, from Project
MUSE database.
Ekberg, M. (2007). The old eugenics and the new genetics
compared. Social history of medicine, 20(3), 581-593.
Gleason, M.(2009). In Search of History's Child. Jeunesse: Young
People, Texts, Cultures 1(2), 125-135. The Centre for Research
in Young People's Texts and Cultures, University of Winnipeg.
Retrieved September 25, 2015, from Project MUSE database.