[Xmca-l] Re: book of possible interest

[David Kellogg]

I'm actually in the middle of Chapter Three right now. What I can tell you
is that Helen's first two chapters are a kind of "Who's Who" at xmca, with
Helen reading the great classics (in the wrong order) and talking to Andy,
Greg, and others on this list. But beyond the litte shout-outs to xmca, in
Chapter Three, you find interesting problems like this. Helen is setting up
a "Professional Learning ZPD". This an acronymy within an acronym (an
"acro-acronym-nym", like the group I used to belong to in New York and
Paris, called "ACT-UP"), and in general Helen seems to have some trouble
with names. On pp. 58-59, she writes.

"In PLZ 4 I wrote the title 'Features of cultural Historical Learning
Activities' across a piece of butcher's paper and asked the grou to
brainstorm features of activities that would be consistent with cultural
historical theory. After a few suggestions, Mike suddenly interrupted with:
MIKE: Can I ask, Helen, why such a wank of a name?
HELEN: Cultural-historical?
MIKE: Yeah, what a bullshit name.
DEB: What should it be Mike?
MIKE: What does it mean to anyone? Is that relevant to anyone that
name? Cultural-historical learning. What does that mean?
HELEN: Well....
MIKE: It's crap.
HELEN: Well, I don't think that you, that's the name of teh theoyr,
Cultural historical theory, but I think in terms of schools using teh
theory they talk about Communities of Learners.
MIKE: Yeah, but why don't they call it that?
HELEN: OK, so (I start crossing out "cultural historical" and changing it
to "Communities of Learners")
MIKE: That name is like calliing the ultra net site for teachers 'design
space'. It has no relevance to the name whatsoever, and to use it--features
of cultural historical learning--sounds like a load of crap. It
doesn't have any relevance ot what it means. If you said to me cultural
historical learning, I go ....
BETH: I actually thought it meant talking about he past (general agreement).
MIKE: That's what it implies, the past and how you used to teach.
HELEN: I suppose I'm just trying to familiarize you with the term (general
agreement)
MIKE: If you call it community of learners then it's something that's
relevant."

Helen then makes the (cultural-historical) point that words have a history,
but they are not necessarily YOUR history--for Helen, "cultural historical"
calls up a whole series of quite precise concepts, while "Community of
Learners" is kind of vague and undefined. But for the teachers (who are, I
must say, not exactly reticent about sharing, and do not limit themselves
to sharing their expertise) what you get is old times.

It's funny that they ignore the word culture. I always thought that
"cultural historical" is a little bit of the cart before the horse....

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies



On 8 July 2014 21:40, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> The Practice of Teachers' Professional Development
>
> A Cultural-Historical Approach
>
> Helen Grimmett (Monash University, Australia)
>
> This book uses Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory to provide a unique
> theorisation of teachers' professional development as a practice. A
> practice can be described as the socially structured actions set up to
> produce a product or service aimed at meeting a collective human need. In
> this case, collaborative, interventionist work with teachers in ... Click
> here for a free preview and full description<
> http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001ZduyW2xyB1USw9R1YjQno7GI-mDLfJ6m-729UFbNgCKe6Z_p9GP7xjN9IHr0mfZ1yni-XmxHyPfAaNcVjlENvx4l8ySiyRYKHRvvg2E6WbMlf3hNShpk2qTuRRu0ZenYc1mrXxe68_BX4FXljTnHjOx91vJalGeivvaQfmQF57rpGgcDrJe9bprlVyXQwjSo0U6yk-QJ1S5miZfuS7ohswmNs3UZWGMucMgWJyU6E_J3d8QHyWjpGuBM8i2twLXGBPHkZb6hFN4pF6PT3r3M7HYvwFdzAzSfRvpCd90DvQMVDuqkf5VY3ccoD6FppEGF&c=0Y23gLfSZ1jN_yGPyItMZic7SWiIoOcRfcrQWB0JYs9lkVW149lxUQ==&ch=ioZBoxRIwDxdvg-uu6NEwI-E45lgW01U_INO86ZNyJpwbp9zcKnCIA==
> >.
>
>