[Xmca-l] Re: The zone of proximal development

[David Kellogg]

Ah, but is it a zone of proximal development--or just a zone of proximal
learning? And for whom?

Henry asked--some time ago--about the difference between scaffolding and
the zoped, and I argued that scaffolding could be seen as one moment--but a
rather extreme and externalized moment--of a zone of proximal learning, but
not a zone of proximal development.

The shape this problem takes in Korea is really a debate over the
respective merits of collaboration and cooperation. The idea is that
collaboration (which conspicuously contains the word "labor") does not
involve the division of labor and does not involve one party making
decisions and the other executing them, while cooperation does; ergo,
collaboration is a kind of cell for the ideal society and cooperation is a
cell for capitalism.

Needless to say, Vygotsky doesn't agree with this at all: almost all of his
examples are, on the contrary, examples of highly asymmetrical divisions of
labor (mother and child, teacher and child doing homework, experimenter and
subject, etc.). It is only through the revolutionary graspture and radical
restructuring and interior redecoration of the function of the decision
maker that we get free will. So cooperation and collaboration turn out to
be moments of the same process, but that process is, after all, a zone of
proximal learning and not necessarily a zone of proximal development.

I guess I find it useful to distinguish between an "everyday concept" of
the Zoped and a "scientific concept" of the Zoped. This corresponds more or
less the distinction that Seth Chaiklin (2003) makes between the subjective
(child by child) zoped and the objective (age cohort) zoped, except that it
is functional and genetic in its description rather than structural.

We are presenting a longish paper on this on Saturday at a workshop in
Kangweondo. Here's the English version!

https://www.academia.edu/13724420/Between_Lessons_The_Zone_of_Proximal_Development_in_Korean_Schools

(Warning--it's 33,000 words long, and almost all the examples are from
Korean education!)

David Kellogg



On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 8:21 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Annalisa,
> Thanks for sharing! There may be a similar referendum in Puerto Rico. What
> a world!
> H
>
> > On Jul 5, 2015, at 3:52 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Henry,
> >
> > Clever mom!
> >
> > This will likely be a very memorable event for the both of them.
> >
> > Actually, I found this photograph quite moving, because, well... for
> many many reasons!
> >
> > So thanks for letting me share it!
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > Annalisa
> >
> >
>
>
>