[Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
Beth Ferholt
bferholt@gmail.com
Fri Jul 17 11:40:35 PDT 2015
This chain of ideas is the closest I have ever felt to what interests me
most. It covers all the interests that brought me first to play and then
to the playworlds and then to perezhivanie. Before I went to LCHC I was a
preschool teacher and this is a profession that I think can be described as
being, in its first part, responsible for reflecting upon the 'having an
experience' that is happening all around you every day (time is so
condensed for young children so it is happening all the time) so that you
can support the self-creation beings who are able to "have an experience''?
Like with Greg's students, as a preschool teacher you find that what is
most important is to describe what is happening in a way that is true to
the children's experiences. Vivian Paley shows us how to do this. If you
don;t do this you find dealing with the Golem who has had the words that
give it life removed from its mouth: you just have dirt, nothing even
remotely related to the Golem, not even weight.
I think it is the teacher/artists who can find for us those properties that
will characterize the experience as a whole. What Monica named 'preschool
didactics from within' is a process of working with these people in
research. This sounds like 5D.
Andy, Vygotsky is talking about the the two purposes of art criticism. One
is entirely in the domain of social life, he says, guiding what art creates
in its audience in useful directions. The other is to 'conserve the effect
of art as art'. He says we know this is needed, because art is a unity,
and without the whole criticism is not related to art -- he calls what we
have left, without the unity, a wound. But criticism of art treats art as
a parliamentary speech -- often -- he says. Vygtosky shows how to avoid
this in the chapter on Bunin's short story.
As a preschool teacher you know that art is life because if you forget this
then you have unhappy children and your job is impossible, or worse. As an
researcher, every time you hit something hard you can revert to the first
purpose of art/life criticism, or anyhow to the part that does not conserve
the effect, without any consequences on your livelihood. If we could have
a system of science that makes it impossible to leave the hardest questions
to the first purpose of criticism, then we could have so many people
working on these hardest questions in a meaningful way, but I do not know
how to do this even in my own work.
Except one way is to place the desires of the teachers and children before
your own. This is sort of a method of love or empathy. Kiyo suggested The
Method of Hope by Miyazaki (no relation I think) and this is related, also
Edith Turner's work where she sees the reality that the people she is
studying see.
Maybe it is a method of perezhivanie.
Beth
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
wrote:
> Mike, could you elaborate on that?
>
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
> mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> Sent: 17 July 2015 19:40
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
>
> Alfredo--
>
> a "method of organization" seems close to a synonym for design.
>
> mike
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 9:42 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> > I like very much how Greg brings in a methodological issue here with his
> > mention about ethnography and his reading of "fidelity"; that the latter
> is
> > not about representing exactly, but about describing events in terms of
> > consequences for the participants, which they display for each other in
> > their actual practice.
> >
> > This methodological aspect makes me think that the the notion of ANALYSIS
> > BY UNITS, which has been discussed in xmca before, is useful here. Unit
> > analysis reminds us that, as units, experiences, as concrete and real
> > phenomena, have some form of organization that extends in time. That is
> > why, if I understood the discussion below correctly, Beth is warned not
> to
> > think of the unit of experience as a unit "in itself".
> >
> > Dewey and Bentley 1949 made the differentiation between self-action and
> > transaction. In self action, things are explained by their own powers.
> This
> > is, I believe, what Vygotsky would have referred to as analysis by
> > elements. In transaction, they say, “deal[s] with aspects and phases of
> > action, without final attribution to ‘elements’ or other presumptively
> > detachable ‘entities,’ ‘essences,’ or ‘realities,’ and without isolation
> of
> > presumptively detachable ‘relations’ from such detachable ‘elements’”. An
> > experience can be studied precisely because it is not a thing in itself:
> it
> > is always a moving, gesture, a "method of organization" as Dewey &
> Bentley
> > write.
> >
> > I thought this my add something to your fascinating discussion,
> > Alfredo
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
> > mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: 17 July 2015 18:23
> > To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
> >
> > Marx: It is only in a social context that subjectivism and objectivism,
> > spiritualism and materialism, activity and passivity, cease to be
> > antinomies and thus cease to exist as such antinomies. The resolution of
> > the theoretical contradictions is possible only through practical means,
> > only through the practical energy of man. Their resolution is not by any
> > means, therefore, only a problem of knowledge, but is a real problem of
> > life which philosophy was unable to solve precisely because it saw there
> a
> > purely theoretical problem."
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > > No, no, Beth. As Dewey says:
> > >
> > > "This unity is neither emotional, practical, nor
> > > intellectual, for these terms name distinctions that
> > > reflection can make within it. In discourse//about//an
> > > experience, we must make use of these adjectives of
> > > interpretation. In going over an experience in
> > > mind//after/ /its occurrence, we may find that one
> > > property rather than another was sufficiently dominant
> > > so that it characterizes the experience as a whole."
> > >
> > > Isn't this beautiful scientific prose! We make these distinction when
> we
> > > *reflect* on an experience. And perhaps we include the experience in
> our
> > > autobiography, act it out on the stage, analyse it scientifically, all
> of
> > > which presupposes analysis and synthesis. But it is important to
> > recognise
> > > that the unity is prior. It is not only a unity of emotion and
> cognition
> > > (for example) but also of attention and will - and any other categories
> > you
> > > abstract from an experience.
> > >
> > > Andy
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > *Andy Blunden*
> > > http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> > > On 17/07/2015 3:00 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
> > >
> > >> Or reproducing the part that represents the whole? Like a fractal? I
> > >> think it is the similarity across scales that makes an experience
> > >> proleptic, or gives that 'bliss conferred at the beginning of the road
> > to
> > >> redemption" that Vasilyuk refers to. You have an experience on
> several
> > >> timescales and so a sense of deja-vu is central to having an
> experience.
> > >> This is what I am thinking about after reading both the paper of
> Dewey's
> > >> and your recent piece on perezhivanie, Andy, although I am picking up
> > on a
> > >> small piece of the last email in this chain -- : If something is only
> > >> itself in its whole then you can't study it, is what is bothering me.
> > Beth
> > >>
> > >> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:22 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> > >> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Not "getting at something", Michael. Just pursuing
> > >> this question you raised about Dewey's saying that the
> > >> aesthetic quality of medieval buildings arises from
> > >> their not being "planned" like buildings are nowadays.
> > >> He goes on to say "Every work of art follows the plan
> > >> of, and pattern of, a complete experience." The puzzle
> > >> he is raising here is the completeness of an
> > >> experience which gives it its aesthetic quality, and
> > >> this cannot be created by assembling together parts in
> > >> the way a modern building is planned. An experience -
> > >> the kind of thing which sticks in your mind - is an
> > >> original or prior unity, not a combination, and this
> > >> is what gives a work of art that ineffable quality,
> > >> something which can only be transmitted by reproducing
> > >> that whole of an experience.
> > >>
> > >> Andy
> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> *Andy Blunden*
> > >> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> > >> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> > >> On 17/07/2015 2:32 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Andy,
> > >>
> > >> I'm still not sure about your question. Did I set
> > >> out to have that experience, that morning...no, I
> > >> don't think so (it was a long time ago, but I'm
> > >> pretty sure no). Could I have just treated it as
> > >> an indiscriminate activity, probably, I had done
> > >> so before.
> > >>
> > >> But I am guessing you're getting a something here
> > >> Andy?
> > >>
> > >> Michael
> > >>
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From:
> > >> xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:
> > >> osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13
> > >> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bglassman.13>=
> osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > >> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of
> > >> Andy Blunden
> > >> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:21 PM
> > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
> > >>
> > >> YOu said: "... But that time I had the experience
> > >> with the paintings..."
> > >>
> > >> I mean that was an experience. Did you set out
> > >> that morning to have that experience?
> > >> RE, your question: "what does he mean when he says
> > >> you can't do things indiscriminately and have
> > >> vital experience, but you also can't plan things?"
> > >> Andy
> > >>
> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> *Andy Blunden*
> > >> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> > >> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> > >> On 17/07/2015 2:09 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Well I'm not sure I understand your question
> > >> Andy, but perhaps it has
> > >> something to do with my grandfather's favorite
> > >> saying (translated from
> > >> Yiddish),
> > >>
> > >> Man plans, God laughs.
> > >>
> > >> Michael
> > >>
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From:
> > >> xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=
> > ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > >> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+mglassman
> > >> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bmglassman>=
> > >> ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > >> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>]
> > >> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> > >> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:04 PM
> > >> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > >> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
> > >>
> > >> So Michael, there was just that one occasion,
> > >> in all your museum-going, when you had an
> > >> experience. Was that planned?
> > >> (I don't mean to say you haven't had a number
> > >> of such experiences,
> > >> Michael ... just some number actually)
> > >>
> > >> Andy
> > >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> *Andy Blunden*
> > >> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> > >> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> > >>
> > >> On 17/07/2015 1:19 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Hi Larry and all,
> > >>
> > >> I think this is one of the most complex
> > >> aspects of experience, what does he mean
> > >> when he says you can't do things
> > >> indiscriminately and have vital
> > >> experience, but you also can't plan
> > >> things? I have discussed (argued) about
> > >> this a lot with my students. I have
> > >> especially seen him raise this point in at
> > >> least two of his great works, Democracy
> > >> and Education and Experience and Nature -
> > >> and again of course in Art as Experience
> > >> (notice he is not saying how Art enters
> > >> into experience but how art is experience
> > >> - I have come to notice these little
> > >> things more and more in his writing).
> > >>
> > >> The difficulty we have, at least in the
> > >> United States because of the dominance of
> > >> the idea of meta-cognition, is that we too
> > >> often translate what individuals are
> > >> bringing in to experience to organize it
> > >> as a form of meta-cognition. It is kind
> > >> of possible to make that interpretation
> > >> from Democracy and Education, although
> > >> what I think he is doing more is arguing
> > >> against misinterpretations of his work as
> > >> random, child centered activities. I
> > >> think he is clearer in Experience and
> > >> Nature that we bring in who we are at the
> > >> moment into the activity, and use who we
> > >> are (I don't want to say identity) as an
> > >> organizing principle for what we do. It
> > >> is perhaps one of the places where Dewey
> > >> and Vygotsky are close. Perhaps I can use
> > >> the same Jackson Pollock example. The
> > >> first few times I saw his paintings I was
> > >> trying to "apprecitate" them because I was
> > >> told that was the best way to experience
> > >> them. Dewey says no vital experience
> > >> there because my activities become stilted
> > >> and artificia
> > >> l. Sometimes I went through the
> > >> museum and just looked at pictures, one to
> > >> the other. No vital experience there,
> > >> just random threads. But that time I had
> > >> the experience with the paintings I was
> > >> allowing who I was, what had been built up
> > >> in the trajectory of my life to enter into
> > >> my experience with the painting, making it
> > >> a vital experience. I think Dewey makes
> > >> the argument in Experience and Nature that
> > >> it is not just the experience the moment
> > >> before, but the experiences leading to
> > >> that experience, the context of my life,
> > >> of my parent's life, of a long line of
> > >> historical experiences.
> > >>
> > >> Anyway, my take.
> > >>
> > >> Michael
> > >>
> > >> -
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Beth Ferholt
> > >> Assistant Professor
> > >> Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
> > >> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
> > >> 2900 Bedford Avenue
> > >> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
> > >>
> > >> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu>
> > >> Phone: (718) 951-5205 <tel:%28718%29%20951-5205>
> > >> Fax: (718) 951-4816 <tel:%28718%29%20951-4816>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
> > ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
> > Ecological Niche, 2008)
> >
> >
>
>
> --
>
> Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
> ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
> Ecological Niche, 2008)
>
>
--
Beth Ferholt
Assistant Professor
Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
Brooklyn College, City University of New York
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Phone: (718) 951-5205
Fax: (718) 951-4816
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