[Xmca-l] Re: Resending LSV/ANL on crisis in ontogengy

[David Kellogg]

Vygotsky says:

Правда, что это встречается далеко не всегда. У разных детей критические
возраста протекают по-разному. Здесь существует гораздо больше вариации в
протекании кризиса даже у наиболее близких по типу развития и по социальной
ситуации детей, чем в стабильные периоды. У многих детей вовсе не
наблюдается сколько-нибудь ясно выраженной трудновоспитуемости и снижения
школьной успешности в эти возраста. Огромный размах вариации в протекании
этих возрастов у разных детей и разительное влияние внешних и внутренних
условий на протекание самого кризиса настолько значительны и велики, что
дали повод многим авторам поставить вопрос - не являются ли вообще кризисы
детского развития чистым продуктом исключительно внешних неблагоприятно
действующих на ребенка условий и не должны ли они поэтому почитаться скорее
исключением, чем правилом в истории детского развития (Буземан и др.).

    "It is true that this happens far from always. In different children
the critical age will unfold differently. Here there exists far more
variation in the unfolding of the crisis, even among children who are most
similar in the type and social situation of development, than in stable
periods. In many children there is never any clearly expressed
unteachability or reduction of school achievement in this age. The large
range of variation in the unfolding of these ags in different children and
the striking influence of external and internal conditions on the unfolding
of the crisis itself is so significant and large that it gives rise to many
authors raising the question of whether or not the general crisis of child
development is purely the product of adverse external effects upon the
child’s condition alone and whether or not they should therefore be
considered an exception rather than a rule in the history of child
development (Busemann, etc.)"


Vygotsky then goes on to argue that all the absence of the crisis in some
children means is that we need to use a RELATIVE YARDSTICK (you remember he
talked about relative yardsticks at the beginning of "Problem of the
Environment" when he set out the necessity of different units of analysis
for different problems (which is why I agree with Andy that the SSD is an
adequate unit of analysis for SOME problems but not for the crisis). He
says that even in kids like Huw's, who experience no apparent crisis, we
can observe that particular periods appear to stand out against more stable
periods in three respects:

a) Unlike the stable periods, they have a PEAK (or rather a trough, viewed
from the point of view activity) and they do not have definite boundaries
(stable periods are the opposite--they have boundaries defined by the
crises but no very clear peak).

b) They are characterized by RELATIVE трудновоспитуемость, which I am
translating as "hard upbringing" or "difficult raising"; that is, the child
is relatively unteachable compared to stable periods (this is very
obviously true in transitions between one form of grammar and another!)

c) They are characterized by NEGATIVE construction. This isn't the same
thing as трудновоспитуемость; I think what Vygotsky means is there is more
destruction and abandonment of the interests and inclination of the
previous period than there is discovery of new interests and new
inclination. This brings us back to the "tragedy of creativity" that
Vygotsky explored in his essays on imagination: the child appears to, for
example, draw almost manically during a period of development and then,
just when the child appears to our eyes to be making some progress, gives
it all up and takes up writing instead; once again, the child sets to
composing his or her memoirs, but then gives that up and takes up something
different.

David Kellogg
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

c) .

On 21 March 2015 at 08:59, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> Ah, I see Huw.  In a sense I read ANL backward. Turns and shifts are
> inevitable, but not crises. So ANL is saying there can be  turning points
> and shifts but no crisis so long as it all happens on time under rational
> control.
>
> And you are saying that in your experience with your son, there were some
> "negation experiments" but no crisis. So ANL is right and you and your wife
> are rationally controlling
> your the process of upbringing!
>
> Obviously, even if no one else needs to, i need to go back and look at the
> examples of crises that LSV writes about. I wonder what experiences with
> his daughter could have led LSV
> into error. :-))
>
> thanks. my reading was inadequate.
> mike
>
>
>
>
> And
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Mike,
> >
> > In the paragraph you provide, ANL doesn't say that the development is
> > continuous: "the turning points or breaks, the qualitative shifts in
> > development".  The assertion that the crisis can be avoided isn't the
> same
> > thing as saying that there will not be a fundamental change.
> >
> > In my recollection, we did not have any issues at 2.  We did have some
> > interesting 'negation experimentation', but those 'no's seemed to have a
> > special meaning, so it simply required a bit more attention.  That seems
> to
> > support ANL's assertion.
> >
> > Huw
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 20 March 2015 at 15:55, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks for pointing out my error in using color to code the part of the
> > > text I was trying to draw attention to, Andy. I will repeat here using
> > > *italics.*
> > >
> > > You ask in a follow up note why I suggest that perhaps a return to
> LSV's
> > > theory of alternating crises and lithic (relatively stable) periods of
> > > development might be worth returning to investigate again after a few
> > years
> > > of the topic having been subsumed or scattered among
> > > other topics: Because last time around we foundered for lack of clarity
> > and
> > > several issues and because my focal long term interest in the role of
> > > culture in human development has not abated in the interim.
> > >
> > > No problem if its not interesting or potentially useful for xmca
> members.
> > > mike
> > >
> > > --------------------
> > > David ---
> > > Picking on just one thread from your multiplex comments in the context
> of
> > > the discussion on printing presses and digital computer
> > > ​technologies, i would like to thank you for juxtaposing these​ two
> > > paragraphs, one from LSV on crises in development, the other
> > > from Leontiev. I have made a separate header because I am not agile or
> > > learned enough to keep track of both at the same time,
> > > the ontogenetic level of analysis is plenty enough for me to try to
> think
> > > systematically about in a single message..
> > >
> > > \Vygotsky, (could you give pages in current English version so we enter
> > the
> > > relevant portion of the text?):
> > >
> > > These ages (i.e. stable ages--DK) and this type of child development
> have
> > > been studied more completely than ages characterized by a different
> > course
> > > of child development (i.e.the crisis--DK). These latter were discovered
> > by
> > > empirical paths, one by one, in a haphazard manner, and many have still
> > not
> > > been shown by the majority of investigators in systems and are not
> > included
> > > in the general periodization of child development. Many authors have
> even
> > > doubted the evidence of the inner necessity of their existence. Many
> are
> > > inclined to take them more as “maladies” of development, as deviations
> of
> > > the process fromthe normal path, than as internally necessary periods
> of
> > > child development. Almost none of the bourgeois investigators have
> > realized
> > > their theoretical signfiicance, and the attempt in our book at their
> > > systematization, at their theoretical interpretation, and at their
> > > inclusion in the general scheme of child development for this reason
> > should
> > > be seen as perhaps the first attempt of this kind."
> > >
> > > Compare:
> > >
> > >   “These crises—the three year old crisis, the seven year old crisis,
> the
> > > adolescent crisis, the youth crisis—are always associated with a change
> > of
> > > stage. They indicate in clear, obvious form that these changes, these
> > > transitions from one stage to another have an inner necessity of their
> > > own. The existence of development of crises has long been known and
> their
> > > ‘classic’ interpretation is that they are caused by the child’s
> maturing
> > > inner characteristics and the contradictions that arise on that soil
> > > between it andthe environment. From the standpoint of that
> interpretation
> > > the crises are, of course, inevitable, because these contradictions are
> > > inevitable in any conditions. There is nothing more false, however, in
> > the
> > > theory of the development of the child’s psyche than this idea. In
> fact,
> > > crises are not at all inevitable accomplishments of psychic
> development.
> > It
> > > is not the crises which are inevitable, but the turning points or
> breaks,
> > > the qualitative shifts in development. T*he crisis, on the contrary,
> is*
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > *evidence that a turning point or shift has not been made in time.
> > > Thereneed by no crises at all if the child’s psychic development does
> not
> > > takeshape spontaneously but in a rationally controlled process,
> > > controlledupbringing.”  (pp. 398-399)*
> > >
> > > Leontiev, A.N. (1981). Problems of the Development of the Mind.
> Progress:
> > > Moscow
> > >
> > > ​I take the *marked​* text to be the crux of the argument, and the kind
> > of
> > > difference we see in the two men's articles about the "problem of the
> > > environment."
> > >
> > > In American developmental psychology the issue of continuities and
> > > discontinuities in ontogenetic development
> > > continues today the discussion taking place in the 1920's and 1930's.
> > But I
> > > have never seen anyone argue that (say) the syndrome
> > > of behaviors identified as "the terrible twos" occurs because a turning
> > > point has not happened in time, nor that ontogeny is rendered
> continuous
> > by
> > > rational control of parents/society. That, it seems, is the red thread
> of
> > > Stalinism that is so offputting in ANL.
> > >
> > > I do not love LSV's characterization of non-Soviet psychologists
> > treating
> > > such periods "as deviations of the process from the normal path." I am
> > not
> > > sure who he is referring to, and perhaps he is right and I just need to
> > dig
> > > deeper into the history of European and American developmental
> > psychology.
> > > Piaget and Erikson,  two Europeans whose work was influential from the
> > > 1950/60's don't, at least on the surface, fit this discussion. Maybe
> they
> > > do below the surface, or there are other, allied issue to raised.
> > >
> > > --
> > > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> > object
> > > that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
> > >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>