[Xmca-l] Re: Time for a Generational Change

[Jay Lemke]

Just a note to say how moving and beautiful these notes of appreciation for
Mike's commitment to the community (in many senses) have been. Speaking as
one of the old-timers, I think all of us echo every word of the most
beautiful of them, which speak for all of us.

To the younger generation who wonder how we managed in decades past to talk
with each other and not past each other, despite a very great diversity of
intellectual and cultural backgrounds, I can only say that we were eager to
hear different views, other ideas. We were not looking to build a grand
unified consensus. Each of us had our theory-building projects (or many of
us did) and our research experiences, and what we wanted was to hear what
others were thinking.

The history of this community has not been like that of specialist
scientific communities that seek to build on each other's work. It has
rather been a true multi-disciplinary community where the greatest gifts we
have given each other have been ideas we had never thought of, or
viewpoints leading to conclusions similar to our own, but starting from
entirely different premises.

Many of us joined to hear more about the CHAT/Vygotskyan approach. But we
stayed because we also heard so much more. And for me the greatest of
Mike's contributions was that he made everyone feel welcome, helping to
make sure that all these different voices could be heard. To the lasting
benefit of us all.

JAY.



Jay Lemke
Professor Emeritus
City University of New York
www.jaylemke.com


On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 2:00 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Esteemed Mike,
> I add my little voice to the accolades and appreciation expressed by the
> other members of the XMCA chatline. Thank you so much for nourishing the
> dialog, which I have found to be so thought-provoking. It has often
> challenged my simplistic notions of what Vygotsky and many others bring to
> bear in taking on this complex and complicated world.
> With great respect
> Henry
>
>
> > On Oct 25, 2016, at 1:36 PM, Wendy Maples <wendy.maples@outlook.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Mike,
> >
> > As a frequent lurker, I am very grateful for the chance to see and think
> about some terrifically interesting topics explored by some terrifically
> interesting people. Thank you for making it happen, and keeping it going.
> >
> > With gratitude and very best wishes,
> >
> > Wendy
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > Sent: 25 October 2016 04:41
> > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Time for a Generational Change
> >
> > Mike, all,
> >
> > thanks for your beautiful e-mail, Mike. It has only been a couple of
> years, but I have witnessed how much effort and dedication you have
> invested and continue investing in creating and sustaining a community like
> xmca. For a youngster fellow like me, coming for the first time to write in
> a forum where you know some of the most influential authors in the chat
> literature are there, either actively participating or just lurking from
> time to time, really freezes you before the keyboard. That's what I first
> felt until, the first e-mail went out. Since then, I have always felt
> welcome to write more, and every time have been place in a place from which
> I could think better and more. And so rather than frozen and stiff, my
> hands, and with them my thinking, have become a little more flexible, and a
> little more confident too. Thanks xmca for that, for giving me(us) the
> trust to contribute, and in so doing giving me(us) the opportunity to
> become part of a thinking that could have never been just my own. In the
> little time I have spent here, and as anyone can hear in the the words of
> those who have been here for much longer, it has become clear how important
> your role, Mike, and that of the community of xmca'ers that so much respect
> you, has been in precisely that: giving us trust to speak, which in a very
> important sense is giving us freedom.
> >
> > Thanks also for having me in, and for the welcoming words of the others.
> For a newbie that came in touch with xmca just a couple of years ago, it
> feels pretty scary to be presented as taking some "pastoral" role, but of
> course every one here knows that there is nothing like a flock to be
> pastored (perhaps a herd of cats, as Jay suggested, is best). Mike has
> presented me as taking the role as "mediator," and that is a convenient
> term we came up with together. Yet, I should quote here F. T. Mikhailov
> (thanks Michael for introducing me to this!), for whom it was clear that
> "the soul knows no mediators." Just in the same sense, I do not think I
> will mediate much, if mediating is heard to mean standing between xmca and
> anyone else (its members). If anything, I will only be able to partake in
> xmca as a member who, as many others already do, cares for and learns from
> the whole she forms part of. I am very excited about continue growing with
> xmca, and I hope I will be able to help in moving forward in the very
> honourable tasks that Mike has invited us taking. It seems to me that xmca
> has through the years grown into all what is needed to continue growing.
> Thanks,
> >
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of Chuck Bazerman <bazerman@education.ucsb.edu>
> > Sent: 24 October 2016 23:18
> > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Time for a Generational Change
> >
> > Mike,  As a mostly lurker with occasional outburst, I want to say how
> > much I have appreciated all you have done to foster interesting thoughts
> > and to put interesting people in contact.  Now I hope you too will have
> > the leisure and pleasure of lurking.
> > Best,
> > Chuck
>
>
>