[Xmca-l] Re: Vera John-Steiner has passed away

Fri Dec 8 22:33:56 PST 2017

Dear all,

What a profoundly sad news of Vera's passing. It leaves a deep void in
me... I first "met" Vera through reading her works, and thorugh stories
about her and her passionate interest in Vygotsky's work. She was always
interested in her young colleagues, their ideas, and their explanations.
Like Bob Lake, I also met Vera in person at an AERA conference - my was in
Chicago. She played an crucial role in my return to the academia, after a
10 year hiatus. She found so many interesting topics in my stories and my
unpublished writing! I was amazed and lifted into the realm of her
passionate searches.  She helped me see the value of my scholarship, and
she always supported my searches and a journey to other parts of
socio-cultural realm. Our joint work on publishing the book "Vygotsky and
Creativity" together with Cathrene Connery, was an eye opening experience
on many, many levels!

Vera died on the same day when another brilliant women, scholar and mentor
died in Belgrade - Vesna Ognjenovic. She was important for her activism in
using Vygotskian ideas to create an organization to support people during
and after the wars in Yugoslavia, to develop a lot of new ways for
community organization and social therapy!

Two important women, died on the same day! Two people who meant so much to
so many people!

I am grateful to have known them.

Ana

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 9:30 AM Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
wrote:

> I first met Vera when I was working on my dissertation. The annual AERA
> meeting was in San Francisco that year. I wrote to her and asked her if you
> would be willing and available to join me for breakfast. For me, this was a
> long shot, so you can imagine my surprise when she agreed to meet with me.
> We met in the restaurant inside the Warwick Hotel.  she enjoyed herbal tea
> and toast while I had coffee and oatmeal. I was amazed at her focused gift
> of empathic listening in the crowded and bustling atmosphere during the
> peak of the breakfast period in a hotel filled with educational
> researchers. She
> helped me cross the wide expanse of my dissertation topic which was titled
> “*A
> Curriculum of Imagination beyond Walls of Standardization”* I was in need
> of a way to connect the inner processes of incubated thinking and
> meditation with curriculum and pedagogy. Her notion of “cognitive
> pluralism” (1995) and the entire text of *Notebooks of the Mind *was the
> bridge I needed to help me move forward (and backwards) without being
> waylaid in Howard Gardner’s (1985) biologically based *Frames of Mind.
> *When
> I first heard the news of Vera's passing, I experienced a palpable sense of
> loss and regret that I was not able to thank her for everything in person
> or even in a phone call one last time. I carried these emotions with me
> into a grocery store after work. I was standing in the checkout line and
> one of our doctoral students who was struggling with his dissertation saw
> me. We talked about what he was going through right there in the front of
> store with people going past us continually. As we finished and I was
> loading groceries in my car, it hit me so hard that I was passing Vera's
> gifts to me to the next generation and my inner turmoil has subsided.
>
> Thank-you Vera!
>
> *Robert Lake*
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 5:51 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > I got to know Vera through the Vygotsky circuit, and can state with
> > confidence that I've never met a better human being. She did exemplary
> work
> > too, but she was always one of those people I wanted to be like when I
> grew
> > up.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> > Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2017 6:56 PM
> > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vera John-Steiner has passed away
> >
> > I am sad to hear of Vera's passing as well. I never met her personally,
> > but I was privileged to collaborate with Vera in the exploration of
> > collaboration, an aspect of human life which Vera championed and for
> which
> > she will be forever remembered.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> > On 8/12/2017 10:11 AM, Kris Gutierrez wrote:
> > > My heart is heavy.  With love, appreciation, admiration, and respect,
> > for a giant in our field, who was as generous, inclusive, and kind, as
> she
> > was brilliant.  So grateful to have had the opportunity to know and learn
> > from her across various spaces.   Selfishly, I was sad I didn’t get a
> > response to my recent message to her.  Of course, the point was to let
> her
> > know again how we all felt about her and her contribution.  Love and
> > strength to her family and loved ones. May our community continue to
> learn
> > from her humanity.   Kris
> > >
> > > (excuse typos)
> > >
> > > Kris D. Gutiérrez
> > > Carol Liu Professor
> > > Graduate School of Education
> > > Prolepsis Design Collaborative
> > > Member, National Academy of Education
> > > University of California, Berkeley
> > > 5629 Tolman Hall
> > > Berkeley, CA 94720-1670
> > > gutierrkd@berkeley.edu
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> On Dec 7, 2017, at 1:51 PM, Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Dear XMCA Family,
> > >>
> > >> Our beloved Vera John-Steiner died last night very shortly after she
> > >> experienced a stroke.
> > >> She had posted to this site on 11/25/17.  We will send more
> information
> > and
> > >> an obituary as
> > >> it becomes available.  Attached is the last "letter" from
> > >> *Constructing a Community of Thought:Letters on the Scholarship,
> > Teaching,
> > >> and Mentoring of Vera John-Steiner *(2013).
> > >> In this piece, we sought to synthesize all the wonderful contributions
> > >> from so many of her friends, collaborators and students from the book
> > >> mentioned above.
> > >>
> > >> Warmest condolences to her family and to all her knew and loved her.
> > >> *Robert Lake*
> > >> <Constructing a Community of Thought Last Letter.pdf>
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Robert Lake  Ed.D.
> Associate Professor
> Social Foundations of Education
> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> Georgia Southern University
> P. O. Box 8144, Statesboro, GA  30460
> Co-editor of *Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies,* vol.39,
> 2017
> Special issue: Maxine Greene and the Pedagogy of Social Imagination: An
> Intellectual Genealogy.
>
>  http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gred20/39/1
> Webpage: https://georgiasouthern.academia.edu/RobertLake*Democracy must be
> born anew in every generation, and education is its midwife.* John
> Dewey-*Democracy
> and Education*,1916, p. 139
>
-- 
*Ana Marjanovic-Shane, Ph.D.*
Chestnut Hill College, Associate Professor of Education
Dialogic Pedagogy Journal, deputy Editor-in-Chief (dpj.pitt.edu)
e-mails: shaneam@chc.edu
              anamshane@gmail.com
Phone: +1 267-334-2905