[Xmca-l] Re: Experienced Thinkers and Perezhivanie

[Alfredo Jornet Gil]

Hi Annalisa,

reading your post, and mine and Andy's, I wonder whether we are not playing two games at the same: the one of consistent theory building, where we try to consistently use terms and concepts within a system of thought, and the one more explorative, speculative goal of discussing ideas on given topics. When I hear Robert raise the question on experienced thinkers and perezhivanie, I hear him asking in the more speculative rather than strictly scientific key. And so it is in that sense that I read your comments and they begin to make sense. Specially the example on photography. But if I were to take the former approach, I would have troubles—as Andy Blunden has had with me—with the way you use such  terms as "affordance", "thinker" and "unit" together. Aptitudes are units (which denote unity of person-situation) for Snow because he is studying aptitude, person-environment fits as part of given disciplinary practices. When you suggest affordance as unit, then I anticipate Andy (or myself) asking, "a unit of what?". The same when you refer to perezhivanie as "the discovery of the affordance", where I assume you refer to a connection between perezhivanie and a raised awareness, but I am unsure about the whole, cause there seems to be work towards a system of concepts, but it is so open that at this point, I am really unsure how to deal with that. 

But your example of taking a photography, as it touches upon what it means to become an experienced photographer (and so an experienced thinker), that I can relate to and engage. And I was thinking that becoming a good photographer has all to do with the sensuous activity of coming into organic correspondence with a camera and a gazing. Or becoming a gazing that is irreducible to a person-camera and a landscape. In the experience of becoming an experienced photographer, the aspects you mention on calibration of light, aperture, speed, etc... and the other aspects you mention on aesthetic aspects of the image... Obviously both aspects are separated only in an act of thinking that is not itself the one of taking a photography; for it seems that the intertwining of these two is what makes a photography a proper photography and not a failed shot with a camera. If we now think of the progress from first holding a camera to shooting a competent shot, we are bringing in lots of questions of instruction and discipline, where questions of affordance, environment, etc are all abstractions, I think, and we begin to need to attend more to what is it that field of practice where there is such a thing as a good and a bad picture... Huge conversation ahead!  

Alfredo

  
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
Sent: 11 December 2017 17:39
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Experienced Thinkers and Perezhivanie

Hi Alfredo,


As I was reading your posts and saw your description of Snow's notion of aptitude, as a unit, it reminded me of Gibson's affordance, but in a particular context or specific utility, in that it has specific references. (I also wondered if the list has had previous discussion of perezhivanie and affordances, together?). If these words are the same elephant, but seen from different angles, with differeing emphases, then perhaps aptitude distinguishes itself because it considers time, since what came before and what comes after is part of the continuity as Dewey described. Time is essential to understand or just perceive change.


What was interesting to me is to think of an affordance as a unit, which is a different ontological aspect I'd not considered. To me, the thingness of the affordance is different than its ordinance (or co-ordinance) with the environment and the thinker (as a unit).


I also didn't understand why it would be necessary to separate effectivities from the affordance?


An affordance IS the effectivity in the environment by the thinker, isn't it? An affordance determines successful performance based upon the capability of the thinker in the particular environment. Perezhivanie would have more to do with the discovery of the affordance or interaction with the affordance (hence the frustration or struggle suggested by perezhivanie) inclusive of with the emotional content involved at the precise moment (of learning). Yes?


In photography, we have ways of gauging light as it interacts with the plane of the film in the camera. This is performed by choice of the f-stop (the diameter of the aperture of the lens) and the shutter speed (various fractions of a second). To properly expose the film, the skill of the photographer must succeed by intuiting quickly the nature of the light in the environment, to remembering of the kind camera one is using, the type of lens, and the speed of film. How one combines all this together is controlled more by the amount of light there is: If it is a stark bright day then all the choices made lead by that strong sunlight: narrow the aperture or shorten the shutter exposure or both. In the case of low-light conditions, say inside at nighttime, widen the aperture or lengthen the shutter exposure, or both.


But this is only mention of the physics dealing with the light sensitivity of the film at the time of exposure. There is more to taking a photograph than that. The content of the image and it's emotional impact, results from the manner the photographer framed the picture and is entirely subjective, it based upon when the photographer decides to squeeze the shutter release, but it is also determined by happenstance and the struggle that the photographer must entertain to decide where to position herself to capture a desired photograph based upon what is in front of the camera. In wartime it's even more critical, if there are landmines or flying bullets (one cannot shoot a gun and a camera at the same time).


I wondered if the analogy of the photographer might help in this discussion as a way to think about experienced thinkers and perezhivanie. As well as your introduction the terms of effectivity and affordance into the conversation.


Aptitude does seem an odd way to name a unit. I'd have to get used to thinking about it that way, but it sort of makes sense, if I were to equate aptitude as a way to measure whether a photographer had the aptitude to take good photographs compared to great ones. A lot of that ability depends upon the experience of the photographer leading up to that decisive moment to take the photograph. Still, I feel pertaining to experienced thinking, timing is critical, just like a great photographer taking a great photograph. It isn't merely sensing what is in the environment but knowing how to orient to it and when to take the photograph at the precise optimum moment.


For what that is worth?


Kind regards,

Annalisa




________________________________
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: Monday, December 11, 2017 8:07 AM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu; ablunden@mira.net
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Experienced Thinkers and Perezhivanie

Snow is interested in measuring aptitude taking a transactional perspective, and talks about person-situation units; person-situation units are therefore units of Aptitude.

Snow then says that "there is therefore no detached or abstracted list of qualities of instructional treatments that will be equally important for all persons or similar list of qualities of persons that will be equally important for all treatments. Aptitude is the unique coalition of affordances and effectivities in particular person-treatment systems" (Snow, 1992, p. 25).

It makes sense to me, and sounds extremely close to what Vygotsky was saying in his lecture on "the environment". Obviously, this is not an orthodox Marxist take, or else the investigation would take us to some unit particular to a given historically developed (in this case, person-treatment) system. But so neither was VYgotsky's perezhivanie, if only because he had not the time to work it further (although others like Leont'ev and Sasha had less hopes on that possibility). Yet, both ideas seem to me quite inspiring and informative as general heuristics with regard to how to proceed methodologically: if I am to studying intelligence, or aptitude, or experience, and I am doing so in terms of a unit that does not integrate within itself a transaction between person and situation, then I am probably going to have troubles to put back together what my   analyses has dismembered. Also, note that I had written "environment," where Snow had written "situation". I like the latter better.

Snow, R. E. (1992). Aptitude theory: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Educational Psychologist, 27, 5–32.

Alfredo
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Sent: 11 December 2017 15:22
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Experienced Thinkers and Perezhivanie

Alfredo, what on Earth does it mean: "'aptitude' precisely
in terms of person-environment unit."?

Surely the term "unit" implies a relation: A is a unit of B.
Yes? What is the A and B here? I don't doubt that there is a
perfectly coherent idea behind this, but I find this kind of
formulation mystifying.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 11/12/2017 7:01 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
> In a book Wolff-Michael Roth and I wrote last year (http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319398679), as well as in a paper that we are co-writing right now on how a group of kids and a teacher get better at reading/performing theatre scripts, we seek to examine trajectories of development in terms of person-environment units—which is how Vygotsky defined perezhivanie. In both cases, we find recourse in the work of educational psychologist Richard E. Snow, who worked towards a definition of the notion 'aptitude' precisely in terms of person-environment unit.
>
> Snow would define aptitudes as "initial states of persons that influence later developments, given specified conditions... the are ... not merely correlates of learning, but rather are propaedeutic to (i.e., needed as preparation for) learning in the particular situation at hand" (Snow, 1992, p. 6). To me, this definition comes very close to what Dewey referred to as continuity of experience, the basic principle that "every experience enacted and undergone modifies the one who acts and undergoes, while this modification affects, whether we wish it or not, the quality of subsequent experiences" (Dewey in Experience and Education). It was Dewey who, together with Arthur Bentley and while critiquing empiricist approaches,  asserted that,
> "The word experience should be dropped entirely from discussion unless held strictly to a single definite use: that, namely, of calling attention to the fact that Existence has organism and environment as its aspects, and can not be identified with either as an independent isolate". With Snow's notion of aptitude, then, we are not dealing with a dualistic view on intelligence, but with an attempt at a monistic approach to what it means becoming skilled, a skilled thinking body one may add.
>
> And so, if I wonder on the relation between "experienced thinkers" and "perezhivanie" that Robert proposed, I think that an experienced thinker is she who finds herself at the verge of an open path upon which walking further presents as an immediate possibility, for her way of walking has become more path-like; or her path has become more walk-able. Say path, say math, say dealing with messages at a list server.
>
> Others?
> Alfredo
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
> Sent: 10 December 2017 18:57
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Experienced Thinkers and Perezhivanie
>
> Coincidentally, I met a man from Belarus last Wed, Vera's day, but before I knew it would be.
>
>
> He moved here with his wife and they will soon have a child.
>
>
> Once I learned from where he hailed, I said, "Oh Vygotsky is from there!"
>
>
> After seeing confusion on his face, I had to remind him who he was... the famous Russian psychologist?
>
>
> The light went off and he said he had studied him 20 years ago.
>
>
> I told him that I only knew a few Russian words one of them being "perezhivanie" and the others "znachenie slova." These are words Holbrook Mahn had taught me about. Two great gifts.
>
>
> The man from Belarus seemed perplexed about my definition of perezhivanie when I'd said I understood Vygotsky used it in regards to instruction, that had to do with the emotional content of the environment for teaching and learning.
>
>
> For him, it meant "frustration". Not as a resulting expression, but as a process, or perhaps another way to say it, as activity not an end. It was a new word meaning for him, and for me. So together we came to appreciate why Vygotsky used that word.
>
>
> Additionally, I learned that in our circle on the listsev, it has been used as a technical term specific to instruction, but perhaps I am wrong. I did not have the space to read the recent thread on perezhivanie, so I may be speaking out of time with recent developed threads and my advanced apology if that is the case.
>
>
> This now makes me think about controversy, such as what is happening concerning last year's election, but also in the US government these days, and tension between the media, the president and the people.
>
>
> I have been watching TURN, which is a TV series drama about the American Revolution and the spycraft of that time. There was a lot of perezhivanie going on.
>
>
> Perezhivanie seems a very democratic word.
>
>
> So to answer the question, I find the relationship between an experienced thinker and perezhivanie is timing. A choosing words appropriately.
>
>
> Vera was excellent at that.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> Annalisa
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, December 9, 2017 1:08 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The illuminance that was Vera
>
> I have a question for the listserve. How would you envision
> or connect  the notion of "experienced thinkers" with perezhivanie?
> Can anyone share a few thoughts in along this line?
> RL
>
> On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 12:48 AM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hello colorful fish of the XMCA pond,
>>
>>
>> Vera's friendship was a thing nontrivial, as ontologies go.
>>
>>
>> Her academic sensibility was excellent and demanding. At the same time,
>> her pathos for the world swam deep. We know from recent experience that
>> although she did not post frequently on the list, she dearly valued the
>> intellectual exchange that we all enjoy here. It nourished and populated
>> her mind. To the end, I believe this was the case.
>>
>>
>> My personal sense of Vera is that few people were privy to the world she
>> witnessed, through her eyes. I'm one who could not perceive this world
>> directly, but I could tell that she perceived much differently than many of
>> us, if only because she had witnessed a wide variety of human activity
>> during her long, sometimes unyielding life. I was kind of standing on a
>> hill beneath her vantage point and observing that she could see farther
>> than I could, without the means to detect what she could see vividly. She
>> could be silent in her thoughts and those pregnant pauses could be so
>> meaningful, even powerful. Wide vistas. I mean to say that these silent
>> pauses were almost words unto themselves. Can a linguist be a linguist of
>> no words?
>>
>>
>> Most people who met Vera and had the opportunity to spend a little bit of
>> time with her, as a student or otherwise, came to love her. My opinion is
>> if you could not love her, then you were left to admire her mind, work
>> ethic, and academic accomplishments, no small crumbs; Vera was the arete
>> that the Old Greeks talked about.
>>
>>
>> I feel she made a good-faith effort to be accepting of others even if she
>> disagreed with them. She was willing to seek the grey tones in a black and
>> white contest. Everyone had a viewpoint and that viewpoint was for its very
>> existence a valid one, because it was thought by someone, arising from a
>> personal, perhaps intimate, experience – and this demands respect, but was
>> not immune to being challenged, which sometimes she could do in five words
>> or less.
>>
>>
>> She did not see disagreement as an assault to her being, as some of us can
>> sometimes feel in heated debate, frustrating disagreements, even chafing
>> exasperation. She was patient, nuanced, poised. Such rapport during a
>> debate of ideas is the academic standard for which we all must reach, given
>> the world we live in today. It is imperative. I feel that way because in
>> this process of reaching (to listen, to search, to learn), we each stretch
>> a little: it's a good kind of yoga that makes each of us a better
>> contributor to the rest, for the rest, by the rest.
>>
>>
>> I do not believe I am wrong to say that Vera fought for a better world
>> through her efforts to understand how to be a better teacher and how to
>> truly serve the developing minds of children who might not have that many
>> opportunities available to them. She encouraged that temperament in her
>> students, and perhaps her colleagues as well. It was how to serve in order
>> to achieve the best outcomes for everyone, which was a sign of her wisdom.
>> It is not a struggle singular to Vera, and I believe every one of you has a
>> dog in that race, to serve today's children and tomorrow's graduate
>> students, and even one another.
>>
>>
>> Vera was also a bona fide feminist. A velvet glove with a strong grip on
>> the realities of gendered relationship. She was not afraid to support other
>> women and celebrate their accomplishments no matter the size. She was not
>> afraid to debate men, but I feel safe to say she chose her battles when it
>> mattered, but she was aware we still have a long way to go, baby. She was
>> aggrieved over the election and was fearful about our future. I wish we
>> could have shared better news with her than hurricane Harvey, if you get my
>> meaning.
>>
>>
>> I also want to say something about Vera's strength if only because it was
>> annealed through resilience. I feel she saw resilience as necessary for
>> survival, and that she saw collaboration as resilience expressed between
>> two or more people. I think this is why she valued collaboration; it is
>> vital to know the dynamics of collaboration in order to survive all
>> challenges that life eventually presents to us. "A sterling collaborator
>> be," might be on her family crest.
>>
>>
>> Additionally, Vera studied those whom we call geniuses, Vygotsky being one
>> of them. She told me and a classmate once during office hours that she
>> would continue to find new insights in his work after each re-reading, so
>> even after her own familiarity, we all have that to look forward to in
>> reading and re-reading his work. If this was the case for her, then it will
>> be for us.
>>
>>
>> It occurred to me some years ago how brilliant it is to study the
>> development of genius. "Notebooks of the Mind" is one residual of such
>> work. She was onto something there. She was looking at what occasions a
>> person or a partnership to reach unique levels of creative accomplishment;
>> not what is pathological about the mind in society, but what were its
>> virtues? What is a mind that has developed to a pinnacle, significantly
>> altering a paradigm of study, creative discourse, or any human endeavor?
>> How does one become distinguished in creative work? What was the recipe for
>> that? Can it be replicated?
>>
>>
>> Imagine if we could all be geniuses, what would the world be like? Would
>> there be enough room for so many of us?
>>
>>
>> I think she would say, "Yes," in that delicate Hungarian accent of hers.
>>
>>
>> I suppose any doubt she might have concerning a world populated with
>> geniuses, precipitated from the problematic baggage that the word "genius"
>> carries. Consider the fallacy of Rodin's thinker, his head on his fist
>> where ideas spring eternal from no place in particular while enthralled in
>> monastic solitude. It is not real, nor is it human. Instead, Vera preferred
>> to call such folks "experienced thinkers." It is so apt a phrase, and so
>> elegant. Please consider appropriating that phrase in your vocabularies, in
>> memory of Vera if you want. Certainly Vera was an elegant thinker; her
>> speech embodied remarkable reflections that revealed the ripples of her
>> introspection.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> An image of koi comes to my mind's eye, as they swim in a clear pond
>> socially, quietly, peacefully.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you for allowing me to share my heartfelt gratitude for this unique
>> human being in this very long post. I want to say I will miss her, but I
>> feel she is with me still.
>>
>> I hope you feel that way too.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kindest regards,
>>
>>
>> Annalisa
>>
>